The Long Hunt: Death of the Buffalo East of the Mississippi

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Summary: "A welcome addition!"--Beth Rengstorf, Bison World
Review: Buffalo history enthusiasts will find that Ted Belue's book is written just for them. While there are a number of effective historical, nonfiction books on the American buffalo available, this one has the advantage of focusing attention specifically on the death of the buffalo east of the Mississippi. This noteworthy recounting of buffalo and their gruesome end gives a realistic picture of what occurred. Belue provides readers with enough information to gain both insight and comprehension. By the 1820s, the eastern buffalo herds were gone. The author uses many quotes from early chronicles to illustrate a vivid account of the hardships hunters encountered as well as the plight of the buffalo east of the Mississippi. Belue's careful research is evident and reinforced by the excellent selection of black-and-white photographs and old maps. The glossary, index, and selected annotated bibliography are very helpful to the reader. This book is written on a slightly higher reading level and is very comprehensive. This title will fill a gap in most collections and will appeal particularly to readers of American buffalo history. This book would be a welcome addition to any "buffalo/bison" book shelf.

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Summary: Belue takes us out of the classroom and into the woods!
Review: By the time if Daniel Boone's death in 1820 the last buffalo had disappeared from the hunter's paradise of Kentucky where it had thrived since its forebears migrated to North America from Asia during one of the Ice Age's last interglaciations. Folsom man hunted the now extinct bison antiqus from the Pacific Ocean to Kentucky. One of its descendant is the North American bison, or buffalo, the largest animal on the continent at the time of European incursion into North America. Most attention given to the buffalo has previously centered on the vast herds that sustained the nomadic culture of the Plains Indians. In his narrative Ted Franklin Belue traces the decimation of the smaller herds that had migrated east of the Mississippi in the 1500s. His intent is to tell the earlier story of buffalo hunting in the East, emphasizing the hunters and their skills as well as the significane of the buffalo's tragic annihilation in the larger setting of the exploration and settling of eastern North America. These purposes are largely fulfilled in a narrative history that encompasses much of America's frontier past. The author's knowledge of border life and the lore of buffalo, especially the skills and accouerments of those who hunted them, are combined with an exhaustive survey of existing sources. Using contemporary accounts of the naturalists, explorers, hunters, surveyors, and trappers who encountered the buffalo firsthand, Belue details the steady attrition of these wild cattle, drawing on memoirs, letters, travel accounts, diaries, journals, and the rich materials of the Draper and Shane papers. Andre Michaux, Nicholas Cresswell, John Filson, John Floyd, and Daniel Trabue are among the informants that chronicle the slaughter. After only a few decades, the sizable herds east of the Mississippi were reduced to a few pitiful survivors. Beginning with Native Americans, Belue documents the intrusion of successive waves of Spanish conquistadorers, then French explorers and Black Robes, devoting much attention to the English traders and Long Hunters active in Kentucky and Tennessee just prior to settlement. Though the entire eastern range of the buffalo is covered, most of the accounts originate west of the mountains, especially in the Kentucky and Tennessee country. References to buffalo east of the mountains are scant, but the author is able to document their presence as far east as Tidewater Virginia. The final chapter, "Requiem," contains accounts of last sightings, when the pressures of settlement and over-hunting displaced and finally annihilated the isolated survivors of the larger herds. As the sources indicate, buffalo were too often killed for merely a tongue or a hump steak, their carcasses left to rot where they fell. The numerous testimonials to their destruction become an elegy for lost American innocence. Belue's recital of the particulars, a chronicle of waste, also provides insight into the minds and lives of those who killed the buffalo. In addition to describing the processes by which they were hunted, butchered, and tanned, he provides fresh insights into attitudes about the natural abundance the newcomers found on the frontier and squandered. Examining the buffalo from a variety of perspectives, he includes accounts of buffalo attacks and early efforts by George Washington and others to crossbreed buffalo with domesticated cattle....Though the author does not editorialize, questions about man's often thoughtless exploitation of the natural worlds are inplicit throughout. This book fills a significant gap in frontier history, examining the effects of settlement upon an animal that embodied the natural abundance of the lands upon the "western waters." Belue adds a selected annotated bibliography and a very useful glossary. Readable and richly documented, with a text that will appeal to popular and scholarly readers alike, The Long Hunt dispassionately chronicles the extermination of one of America's noblest creatures. Dr. Richard Taylor Department of English Kentucky State University

