At the end of the 18th century, according to modern estimates, the American buffalo population numbered around 60 million, with herds roaming freely across North America. Bison sustained Indigenous people and played a key role in the ecological chain that kept the land verdant.
In less than a century, a sequence of events quickly decimated their numbers from millions to tens of thousands, until, by one count in 1889, there were only a few hundred left. Tracing the lineage of an animal would seem to be outside of Ken Burns' usual range until, as he and his fellow filmmaking crew realized, one comes to understand how central the species known as bison bison is to our nation’s history and culture.
