by David Day
The other ex-Civil War soldier assigned to oversee Indian Affairs policy was General William Tecumseh Sherman. In a letter to President Grant, Sherman wrote: “We are not going to let a few thieving Indians check or stop progress. We must act with vindictive earnest against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.” Sherman also saw killing off the buffalo as the means of starving Indians into submission.
CITIES OF GOLD
American Black Bison – 1825
Coronado searching for the Seven Cities of Gold
Marched through Arizona and New Mexico
Seeking the legendary Cibolo
With its streets and roofs of gold
Its walls studded with gems
Discovered instead Zuni and Pueblo
Villages of rough-cut stone and adobe
Embittered and raging with greed
Coronado waded across the Rio Grande
Stubbed his steel toe on the Grand Canyon
Butchered and burned his way across Texas
Dodging Apache and Comanche arrows
The Spaniard stamped on into Kansas
In his relentless quest for Gran Quivera
That other chimeric promised land
With its mother lode of fabled gold
Coronado looking for shining spires
Found instead a vast plain crowded with beasts
“Horned, huge and monstrously ugly”
A dark satanic host – the very scent
Of which terrorized his horses
Denied the spectacular glory
Of Aztec gold, of Inca silver
Bloodied Coronado limped home in shame
With a wagon train heaped with the skins
Of those “crook-backed oxen”
Those same buffalo robes that were to become
The true currency of the wilderness
Triggering a stampede into the long darkness
That would eclipse all life on that great wide plain
And from the bones of those millions and millions
Sown like dragons teeth into the parched earth
There arose seven cities; and seven cities more
Richer than the greediest dreams
Of Coronado’s conquistadors
These Cities of Gold, these New Eldorados
Shimmer in the sun
And yet, when darkness falls
On the empty plains beyond city lights
For some, there is this lingering memory
Of the distant thunder of those endless herds
And the last of the Ghost Dancers
Dressed in buffalo robes, chanting:
Nothing lives forever
Nothing lives forever
Except the earth and the sky
Nothing lives forever
THE BLUE METEOR
SECOND WATCH 4 A. M. VEIL
PASSENGER PIGEON OR MIGRATING DOVE – 1914
Ectopistes migratorius
Jacques Cartier – 1534
Voyages de Jacques Cartier , New France
On 1 July 1534, Jacques Cartier in his ship’s log – as reported in his Voyages de Jacques Cartier – recorded the first written European sighting of a vast flock of Passenger Pigeons just off the coast of what is now Prince Edward Island. Cartier’s description is here whimsically translated in the form of a haiku:
“The sky darkens
with an infinite multitude
of wild blue pigeons.”
In 1605, another French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, in his ship’s log – as reported in his Voyages de Samuel de Champlain – made the second French sighting of a vast flock of Passenger Pigeons just off the coast of Maine. Champlain’s log entry is similarly succinct, and like Cartier’s is here ironically translated as a haiku:
“There are countless doves
whereof we knock down and take
a goodly number.”
There followed a number of early descriptions of these birds in “New France” written by the missionaries. Among them, Gabriel Sagard-Théodat, in his Le Grand Voyage du pays des Hurons of 1632: “There are here an endless multitude of doves, which the Huron call ‘Orittey’ that feed in part on acorns which they easily swallow whole. In the beginning they were so stupid that they allowed themselves to be knocked down by blows of stones and poles from beneath the trees, but at present they are a little more wary.”
And again from “New France,” in 1663, in the records known as the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, we find: “Among the birds of every variety to be found here, it is to be noted that Pigeons abound in such numbers that this year one man killed a hundred and thirty-two at a single shot. They passed continually in flocks so dense, and so near the ground, that sometimes they were struck down with oars.”
William Strachey – 1612
Letters , Virginia Colony
A kind of wood-pidgeon we see here in the winter time, and of such numbers, as I should drawe the creditt of my relation concerning all the other in question, yf I should expresse what extended flocks, and how manie thousands in one flock, I have seen in one daie, wondering (I must confesse) at their flight, when, like so many thickned clowdes, they (having fed to the northward in the day tyme) retourne againe more sowardly towards night to their roust; but there be manie hundred witnesses, who maie convince this my report, yf herein yt testifieth an untruth.
In 1614, two years after William Strachey, we have another record of Passenger Pigeons in the letters of the Governor of the Virginia Colony, Sir Thomas Dale: “There are wilde Pidgeons in Winter beyond number or imagination, my selfe have scene three or four houres together flockes in the Aire, so thicke that even they have shadowed the Skie from us.”
