You think you know the story. You probably envision a lone steam engine chugging across the Great Plains while guys in top hats lean out the windows to shoot anything with a hump and horns. That happened, sure. But honestly, the real story told in Ken Burns American Buffalo is way more calculated, way more haunting, and—surprisingly—a lot more hopeful than that one-dimensional classroom version we all slept through.
Ken Burns has a way of taking something we take for granted, like a shaggy beast on a nickel, and peeling back the skin until we see the gears of American identity underneath. This four-hour, two-part documentary isn't just about an animal. It’s about a 10,000-year relationship that was systematically dismantled in roughly a single human lifetime.
The 10,000-Year Connection
Before things went south, the buffalo (or bison, if you’re being technical) were the heartbeat of the continent. We’re talking about 30 to 50 million animals. That’s a number so large it’s hard to wrap your brain around. Imagine a single herd so massive that Lewis and Clark once had to wait for hours just for the animals to finish crossing a river.
Indigenous nations like the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Lakota didn't just "hunt" the buffalo. They lived with them. The film makes it clear that this was a sacred reciprocity. Every single part of the animal—from the snout to the tail—was used. Bones became tools. Hides became homes. The dung? That was the fuel for their fires on a treeless plain.
Why the slaughter was different
Then the 1800s hit. It wasn't just "progress" or "settlement" that did the buffalo in. It was a perfect storm of capitalism and policy. The documentary highlights how the arrival of the railroads in the 1870s changed everything. Suddenly, you had a way to ship massive quantities of hides back East to power industrial machinery. The buffalo became a commodity.
- The Robe Trade: Initially, people wanted the fur for warmth.
- Industrial Belting: Later, the hides were used for the belts that drove the machines of the Industrial Revolution.
- The Tongue Craze: Salted buffalo tongues became a delicacy in Eastern cities, leading to thousands of animals being killed just for their tongues, with the rest left to rot.
By the late 1880s, that 30-million-strong population had collapsed. It didn't just dwindle. It vanished. We’re talking about a drop to fewer than 1,000 animals in the entire country.
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What Ken Burns American Buffalo Reveals About the "Indian Question"
Here is the part that usually gets glossed over in the history books, but Burns leans right into it. The destruction of the buffalo wasn't an accidental side effect of the hide trade. It was a tool of war.
General Philip Sheridan and other military leaders of the era knew exactly what they were doing. If you kill the buffalo, you kill the primary food source and the spiritual center of the Plains Tribes. It was a way of forcing people onto reservations without having to fight every single battle. It was ecological warfare, plain and simple.
Rosalyn LaPier, a Blackfeet and Métis historian featured in the film, explains that there are really two separate stories here. One is the 10,000-year history of Indigenous people and the bison. The other is the story of Americans and Europeans, which she describes as a "story of utter destruction."
The Unlikely Saviors
If Part One of Ken Burns American Buffalo is an "Inferno," Part Two is a "Paradiso"—or at least a very messy attempt at one. The people who stepped up to save the buffalo from total extinction were a bizarre mix of characters.
You’ve got Charles "Buffalo" Jones, a guy who spent years killing them and then, in a weird pivot of conscience, started capturing calves to build a private herd. Then there’s Charles and Molly Goodnight in the Texas Panhandle. Molly was the one who couldn't stand the sound of the orphaned calves crying out on the plains and insisted they start their own herd.
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And let’s not forget the "eccentric" Ernest Harold Baynes, who actually trained two buffalo bulls to pull a wagon just to show people they weren't just wild monsters.
The Theodore Roosevelt irony
The film spends a good chunk of time on Teddy Roosevelt. It’s a complicated legacy. Roosevelt actually went West specifically to shoot a buffalo before they were all gone. He wanted the trophy.
But once he got there and saw the devastation, he pivoted. He eventually became a driving force behind the American Bison Society and used his presidency to create federal reserves. It’s a classic example of "doing the right thing for a mix of reasons."
It’s Not Just a History Lesson
Why does this still matter in 2026? Because the story isn't over.
Today, there are about 350,000 buffalo in the U.S., but most of them are in private herds and managed more like cattle than wild animals. The documentary points us toward the "Homecoming" movement—Indigenous-led efforts to bring buffalo back to tribal lands. People like Jason Baldes of the Eastern Shoshone are working to restore the animals not just as a species, but as a cultural and ecological keystone.
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They aren't just "big cows." They are "ecosystem engineers." They wallow in the dirt, creating depressions that hold rainwater for other species. They graze in ways that encourage native grasses to flourish. When the buffalo return, the birds return. The plants return. The land starts to remember itself.
How to Engage with This History
If you’ve watched the documentary and feel that weight in your chest, don't just sit there. There are ways to actually participate in this "de-extinction" story that don't involve just watching PBS.
- Support Tribal-Led Restoration: Organizations like the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC) are doing the heavy lifting to get bison back onto native lands where they belong.
- Visit with Intention: If you go to Yellowstone or the National Bison Range in Montana, look past the photo-op. Think about the fact that the animals you’re seeing are the descendants of those few dozen that survived the 19th-century slaughter.
- Learn the Geography: Find out whose ancestral lands you are standing on and what their specific relationship with the buffalo was. The Kiowa story is different from the Salish story.
The most important takeaway from Ken Burns American Buffalo is that we are capable of pulling back from the brink. We nearly deleted a species from the face of the earth out of pure greed, but we also chose to stop. That choice is something we have to keep making every single day.
Actionable Insight: To dive deeper into the current restoration efforts, look up the Wolakota Buffalo Project or the American Prairie Reserve. These aren't just museum pieces; they are active, living attempts to fix a broken ecosystem. Watch the documentary, then look at a map of your own region to see where the grass used to be tall and the herds used to roar. It changes how you see the horizon.