I took AP U.S History my sophmore year of high school and cried when we learned about the great bison slaughter in the 1800's. It was upsetting to learn that thousands of bison were killed each day, often not for economic profit but simply to clear land and force Indigenous peoples into dependence. I knew for this project I wanted to reseach something to do with history, culture, and policy. I initially considered exploring minority representation in U.S. history textbooks, but the idea for this topic hit me unexpectedly once I realized how little attention is given to the cultural consequences of the bison slaughter. As I began my research I discovered there was a lack of acdemic research conducted about the bison slaughter and reparations being done. Many mentioned restoration of bison populations but almost none mentioned reparations to the Indigenous people. This is when I knew it was something I wanted to explore further.

Examining previous research around my topic it helped lay the grounwork for the historical significance and patterns overtime that the bison slaughter has creating in America. Many studies mention existing ecological and conservation studies consistently and frame bison return as “restoration,” emphasizing herd numbers, habitat management, and wildlife recovery. While this work is valuable, it rarely acknowledges the cultural, spiritual, and economic damage inflicted on tribal communities through the mass slaughter of the bison. Additionally, scholars like Joep Leerssen taught me through their research that in a cultural study it is possible to quanitfy data through meta analysis which provides an objective analysis rather than relying on subjective interpretations of what is historically “important.” In short, previous research revealed to me both what has been studied extensively and what has been overlooked in this feild which helped guide the direction of my research topic.

To collect data I will first be conducting a meta analysis and for this I will collect data from five major academic databases: EBSCO, JSTOR, Library of Congress, Google Scholar, and the Directory of Open Access Journals. Using 13 predetermined search terms, I will record the total number of results and the number of peer-reviewed results for each term. This will allow me to measure how using the word “reparations”, rather than “restoration”, impacts the amount and type of scholarly information available. For my qualitative historical reveiw will select articles revealed by my search terms and annotate them for evidence of cultural loss, historical trauma, and gaps in acknowledgement. Additionally, I will examine modern policy models, such as California’s Truth and Healing Council, to evaluate whether similar forms of formal apology or truth-telling. This could serve as a framework for bison-related reparations. Throughout both components I will identify confounding variables, such as ecological factors like drought or tribal participation in the bison slaughter. This may influence how scholars frame restoration vs. reparations.

We should care about this topic because the bison slaughter was not simply an environmental tragedy, but also a  tool used by settlers that devastated Indigenous nations socially, culturally, and spiritually. While modern restoration programs celebrate the return of bison to the plains, they rarely address the deeper problem that simply restoring the animal may not be repairing the Indigenous people. Understanding the difference between restoration and reparations matters because it highlights whether current policies merely fix an ecological issue or truly acknowledge and repair historical harm. By exposing how language shapes who is seen as responsible this research can push public policy toward more culturally grounded, justice-oriented solutions. Studying this issue will help the world to understand how historical injustices continue to affect Indigenous communities today and what meaningful accountability might look like.