Bone China and the Buffalo

Students in 9th grade history have just finished their essay on Settling the West.  They have learned about the reservation system and the Indian Schools.  They also learned about the role the Federal Government plays in administering the Indian School system, including Chemawa Indian School, here in Salem, Oregon.

They read many primary documents about the extermination and decline of the buffalo.  After the buffalo was hunted and eliminated from the plains...the gathering of the bones began.

Huge cartloads of bones were shipped back east...by pickers who now replaced the buffalo hunters of only a few years earlier.  The bones were then shipped overseas to factories where they were crushed and processed into delicate china, that would be labeled "bone china."  It is particularly disheartening to think of the wild buffalo, the majestic creature of the plains, ending its days this way.

Students will also revisit the end of the West when we learn about Ernest Thompson Seton, and his complicated relationship with the wolves of New Mexico as a Bounty Hunter/Artist.