The Slaughter of the Bison and Reversal of Fortunes on the Great Plains

Donna Feir, Rob Gillezeau and Maggie E. C. Jones ()
Additional contact information
Maggie E. C. Jones: University of Victoria

No 15498, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, the North American bison was brought to the brink of extinction in just over a decade. We demonstrate that the loss of the bison had immediate, negative consequences for the Native Americans who relied on them and ultimately resulted in a permanent reversal of fortunes. Once amongst the tallest people in the world, the generations of bison-reliant people born after the slaughter lost their entire height advantage. By the early twentieth century, child mortality was 16 percentage points higher and the probability of reporting an occupation 29.7 percentage points lower in bison nations compared to nations that were never reliant on the bison. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and into the present, income per capita has remained 28% lower, on average, for bison nations. This persistent gap cannot be explained by differences in agricultural productivity, self-governance, or application of the Dawes Act. We provide evidence that this historical shock altered the dynamic path of development for formerly bison-reliant nations. We demonstrate that limited access to credit constrained the ability of bison nations to adjust through respecialization and migration.

Keywords: income shock; indigenous; Native Americans; economic history; extinction; Buffalo; North American Bison; intergenerational mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 J15 N31 N32 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Review of Economic Studies, 2024, 91 (3), 1634–1670

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15498.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Slaughter of the Bison and Reversal of Fortunes on the Great Plains (2024)
Working Paper: The Slaughter of the Bison and Reversal of Fortunes on the Great Plains (2022)
Working Paper: The Slaughter of the Bison and Reversal of Fortunes on the Great Plains (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15498

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().