"Because he has been criticized as a destroyer, a ruthless killer,
and wastrel of a great game resource of a Nation, the buffalo hunter
appeals to the bar of history for his vindication. . . . Within four years
we opened up a vast empire to settlement, and put the Indians forever
out of Texas."
J. Wright Mooar tells the story of the buffalo hunter, from the
hunter's perspective, in this first-person account published more than
seventy years ago in several installments in Holland's, The Magazine
of the South. Mooar was more than eighty years old when he sat
down with Methodist minister/educator James Winford Hunt and
recounted his years as a buffalo hunter.
He describes how buffalo hunting became a huge business that
thrived for less than a decade in the 1870s and makes the case that
the buffalo hunter, more than anyone else, opened the way for white
settlement by eradicating the Indians' source of food.
"Buffalo hunting was a business and not a sport. It required capital,
management, and a lot of hard work. Magazine writers and others who
claim that the killing of the buffalo was a national calamity and was
accomplished by vandals simply expose their ignorance, and I resent
such an unjust judgment upon us.
"If it had not been for the work of the buffalo hunters, the wild bison
would still graze where Amarillo now is, and the red man would still
reign supreme over the pampas of the Panhandle of Texas.
"Any one of the families killed and homes destroyed by the Indians
would have been worth more to Texas and to civilization than all the
millions of buffalo that ever roamed from the Pecos River on the south
to the Platte River on the north."
"Here is an odyssey of hairbreadth escapes from death with wild
Indians, wilder white men, and thundering herds of wild buffalo,"
writes J. W. Hunt, founding president of Abilene's McMurry College
(now University), in his introduction.
Illustrated by Texas folklore artist Granville Bruce, the stories of
J. Wright Mooar make for lively reading and continuing debate.
_________________________________________________________
ROBERT F. PACE is chair of the History Department at McMurry
University and co-author of Frontier Texas: History of a Borderland to
1880 (State House Press, 2004).
Number Six: Texas Heritage Series
What people are saying about this book
". . . a must read for anyone interested in the West."—Review of
Texas Books
". . . a rare view of the buffalo hunters as they saw themselves."
—Journal of Arizona History
"This book is a very good source for anybody interested in the
frontier times of the Great Plains and Texas, and would be beneficial
to undergraduates in a course on the frontier."—Southwestern
Historical Quarterly
". . . definitely worth the read!"—DirtBrothers.org
For the full review, click here: http://dirtbrothers.org/reviews/
generalanthro.html
"This work is a valuable contribution to the libraries of those
interested in the settling of the American West. It is surprising that
it has not been presented in book form prior to this date."—The
Tally Sheet, Journal of The English Westerners' Society
"Students of western Americana will find this slim volume provides
enjoyable reading of an era never to be repeated."—Gun Week
"This is an interesting book and a good present, and I recommend it."
—East Texas Historical Journal
Look for a review of this book in the December 2005 issue of Western
Horseman Magazine.
"a fascinating read. . . . [Mooar's] experiences . . . provide keen and
sometimes wincing insight to a different time and outlook."—Outdoor
News Bulletin
"a little gem . . . a thrilling tale."—The Santa Fe New Mexican
"vividly descriptive."—Glenn M. Busset, Manhattan Mercury
"hard to put down . . . a valuable addition for those interested in
Texas and western history. You'll enjoy this fine little book."—Mexia
Daily News
Other Texas Heritage Series Titles