A similar observation was made in 1625 in Nicolas-Jean de Wassenaer’s First Settlement of New Netherlands (in what is now Manhattan, New York City): “The Birds most common are wild Pigeons; these are so numerous that they shut out the sunshine.”
William Wood – 1634
Wood’s New England Prospect
These Birds come into the Countrey, in the beginning of our Spring, at which time (if I may be counted worthy, to be believed in a thing that is not so strange as true) I have seen them fly as if the Ayerie regiment had been Pigeons; seeing neyther beginning nor ending, in length, or breadth of these Millions of Millions. The shouting of people, the ratling of Gunnes, and the pelting of small shotte could not drive them out of their course, but so they continued for foure or five houres together. Many of them build amongst the Pine-trees, thirty miles to the North-east of our plantations; joyning nest to nest, and tree to tree by their nests, so the Sunne never sees the ground in that place, from whence the Indians fetch whole loades of them.
In 1648, the Governor of New England, John Winthrop, recorded in his The History of New England: “This month, when our first harvest was near had in, the pigeons came again all over the country, but did no harm, (harvest being just in, ) but proved a great blessing, it being incredible what multitudes of them were killed daily. It was ordinary for one man to kill eight or ten dozen in half a day, yea five or six dozen at one shoot, and some seven or eight. Thus the Lord showed us, that he could make the same creature, which formerly had been a great chastisement, now become a great blessing.”
Nearly a century after Strachey’s observations, the numbers of Passenger Pigeons do not seem to have diminished in the New England Colonies, as suggested in Cotton Mather’s account in his The Christian Philosopher: “I will add a Curiousity relating to the Pidgeons, which annually visit my own Country in their Seasons, in such incredible numbers, that they have commonly been sold for Two-pence a dozen; Yea, one Man has at one time surprised no less than two hundred dozen in his Barn, into which they have come for Food, and by shutting the door, he has had them all.”
John James Audubon – 1813
Ornithological Biography , Kentucky
I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions, at once,
like a torrent, and with noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass, pressing each other towards the centre. In these almost solid masses, they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast column, and, when high, were seen wheeling and twisting with their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent.
In his Louisville, Kentucky Journals, Audubon wrote: “In autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of the sun was obscured as by an eclipse; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose… . Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Henderson fifty-five miles, the Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers, and continued to do so for three days in succession.” Audubon estimated the size of this flock over Louisville as “one billion, one hundred and fifteen million, one hundred and thirty-six thousand pigeons.”
John James Audubon – 1814
Ornithological Biography, Kentucky
Let us now, kind Reader, inspect their place of nightly rendezvous. I arrived there nearly two hours before sunset. Few Pigeons were then to be seen, but a great number of persons, with horses and wagons, guns and ammunition, had already established encampments on the borders. Many trees two feet in diameter, I observed broken off at no great distance from the ground; and the branches of many of the largest and tallest had given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado. As the period of their arrival approached, their foes anxiously prepared to receive them. Some were furnished with iron-pots containing sulphur, others were with torches of pine-knots, many with poles, and the rest with guns. Suddenly there burst forth a general cry of: “Here they come!” The noise they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men. The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted, and a magnificent, as well as wonderful and almost terrifying sight presented itself. The Pigeons, arriving by thousands, alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses as large as hogsheads were formed on the branches all round. Here and there the perches gave way under the weight with a crash, and falling to the ground, destroying hundreds of birds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded. It was a scene of uproar and confusion. I found it quite useless to speak, or shout to those who were nearest to me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters reloading.
Audubon describes the aftermath of slaughter in this 1814 nesting site: “No one dared venture within the line of devastation. The Pigeons were constantly coming, and it was past midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of those that arrived. The uproar continued the whole night. Towards the approach of day, the noise in some measure subsided, long before objects were distinguishable, pigeons began to move off, and at sunrise all that were able to fly had disappeared.”
James Fenimore Cooper – 1823
The Pioneers , New York
If the heavens were alive with pigeons, the whole village seemed equally in motion, with men, women, and children. Every species of fire-arms from the French ducking-gun with a barrel near six feet in length, to the common horseman’s pistol, was in the hands of the men and boys; while bows and arrows, and others in rude imitation of cross-bows, were carried by many. So prodigious was the number of the birds, that the scattering fire of the guns, with the hurling of missiles, and the cries of the boys, had no other effect than to break off small flocks from the immense masses that continued to dart along the valley, as if the whole of the feathered tribe were pouring through that one pass. None pretended to collect the game, which lay scattered over the fields in such profusion as to cover the very ground with the fluttering victims.
