By Rick Schwertfeger, Captain, Frontier Partisans Southern Command, Austin, Texas
“The grace of God won’t carry a man through these prairies. It takes powder and ball.”
— Jim Bridger
“All who came west brought ample powder and shot…for hunger was a constant and keeping one’s larder full a daily preoccupation. Danger was integral to hunting, which itself was integral to the frontier. Frontier hunters took seriously…that big game animals were capable of fighting back. The grizzly was the ultimate threat.”
“’All big game are very good at killing you if you give them even a fraction of a chance,’ hunter and author Peter Capstick has said.”
Philip Dray has written perhaps a magnum opus — Fair Chase: The Epic Story of Hunting in America.
Thoroughly researched, amazingly comprehensive, Dray’s book explores the complex relationships between hunting and American society throughout our history.
Hunting, once an essential part of survival, evolved into sport. A symbiotic relationship arose, in which evolutions in the purposes and processes of hunting impacted American society; AND developments in American society impacted hunters and their essential or sporting pastime.
Dray explores “what hunting has to tell us – about the country’s legends, its faith in manifest destiny; its evolving views on nature, wildlife, Native Americans and the concept of race; its love of sports and leisure; its notions of self-reliance and manhood — in short, about nothing less than the shaping of our national temperament.”
And it’s fascinating, indeed.
Technological progress receives due treatment – for hunting is carried out with weapons, usually firearms. So throughout, Dray touches on the impacts of greater firepower and accuracy. There’s even a separate chapter, “Arming the Hunters.” We go from the Pennsylvania long rifle of the 18th century to today’s semi-automatic rifles.
“The equation of gun and survival, in war and on the frontier, helped induce a devotion to armed proficiency – hunting and marksmanship perceived as components of manhood, preparedness, and martial adequacy.”
With the majority of the population of the United States still primarily along the Eastern Seaboard, New York’s Adirondack Mountains played a key role in the expansion of hunting in the mid-19th century. Still almost wilderness, but close enough to major cities, men with resources began to hunt in the region. Local guides were key to their success. We learn of “legendary guide Mitchell Sabattis, a pure-blood Abenaki who spoke French, English, and two Indian dialects. He could ‘smell’ deer long before they came into view, track animals on downturned blades of grass, and silently maneuver a canoe into a trout-filled bay.”
And the concept that there is a spiritual component to the outdoor life and the chase was fostered. The Reverend William Murray of Boston, with “his great love of hunting, became known as ‘the shooting pastor’ after once arriving at church straight from the fields with a shotgun under his arm.”
He promoted a “’muscular Christianity’ of ‘vigorous outdoorsmen;’” and a god “who smiled upon their zeal for recreation, fitness, and fresh air.” Author of “Adventures in the Wilderness; or, Camping Life in the Adirondacks,” Murray had great influence in getting men so inclined to hunt the Adirondacks.
President and legendary hunter Theodore Roosevelt, receives thorough treatment. “His exuberant love of the chase was integral to his identity.” “To Roosevelt the hunting of wild creatures was always about something greater – a primal reconnect with the natural, precivilized world and ‘the free, self-reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy.’” Perhaps no one more than Roosevelt tapped into the connection between hunting and that “it ‘cultivates vigorous manliness.’”
Dray thoroughly addresses the relationships between hunting and conservation. The excessive slaughtering of American wildlife in the late 19th century – most notable, of course, of the buffalo – is well known. Henry Fairfield Osborne of the American Museum of Natural History wrote:
“Our animal fortune seemed to us so enormous that it could never be spent. Like a young rake coming into a large inheritance, we attacked this noble fauna with characteristic American improvidence.”
Hunters’ growing awareness that entire landscapes were becoming devoid of wildlife led to them founding conservation organizations – Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell’s Boone and Crockett Club (1887) being perhaps the most notable. The concepts “of ethical hunting and wildlife preservation” grew out of Boone and Crockett, which they ultimately “termed fair chase.” Carried further, “the good hunter’s appreciation of wild places, his respect for the game he hunted, for the rules of fair play and observed hunting seasons, all…led directly to this looming project, as daunting as it was grand: scientific game management and conservation.”
Hunters of today know well that, “The idea of saving the sport of hunting within the context of saving wildlife has proved a durable one.” (http://www.huntfairchase.com).
In the Epilogue – “A Complex Heritage” – Dray deftly addresses current controversies, including attacks on hunting itself by animal rights advocates; trophy hunting; the issue of types of firearms deemed appropriate to be used by hunters; the decline in the number of Americans who hunt; and the extraordinary importance to hunters of the public lands disputes.
“Real-world influences…will likely affect the sport’s decline the shift of population into urban areas; a shortage of accessible hunting grounds;…and the fact that fewer youth under the age of seventeen are being introduced to the sport. Without such generational continuity, it will be difficult to sustain the hunting culture.”
Not mentioned by Dray, contemporary organizations are in the field working to keep hunting alive. Three of note are Ducks Unlimited, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. They, in various combinations, promote youth hunting, work on the politics of public lands and access, and engage in habitat conservation and expansion. Dray concludes “that hunting will endure, at least for the foreseeable future.”
