WI Plains Indians had sheep in addition to horses?

What if the native peoples of the Great Plains adopted sheep herding from the Navajo, how would the US government subdue them? With sheep, the tribes wouldn't be dependent on hunting buffalo for food, there would be no point in the buffalo massacre.

The US government rounded up the Navajo farmers and slaughtered their sheep, forcing them onto reservations. But a horse riding nomadic people on the Plains would be hard to pin down. They would simply move on with their mobile food stock and return after the army leaves, rather like the Mongols. Would adopting the sheep in addition to horses alter their outcome?
 
As said above yeah they will still succumb sheep will certainly supplement their diet and provide useful items such a wool clothing.

Best case scenario is they are driven to reservations but retain their sheep and survive fairly well.
 
I don't doubt the army will eventually subdue them, but the Navajo are doing a lot better than other tribes in part because of live stock raising. Perhaps more and better tribal lands in the Great Plains? Any reason the plains Indians didn't herd sheep, then and now?
 
Look the Bison are going to be killed no matter what happens, the hide and meat proved useful at the industrial level, the hide was used in machine belts, and tasty. Also it was important to reduce numbers so farmers could raise sheep and cattle, and latter plow up the plains.

As for the Plains people, the fact is the way they lived, even though they were migratory many stayed in the Northern plains during the winter and without proper feed sheep would starve. The Navajo lived in an area were all one needed to do was move to lower elevations with sheep rather than heading across states. Cattle would suffer the same problems even wild horses were not found on the Northern plains in winter. Snow and ice would have meant that they would starve. Few animals survived on the northern plains. Many plains people barely survived in the northern plains. Also before Europeans the Northern Plains were among the least populated areas. The famous Lakota came from Minnesota and Wisconsin, many others were pushed on to the plains and only survived due to horses and guns. Those peoples that lived in the Northern plains based their lives on some agriculture along the rivers. The same places that the Europeans wanted for farms.

What happened with the Navajo was unique, however if we had a less racist, less Manifest Destiny type of America many could eventually become farmers. Many of them embraced cattle ranching as a replacement for Bison and preferred cattle. That was actually stopped by the US government because it was giving them away to follow their traditions which the US was trying to destroy.
 
Oh and on the Southern plains you have sever droughts that periodically plague the region and again without feed most if not all would die of starvation. Add that to the Texans who were almost on a holy crusade to open that state to the Rio Grande for white settlement, in addition to the racist actions of the Spanish and Mexicans. There was a bounty system that only ended in the 1880's that treated first nations peoples like wolves and coyotes. They would pay a bounty for men, women and children's scalps. Also many had contact with those that had embraced the agrarian lifestyle and saw what the Spanish and Mexicans did to them, treated them as slaves. There are very good reasons why the fight in the Southern teir of the US was worse than the Northern and longer lasting.
 
The thing is this also applies here
Ways for Sheep to Die in Australia

drferox:

I have alluded to sheep being a rather unfortunate species in terms of survival, and many of you have been patiently waiting for me to elaborate. I intend to start now. So let me try to explain just a fragment of why we veterinarians say “the goal in life of a merino ewe is to die, and take 50 of her closest friends with her).

Sheep (specifically in Australia where we probably have more than 70 million of them) can and do die in any of these ways:

  • If it rains too much while a sheep has a full fleece. They get soaked, weighed down, can’t move and die.
  • If it rains too much when a sheep has too little fleece, they get hypothermia and die
  • If it rains too little, there’s no water to drink and they die.
  • If there’s not enough grass or food available, they die.
  • If they eat too much perennial ryegrass, the most common pasture species in Australia, they can develop tremors from the neurogenic toxins it contains, and die.
  • Annual rye grass, which is the second most common pasture species, also causes staggers if the grass carries a particular bacteria, and if sheep eat too much or it then they die.
  • Merino sheep in particular are often bad mothers. They commonly (20-30%) will give birth and just wander away without a second thought, leaving the lamb to die.
  • We also have foxes that like to eat lambs (or at least their tongues), sometimes while they are being born, and they die.
  • Eagles will also take lambs or young sheep, and then they obviously die.
  • Sheep pregnant with twins are susceptible to Twin Lamb Disease where the mother physically cannot consume enough energy for herself and the growing fetuses. Without great care they will all die.
  • Sheep producing milk commonly develop hypocalcaemia and can die
  • Sheep given intravenous calcium to treat the hypocalcaemia, if it is given too fast, will die.
  • Sheep producing milk on lush pasture are at risk of hypomagnesaemia (grass staggers) and can, you guessed it, die.
  • Grazing pasture that is too lush or too high in protein can cause bloat, which can take out an entire flock of sheep and cause them to die.
  • Grazing too much red clover, a very popular pasture species in Australia, can cause both infertility and bloat. Then they die.
  • Sheep in Australia are very prone to flystrike, where blowflies lay eggs i the wool or flesh of the sheep so maggots can eat them. This starts while they’re alive, but it will cause them to die.
  • They also carry huge numbers of worms which compete for nutrients from their food, cause diarrhea and can cause sheep to die.
  • That diarrhea in their wool makes them extra attractive to files and, again, death.
  • Johne’s Disease is a chronic wasting disease similar to Crohn’s, which will result in a slow wasting away as individuals are often infected for most of their life, and then they die.
And this list is by no means complete.