The Massachusettes State Ornithologist Edward Forbush recorded this account of Chief Pokagon, the last Pottawottomi chief, describing an approaching flock of Passenger Pigeons while camping on the Manistee River in Michigan: “One morning I was startled by hearing a gurgling, rumbling sound, as though an army of horses laden with sleigh bells was advancing through the deep forests toward me. As I listened intently, I concluded that instead of the tramping of horses it was distant thunder; and yet the morning was clear, calm and beautiful. Nearer and nearer came the strange commingling of sleigh bells mixed with an approaching storm. While I gazed in wonder and astonishment I beheld moving before me in an unbroken front millions of pigeons.”
William Dunlop – 1832
A Backwoodsman , Toronto
For three or four days the town resounded with one continuous roll of firing, as if a skirmish were going on in the streets. Every gun, pistol, musket, blunderbuss, and firearm of whatever description, was put in requisition. The constable and police were on the alert, and offenders without number were pulled up. Among them were honourable members of the executive and legislative counsel, crown lawyers, respectable staid citizens, and last of all, the sheriff of the county; till at last it was found that pigeons, flying within easy shot, were a temptation too strong for human virtue to withstand; and so the contest was given up and a sporting jubilee proclaimed to all and sundry.
Some professional hunters used huge net traps baited with decoy birds, known as “stool pigeons.” These captured birds had their eyes sewn shut and their legs pinned to a post or “stool.” Acorns were then strewn about the netted area, and when a flock passed over, the stool was pulled out from under the blind bird, which would flutter its wings to land. The fluttering wings made it appear that the bird was landing and safely feeding. Birds from the passing flock would be lured into landing, and thousands of birds could be caught at once in the huge spring-loaded butterfly nets and slaughtered.
John Frost – 1848
Game Birds of America , New York
None of the names bestowed upon this species are sufficiently descriptive of it. ‘Passenger’, an English expression, and ‘migratoria’, the Latin name, fall equally short, inasmuch as every known pigeon is to a greater or less extent migratory. The ‘swarm’ pigeon, the ‘flood’ pigeon, or even the ‘deluge’ pigeon would be a more appropriate appellation; for the weight of their numbers breaks down the forest with scarcely less havoc than if the stream of the Mississippi were poured upon it.
By 1860, pigeon hunting became a full time occupation for several thousand men. With the advent of the telegraph and the railroad, hunters were able to follow and slaughter the migrating birds wherever they landed. By 1896, virtually the entire surviving population of Passenger Pigeons came together in one last great nesting outside Bowling Green, Ohio near Mammoth Caves. The entire nesting was slaughtered and loaded in boxcars, but due to a derailment, the hunters’ efforts were wasted: rotting carcasses of all 200,000 birds had to be dumped in a deep ravine a few miles from the railway loading yard.
On 24 March 1900 in Pike County, Ohio, the last wild Passenger Pigeon was shot by a young boy. On 1 September 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo, “Martha,” a passenger pigeon born in captivity, died aged 29 years. She was the last of her species. Four years later – on 21 February 1918 – in the same pagoda aviary in the Cincinnati Zoo, the last Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), named Incas, died at age 32.
TROJANS
Passenger Pigeon or Migratory Dove – 1914
1.
There is no epic poem for the Passenger Pigeon
No Iliad or Aeneid. No requiem. No lament
Yet, billions in flight once eclipsed the sun
Brought darkness and chaos at midday
To New York, Boston and Philadelphia
To Montreal, Chicago and New Orleans
The longest and swiftest of the world’s pigeons
It measured a foot and a half – beak
to tail
Beautifully stream-lined and steel blue
Mile-a-minute flash across the open sky
The whole of forested America was its empire
From the Arctic tree line to the Caribbean Sea
The greatest natural wonder of the New World
Its annual migrations – the greatest congregations
Of birds ever gathered on the planet
The extinction of this feathered tribe
Is as much our brutal legacy
As the extinction of the Trojans
Was the savage heritage of the Greeks
And after their annihilation, came the destruction
Of the nation’s beech forests by axe and fire
An act akin to the levelling of the walls of Troy
2.
Had there been a valiant Hector among their number?
Certainly there was an Astyanax among the millions
Upon millions that were hurled to their death
But there was no Aeneas to carry his father
And lead his child out of the flames
There was to be no hope of the survival
