THE LONG HUNT: DEATH OF THE BUFFALO EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI, by Ted Franklin Belue (Stackpole Books, 288 pages, $22.95).
The focus of most histories of the North American bison–popularly known as “buffalo”–is the tragic demise of the huge, western herds and their relationship to the Plains Indians. In this book, Belue chronicles the majestic buffaloes’ earlier slaughter in the East, when Spanish hunters during the sixteenth century, and those from France and Britain a century later, drove the eastern herds to extinction by the early 1800s.
