What Happened to the Bones of the American Bison?

When tens of millions of American bison were slaughtered in the 1870s and 1880s, the remains didn't just decompose on the plains. JSTOR Daily reports that the bones fueled a brief but intensive industry: ground into fertilizer, burned into dye and sugar filters, and processed into glue, buttons, and knife handles at factories like Michigan Carbon Works. Historian Casey Pallister notes that Native Americans and Métis workers came to dominate the bone trade, at times controlling prices through their essential labor.

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