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Spanish Colonial Horse
and the Plains Indian Culture Early Indian
ethnologists believed the feral Spanish mustangs that roamed the Plains
descended from Spanish barb horses lost by Cortez, and that the Plains Indian
horses came from these wild Spanish Colonial horses. Roe and others have
shown this was not the case. The
Mesohippus bairdi Mesohippus was a
three-toed horse that lived approximately twenty-five million years ago. The
precursors of the horse family came into existence about fifty-five million
years ago. The first was Eohippus. These prehistoric horses weighed
about eighty pounds, had four toes on its front feet, three toes on its rear
feet, and small teeth suitable for a diet of fruit and leaves. As these
prehistoric horses increased in numbers and diversity, they spread across
North America and, via the Bering Strait land bridge, to Europe and Asia.
About fifteen thousand years ago, the North American habitat started to
change and the prehistoric horses began to disappear. Horses were also a food
source for Paleo-Indians, which contributed to horses becoming extinct on
this continent. The Przewalski
horse (Equus przewalski poliakov) is the last remaining specie of wild
horses. All other horses have been domesticated, or descended from horses
that were once domesticated. Until the mid-1990's, the Przewalski was extinct
in the wild. Through efforts of the Przewalski Foundation in the Netherlands
and breeding preserves in Askania Nova, Ukraine, two breeding groups of
Przewalski horses were reintroduced to Mongolia. The ultimate goal of the
Przewalski Foundation is to have the Przewalski horses running free on the
Mongolian steppes (ansi.okstate.edu).
Przewalski Horse - San Diego Wildlife Park The Plains Indian
horse is the descendent of Spanish Barbs brought to North America by Spanish
Conquistadors in the sixteenth century. From the Andalusia area of Spain,
these horses carried the blood of Spanish Barbs and Arabians. The Spanish
Colonial horses exhibited a wide variety of characteristics in terms of
color, size, and conformation. Spanish barb horses spread northward from
central Mexico (see, Florida Cracker horses under reader response).
Echoes of Time - Lorna Hester Hawkins Ewers, Sponenberg,
and others have described the average Plains Indian horse during
pre-reservation days as: 13.2 to 14 hands; 700 pounds; large head with a good
eye; short thick neck; large round barrel; relatively heavy shoulder and hip;
fine limbs and small feet.
War Chief
displays the typical conformation of the Plains Indians Spanish
mustang. Castle McLaughlin of the Nokota Horse Conservancy took the photograph of War
Chief. The Conservancy is a nonprofit organization established to preserve
the unique and historical Nokota Horses. By the mid-sixteen hundreds, the Spanish rancheros near Santa
Fe and Taos had thousands of horses. The Spanish government issued decrees
forbidding Indians to own or ride horses, but as slaves, or as workers, on
the Spanish Rancheros, Indians learned to handle horses...it is
interesting to note that many Indians were terrified at their first sight of a
horse. The Pueblo Rebellion of 1680 forced the Spanish
out of New Mexico and many horses were left behind. The Pueblo Indians and
other tribes in the area took full advantage of these horses. The Ute Indians were related to the Comanche and probably
supplied them with their first horses. By 1706 the Comanche were well known
to the Spanish in New Mexico because of their horse stealing raids on Spanish
rancheros. Years later, the Comanche claimed that they let the Spanish stay
in Texas to raise horses for them, but warriors still went to Mexico after
more horses. September was the month that large raiding parties went into
Mexico after horses and captives. Comanche referred to September as the
Mexican Moon; Mexicans called it the Comanche Moon. Other northern tribes
followed this practice, and soon a wide trail stretched across the staked
plain (Llano Estacada) of Texas and New Mexico. The Apaches conducted the
same kind of raids into Sonora and Chihuahua. The Comanche
became the epitome of the Plains Indian Horse Culture. There was a saying in
Texas that “The white man will ride the Mustang until he is played out - the
Mexican will take him and ride him another day until he thinks he is tired -
the Comanche will get on him and ride him to where he is going” (Frank
Dobie). Within a few decades after acquiring horses, many military leaders
considered the Comanche as the finest light cavalry in the world. Comanche warriors rapidly emerged as the middlemen in the horse
trade between Indian tribes and French settlements east of the Mississippi.
