passing of the buff essays

passing of the buff essays In the New World, Europeans looked for ways so bring wealth. The source of wealth came from many different trades, the fishing aspect, oil, gold, slavery, and most of all land. Coming with the land wild animals that could be hunted, for sport, food, and most important fur. The fur that came from these animals was largely used in the world for clothing, leather for protection in the army, and to make the finest clothes from. The discovery of the buffalo help the fur trade really take off in the 1400. The first Europeans thought to discover the buffalo were the Portuguese in Africa in 1415. The buffalo hides were carried home and sold at premium prices all over Europe. The move westward to North America by the Portuguese found another kind of buffalo. The beast was an annormous creature weighing over a ton and measuring 12 feet in length. The buffalo roamed most of the continent of North America at this time. At about the year 1500, the buffalo were believed to have numbered more than 70 million individuals and were perhaps the most numerous, large mammalian species on the planet. This brought about the great fur trade in the new world, the English, Spanish, and French sought the fur of the buffalo and were in heavy competition for the animal. With the early colonization of the eastern sea board of America nearly wiped out the eastern buffalo. By 1720, the eastern buffalo consisted of a few small herds that had been by-passed and over looked in the mountainous areas. In 1790, according to a New York Zoological Society report, those hidden in the mountainous region had been reduced to 1 herd numbering 3 to 400 animals. In 1815, a bull was killed near Charleston, West Virginia. In 1825, a cow and her calf were killed in the Alleghenies. This was the last of not only the eastern buffalo but also the buffalo east of the Mississippi River. By ...