Tore Olson

1862.

It does, though a lot of it precedes it, of course, as well.

But certainly the Homestead Act brings a new pressure point of settlers coming at this tremendous rate.

And the settlers often cared little about what kinds of treaties Washington had negotiated with various native groups.

They were like, this is good land.

We're going to move here.

And, you know, not just settlers, but mining companies.

And, you know, there's tremendous pressure that results from these new invaders, essentially, right?

Eastern invaders who were coming to claim lands that were not at all theirs and weren't even legally available, whether or not through the Homestead Act.

Yeah, yeah.

This is something I care about a lot because in Red Dead Redemption 2, the kind of most popular Western video game ever made.

Bison hunting is a central part of the game as well.

But we really need to think of the bison hunts as an ecological struggle for dominance on the plains.

Because bison are this, you know, large ruminant, meaning that they have stomachs that can digest grass.

Well, and native peoples had depended on the bison for quite some time, especially in the 1700s and 1800s on bison herds to sustain themselves.

But when white settlers come in, they want to replace the bison with another ruminant, this being, of course, the cow.

And they don't see these two as being able to share the plains together.

So the hunt for the bison by white settlers.

Both the military by private hunters and by corporations really has to do with clearing the plains of the bison so that cattle can can can graze there instead.

And this meant that, you know, people would shoot bison not for economical purposes.