Horses spread out of the southwest in primarily two directions: north to the
Shoshone and from them to the Nez Perce, Flatheads, and the Crow; north and
east to the Kiowa and Pawnee and then to the cousins of the Pawnee, the
Arikara. Indian Horse Distribution Map The Shoshone
traded with the Utes and Comanche for their first horses in the early
seventeen hundreds. Not long after, the Nez Perce had horses, and by 1740 the
Crow had horses. About this same time, the Blackfeet got horses from the Nez
Perce and Flatheads. Indians not only acquired Spanish horses, the warriors
followed the ways of the Spanish in terms of handling, riding, and use of
equipment.
17th Century Spanish Bit Horses spread
through the Arikara to the Missouri River villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa
and eventually to the Sioux and the Cheyenne. When the first white traders
reached the Plains none of the Indians North and East of the Black Hills had
horses. Pierre Gaultier
de La Verendrye a French trader reached the Mandan village on the Missouri
River in 1738, while there he heard of Indians to the south that had a few
horses. George Hyde estimated that 1760 was the period the Teton Sioux
acquired horses from Arikara. In 1768, Jonathan Carver found no horses among
the Dakota of upper Missouri, but two years later the Yankton Sioux had
horses. From the trade fairs held at the Missouri River villages horses
spread to the Cree and Assiniboine in Canada. Francis Haines
states that by the early seventeen hundreds all the tribes south of the
Platte had some familiarity with horses. By the end of the seventeen
hundreds, the Indian horse had reached most of the Rocky Mountains and Plains
Indians. In pre-horse
days, women and dogs moved the camp. This limited the size of the shelters
and the accumulation of belongings. The horse was easily trained to pull a travois
with several hundred pounds on it and to pack four times as much as a dog. A
draw back to the use of horses was in the selection of campsites. Indians
villages that had horses were confined to areas with good pasture, and in the
winter, a plentiful supply of cottonwood bark was required as well. This made
the village vulnerable to attack by other tribes and later the United States
cavalry. Before the horse,
the primary way of hunting was for members of the village to try and surround
a herd and drive it into a corral (Piskun) or run it off a cliff. At first,
the horse was used in the same way. Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont, who founded
Fort Orleans on the Missouri in 1722, stated the Kanza on the lower Missouri
had no horses in 1724, but Comanche to the southwest did. The Kanza told him
that the Comanche used horses to drive the buffalo off a cliff, or to chase
the herd until it was give out. Once the buffalo stopped, the Comanche would
surround them, and then getting off their horses, shoot them. Some Indian
tribes into the mid-1800s used the surround method of hunting (Ewers).
Buffalo Herd Indians seldom used guns in hunting buffalo until breechloaders were
available…it was too hard to load a muzzleloader on a running horse. Ewers
states that among all the buffalo-hunting tribes the bow and arrow seems to
have been the weapons in use before ca. 1870. Joseph Jablow reports that by
the time a gun was loaded "the Indian could in that time ride three
hundred yards and discharge twenty arrows". Many warriors averaged fewer
than two arrows per buffalo killed. Horses were
adapted to fit the Indian lifestyle; they did not change it....this statement
has been commented on by several people. To understand the meaning of this
statement, please read this comment
and my reply. Horses were the one trade item that did not make the
Indian dependant on the fur traders. Everything connected with the horse,
Indians could do for themselves, and in most cases, they surpassed the white
man in riding and handling horses. It took decades
for a tribe to accumulate enough horses for their needs. Of the true nomadic
tribes only the Comanche, Kiowa, and Crow had enough horses throughout most
of the horse period (Haines). Haines states that it took eight to ten horses
to satisfy the needs of each family. The individual,
not the tribe, owned the horses. This produced a class system based on
ownership of horses…those with and those without. Owners with excess horses
traded them to the Hudson's Bay, North West, and the Rocky Mountain fur
traders for the fur trader's iron goods. Horses elevated the owner's prestige
and power, and often increased the number of wives he could afford. The
owners of large numbers of horses loaned them to other members of the village
during camp moves, or for the buffalo hunt. In the Indian culture, generosity
was the mark of a true leader. The horse herds
within a tribe could be increased through: war parties, breeding, and trade.
