The massive slaughter of buffaloes in the 1870s was aimed at eliminating the First Nations power supply from the North American prairies. This extermination had a strong impact on the natives, both physically and spiritually.
As more settlers began arriving in North America, conflicts arose between them and the native inhabitants.
The US Government realized that if they killed the buffalo, the Native Americans would lose their main source of livelihood.
The army was ordered to eliminate the 20-25 million buffalo to defeat the powerful Lakota armies and their allies. The construction of the railways facilitated the killing. The hunters killed buffalo only to obtain the hides and allowed the rest of the animal to rot. During one winter (1872-1873) more than 1,500,000 buffalo hides were exported to the east.
Train companies offered westbound trips to settlers to kill buffalo, even from train windows. Contests were held to hunt animals. During a competition, a person from Kansas set a record killing 120 buffalo in 40 minutes. Another man named "Buffalo" Bill Cody, who was hired to kill buffalo, in 2 years killed 4,000 animals. Due to different reasons, it is estimated that a total of 31 million buffaloes were killed between 1868 and 1881 and that in 1885 there were only 500 buffaloes (from an original population of 20-25 million). At the same time the native population in the region dropped from 1 million to just over 200,000.
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