Melville

“The remnant of Indians thereabout—all but exterminated in their recent and final war with regular white troops, a war waged by the Red Man for their native soil and natural rights—had been coerced into the occupancy of wilds not very far beyond the Mississippi—wilds then, but now the seats of municipalities and States. Prior to that, the bisons, once countless in processional herds, or browsing as in an endless battle-line over these vast aboriginal pastures, had retreated, dwindled in number, before the hunters...”

--Herman Melville, “John Marr,” 1888