Many of these would also apply to US sheep, though white/bur clover is more common for grazing for exactly the reasons mentioned. Still bloat risk but less fertility risk (though that risk is variable and depends on what season the clover is grazed).

Mothering ability is also pretty variable between breeds, admittedly. I would say that the incidence of birthing and wandering away is a lot lower around here, but the Australian sheep industry is mostly Merinos (which will be featured on breed of the week soon!) and in the US, there is a wider variety of breeds.

I would also add that in the US, we have problems with temperature swings leading to pneumonia (from very warm days and very cool evenings), coyotes, feral dogs, feral pigs, and sometimes ravens and crows, though canines are still the biggest predator issue out here (western US). And sheep give you a lot less warning when they are sick, so the time to react and treat is a narrower window.

Johne’s Disease is a nasty disease, too, and any ruminant can get it. I know some people studying it in cattle. It’s extremely unpleasant.

But agreed, sheep, as Terry Pratchett said, are “just bags of bones, eyeballs, and teeth, lookin’ for new ways to die.”
 
But are all breeds this vulnerable? How did primitive herdsmen manage sheep in northern Europe, Mongolia and the Himalayas? The plains Indians kept their horses and dogs alive through winter, is it really not possible for sheep with similar care and migration patterns?
 
Sheep aren't referred to as stupid and used as an insult for nothing-they(at least domesticated sheep) are utterly helpless without human protection.

I have heard stories of lost sheep that just layed down in the woods and fields and waited to die.

They are for whatever reason incapable of surviving except under the most pleasant and protected conditions.
 
They would also have people protecting them in the American Great Plains...?
Do not underestimate predators, the wolves on the Great plains were massive 100-175 pounds. They evolved to bring down Bison, 1 ton animals. They are smart and cunning and would decimate flocks. There are no Livestock protection animal that could stop them. Now add Grizzlies to that mix, rattlesnakes, cougars. Sheep are the worse animals to try, the Navajo got lucky because of where they were. I just posted something about them in the sheep and goat thread. That may help.
 
Sheep aren't referred to as stupid and used as an insult for nothing-they(at least domesticated sheep) are utterly helpless without human protection.

I have heard stories of lost sheep that just layed down in the woods and fields and waited to die.

They are for whatever reason incapable of surviving except under the most pleasant and protected conditions.
This is true. Sheep and chickens and modern Turkeys are all in the same category now days
 
If you replaced sheep with llama/Alppaca they might do many of the same things though not as stupidly.

Also, most domestic animals seem to be stupider than their wild cousins.
 
It's an interesting idea. I guess the transmission would come a similar way to how the Navajo got their sheep, i.e. "borrowing" them from the Spanish in New Mexico. But there's a lot of issues, and neither the Spanish nor the Anglos would take to this development well.

But the Comanche OTL did well when they were herding cattle (many stolen from Texas cattlemen) toward the end of their independent existence, which diversified them beyond just the bison. It would help diversify the Plains Indians, but I don't see how they could do that much better than OTL when their strength is still based on the bison and the Americans are still intent on destroying their power for good.
 
Do not underestimate predators, the wolves on the Great plains were massive 100-175 pounds. They evolved to bring down Bison, 1 ton animals. They are smart and cunning and would decimate flocks. There are no Livestock protection animal that could stop them. Now add Grizzlies to that mix, rattlesnakes, cougars. Sheep are the worse animals to try, the Navajo got lucky because of where they were. I just posted something about them in the sheep and goat thread. That may help.
You do not need wolves, domesticated dogs can easily exterminate a herd the poor animals literally die of fear, it happened on my father's farm, goats on the other hand are much more resilient.
 
You do not need wolves, domesticated dogs can easily exterminate a herd the poor animals literally die of fear, it happened on my father's farm, goats on the other hand are much more resilient.
One of my coworkers roommates had two dogs that jumped the fence bordering their neighbor, a sheep farmer. The farmer shot and killed one and wounded the other. You are right dogs are a major threat, in North America dogs and coyotes are responsible for 70% of all sheep loses.
 
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