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The American bison (often referred to as the buffalo) was central to the Plains Indians' way of life but was hunted almost to extinction by whites. It was not white settlers who destroyed the buffalo herds, though, but the railroads, the demand for buffalo hides by Easterners, and the U.S. Army. In the two decades after the U.S. Civil War, several railroads were built through what had been buffalo grazing grounds. Hunters like Buffalo Bill Cody were hired to kill buffalo because the buffalo obstructed the laying of track and also because the buffalo provided meat for the railroad workers. Cody is said to have killed over four thousand buffalo in just 18 months working for one of the railroads. There was a great demand for buffalo robes (tanned hides with the fur left on) because of their exceptional warmth, and especially when they became a desirable fashion accessory, white hunters would shoot as many bison as they could (dozens in a single day), strip them of their hides and leave the meat to rot on the prairies. The U.S. Army joined in the slaughter of the buffalo to open land for settlers and the railroads and, some say, to help destroy the Plains Indians by depriving them of their primary source of food and many other necessities.

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