The only one of these open to a young man was the war party. The vast
majority of war parties were to steal horse, not fight an enemy. The methods
warriors had previously used for stealing women or slaves were applied to the
taking of horses. After the
smallpox outbreaks of 1782 and 1837, a great many “domesticated” horses
roamed the Plains as wild horses. These horses belonged to whoever could
catch them, but these feral horses were of little value to the Plains
Indians. The feral mustangs were hard to catch, and after they were caught,
hard to keep and handle. There was a saying among the old cowboys that “Once
a wild one always a wild one" (Dobie). In his book, The Horse in
Blackfoot Indian Culture, John Ewers’ Indian informants stated that the
Blackfeet never tried to catch wild horses, and the only tribe that they had
heard of occasionally doing it were the Kiowa. "Stories"
of an Indian blowing in a mustang's nose and gentling it in a matter of
hours are ridiculous...this statement has been challenged by several readers.
This is fine, but don't use Monty Roberts and Horse Whispering as your
reference. Monte Roberts is currently being sued for staged demonstrations
and untruthful statements http://citizensforjustice.org/monty/. Blackfoot efforts
in breeding horses were directed toward producing one or more of three
qualities in the offspring. These qualities were a particular color, size,
and speed (Ewers). The owner of a herd of mares selected a stallion with the
characteristics that he was interested in acquiring…nothing was done to
improve the quality of the mares. Ewers also stated that most men were too
poor or too careless to devote much thought or time to stallion selection. Indian horses
spanned the spectrum of colors that exists in horses of today. Despite
Hollywood and artists pictures, the nomadic Plains Indians did not
predominately ride pintos or paints. These are recessive color patterns that
are hard to breed for today. How could nomadic Indians have done it any
better with horses in communal herds? A possible exception to this might have
been the Cayuse and Nez Perce with the Appaloosa. An extensive Indian trade network existed between the Indian
tribes as well as the Indian tribes and the fur traders. The Indian-to-Indian
trade covered the Plains to the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Prior
to 1807, the trade between Indians and fur traders centered around trade fairs held at the permanent villages of
the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara on the Missouri River. This led to a
dependency on the Canadian and American traders, which led to the
introduction of alcohol and the spread of diseases. With the exception of the
horse, Indians could not reproduce any of the white man’s trade goods items. In many cases,
white man trade goods, for example trade beads and horses, reached Indian
tribes long before the first fur traders arrived there. This applied to some
iron and brass goods as well. When Lewis and Clark met the Nez Perce in the
Columbia River basin, a warrior displayed an axe that John Shields had made
the previous winter at Fort Mandan on the Missouri River. Horses brought
about a dramatic change in the Indian Culture, but horses did not materially
change the Indian lifestyle.
Indians still did the same things in pretty much the same ways except now
they used horses. It was the Spanish horse that made it possible for the
American Indians to move onto the Plains and become truly nomadic. The Indian Horse
article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton and Moose, Wyoming.
Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school
research papers. Related
Articles:
Indian Smallpox Indian Alcohol Indian
Guns Trade Beads Oregon Country Historical Facts of Lewis and Clark
Fur Trappers
Mountains of Stone
Echoes of Time is
an oil painting by wildlife artist Lorna Hester Hawkins of Afton, Wyoming. References: Przewalski horse |