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Summary: Full of useful information!
Review: Chronicling the demise of buffalo that ranged between the Blue Ridge and the Mississippi, this book includes previously unpublished material on flora, fauna, and Woodland and Southeastern Indians. Living historians will find useful information on arms, accoutrements, attire, and frontier skills and lifestyles. --Living History, Spring 1997

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Summary: Impressive!
Review: For the first time this well-researched book brings into clear focus the history of the buffalo...east of the Mississippi....Not only does this work bring the broad buffalo study into a highly readable focus, the extensive notes and bibliography add an impressive dimension to the book. Dr. Thomas D. Clark, professor emeritus of the University of Kentucky, author of many books on Kentucky and the American South.

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Summary: Excellently written and researched; I recommend it
Review: In his book, Belue has carefully researched and written an account of the death of the buffalo east of the Mississippi. In a greater sense, this work examines life on the frontier as well as the history of trade and colonization of the frontier. The author uses personal accounts, journals, and memoirs of the traders, long hunters and trappers who played a role in the settlement of the frontier as a basis for the work. I highly recommend as well as the author's other works on the life of Daniel Boone.

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Summary: A must read!--Western Writers of America
Review: Several good books about the American bison are available in today's marketplace. Among the best are David Dary's The Buffalo Book, and Tom McHugh's The Time of the Buffalo. Now comes Ted Franklin Belue's The Long Hunt to make a threesome of outstanding volumes on this most recognizable of American wildlife. But Belue's book is different. Now, for the first time (that I know of) the eastern variety of the species is chronicled. Drawing upon archaeological evidence and utilizing first-hand accounts of early explorers, pioneers, and settlers along the Eastern seaboard and in the vast trans-Appalachian country, Belue follows the buffalo's saga from its earliest confrontation with American Indians, through the first European impact, and all the way down to the animal's extinction east of the Mississippi River. A valuable part of this book (aside, of course, from the invaluable information about the buffalo itself) is the huge amount of data that Belue imparts to his reader about the long-hunter, the eastern forerunner of the mountain man. Complete with extensive notes, illustrations, appendices, and bibliography, The Long Hunt is a volume to be read and intensely studied by any student of America's first West. One of the finest tributes to this book that I have read came from Dr. Richard Taylor of Kentucky State University, who wrote, "What David Dary has done in his study of buffalo west of the Mississippi, Belue has done for those east of it."--Jim Crutchfield, Western Writers of America, April 1998, Roundup Magazine

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Summary: Eloquent!
Review: Ted Franklin Belue has found a story worth telling, researched it beautifully, and written it eloquently.--Win Blevins, author of Stone Song and Give Your Heart to the Hawks

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Summary: "Required Material! " John Curry, Smoke and Fire News
Review: This excellent piece offers an up close/analytical look at the tale of the buffalo and those men who hunted buffalo in the 18th century "Middle Ground." Names, dates, places, hunts, scouts, etc. unfold in front of your eyes in an understandable and exciting manner via so many new and varied primary documentation sources I don't even want to get into listing them. Long Hunt presents you with a highly accurate perception of the era and its players. Somewhat akin to Arnow's SEEDTIME ON THE CUMBERLAND but much more specifically directed toward the over-mountain eastern frontiersman, I would have to consider this as "required material" for anyone whose persona involves hunting for a living in the 18th century frontier. Do yourself a favor...buy it!