And we will see if hunting and conservation organizations can overcome successfully the forces in American culture that are leading to the long-term decline of hunting.
© Rick Schwertfeger, Austin, Texas. June 2018. Used by permission.
Matthew says
Good article! There’s an interview with Philip Dray at the Art of Manliness…
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-409-the-epic-story-of-sport-hunting-in-america/
JimC says
Thanks for that.
deuce says
Good article. I was a member of Ducks Unlimited for several years, even though I’ve never hunted ducks. I did so simply as an act of support for fellow hunters and for conservation.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Thanks, Deuce. I am a member; but they’re not real efficient with their membership renewal processes. Mine is expiring, and I haven’t received any renewal notices yet.
But, yes, they are a strong group for conservation and restoration of wetlands and breeding habitats.
Brian H. says
The biggest obstacle for new hunters is access. Public lands are often overhunted during season or filled up with non blood sport adventurers. Private ground gets leased up by clubs or outfitters at outrageous prices. I grew up in the ‘burbs but there were still farms and vaguely marked ground on which we could still go hunt before or after school, on our own no less. That country’s all filled with neighborhoods now. Any teenager with a shotgun in their car these days is going to jail if not worse. Hunting’s days are numbered. Hopefully, I’ll be wormfood by then.
JimC says
As Ronnie Van Zant sang
felonious monk says
Okay right, now I get the “picking my bird instead of flock shooting”.
I never had any trouble picking a bird but really you’re on the money.
After all you are American and thus what you write is character driven
and most likely about redemption….. or not?
What you are hinting at was really brought home to me once by Peter
Englund in The Beauty And The Sorrow, here is an incredible tapestry
of a narrative constructed by a cast of individual “actors”.
After all what is history but an individual reacting to a circumstance.
And speaking of a cast of characters here’s one:
Dwight Yoakam LSD Dressing Room Rehearsal “Dim Lights” (YouT…..guest it)
Sorry it ain’t about hunting (though it is) and yes we are having fun.
JimC says
Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam didn’t get along back in the day — mostly Steve being a dick. He apologized for some of his remarks and lookit em now. Cool.
felonious monk says
He is certainly making amends, look at the man’s work ethic, looking after his
little boy for sure. I wonder if part of it is keeping the demons at bay like
Bourdain. He recently said of writing his Bio. that it was difficult since he
already knows what happens, wish he’d hurry. I was reminded of Heartworn
Highways the other day. Likes to fly fish in NZ. too.
JimC says
Yeah, I want that memoir, too.
Given the wreckage he created behind him, he’s done a pretty damn good job of becoming a pretty good human. I know a lot of people who hate his politics; I honestly don’t give a shit about that. The art is as vibrant as ever, and his understanding of the human condition is profound. We differ on approaches to “solutions,” but so what? As Ellroy said, “I’m way past the idea of using ideology or political view as a gauge of human character. I simply don’t believe it. And many people, I tend to think most people, feel that way. Since I don’t have to worry about it, I’m happy.”
Matthew says
I don’t share Steve Earle’s politics, but you have to judge the man on more than that. Unless you are a literal Nazi (not just called that by the opposition) your actions matter more than you’re politics. We seem to have forgot that in this politically divisive age.
felonious monk says
Like The Monk said: a genius is the one most like himself.
I really like his politics, but you already knew that, buying
a loaf of bread is a political act!
I have been trying to avoid Ellroy, but I will say it here and
now: I divide my life in two, before reading American Tabloid
and after. I’ll safe the story of getting that one signed for
another day.
As someone with a life-long commitment to melancholia who
knows what it is like to crawl over rubbish heaps to keep your
creative being alive I can only say this: thank heavens for
people like Earle and Ellroy.
I believe there is at least one Native language in the Western
Cascades that has the same word for footprint as well as
understanding, and as the sage once said: what then must we
do?….we must ad our light to the sum of light.
felonious monk says
Trailer for “BLAZE” is up !
JimC says
Stay tuned…
felonious monk says
Always, standard, open D or open G ?
JimC says
I do like to double-drop D.
felonious monk says
I knew you’d say that, you twangster, that the Nashville or more like Neil Young?
JimC says
More like Neil, I’d say.
deuce says
Jimmy Page was a DADGAD man. My preferred alternate tuning beyond good ol’ Drop D.
felonious monk says
There you go started something here, Page and Celtic that figures. I just play the banjo (America’s-African
instrument) on my Chinese Strat.
And by the way Deuce I have intel. from one of my operatives regarding you and a certain Mr. Herron pertaining
a mister Tully. You are now a person of interest!
Great crescendo on the Rhodes series Jim, you have come in to your own with that you radical dude!
And is it not great to witness the return of our resident humanist the Saddle Tramp!
Oh and Rick, solid work as always, sorry ’bout the transgressions hope you got the horns back on the Cadillac.
Eccentric Cowboy says
Yet another bit of dead tree leafing I gotta ante up for and tear through. Y’know, some folks think that us outdoorsmen are a bunch of uneducated hoodlums, but darned if you can find more voracious group of readers!
I’ll definitely pick this piece up at some point. Hunter and culture psychology never fails to interest!