Denhardt, Robert

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Historical Review 
Volume 13 Number 3 Article 3 
7-1-1938 
The Beginnings of American Horses 
Robert Denhardt 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr 
Recommended Citation 
Denhardt, Robert. "The Beginnings of American Horses." New Mexico Historical Review 13, 3 (1938). 
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol13/iss3/3 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for 
inclusion in New Mexico Historical Review by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, 
please contact amywinter@unm.edu, lsloane@salud.unm.edu, sarahrk@unm.edu. 
THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HORSES 1
T HERE WERE no horses in America before the arrival ofthe Spaniards, and their horses, derived from the
.Moors, were the finest of Europe. Their short backs re-
vealed their Arabian blood, while their legs, not too long,
and firmly jointed, made them sure on their feet. Once in
America they lost weight and beauty, but were compensated
by increased stamina. Unbelievable feats of their endurance
are recorded.
Brought to the West Indies at the close of the fifteenth
century, the horse was acclimated rapidly, and within
thirty years formed the chief supply for the mainland expe-
ditions. The conquest over, they were raised extensively in
pueblos, haciendas, and missions. Bayamo in Cuba and
Tlaltizap{m in Oaxaca became greate horse marts, while
Gracias a Dios in Nueva Valladolid and Nextipaca in Nica-
ragua monopolized the mule market for the trans-Isthmian
trade. By the middle of the sixteenth century there were
outstanding horse breeders in Cuba, Jamaica, Nicaragua,
Chiapas, and Oaxaca, who sold their products in two con-
tinents. The horse advanced with the Spaniard, step by step.
until the close of the seventeenth century. The traditional
theory tha:t the wild mustangs sprang from the early expedi-
tions of Coronado and De Soto is incorrect.
While Jamestown was being settled by the English on
the Atlantic coast, Onate was establishing Spanish ranches
in New Mexico. By 1630 horses were plentiful around Santa
Fe but the plains Indians still had none, and no records are
found of mounted Indians for three more decades. By 1660
the Indians had learned the value of horses, which now be-
gan to disappear from the ranches around Santa Fe. During
the next forty years the horse spread throughout the West
with great rapidity. In 1719 Dutisne found the Pawnees
1. The following article represents a _summary ·of various papers read at the
now famous "Round Table" seminar of Dr. Herbert E. Bolton of the University of
California.
255
256 NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL REVIEW
with 300 horses, some bearing Spanish brands. The Snakes
had horses in 1730, and in less than a hundred years the
Blackfeet in present-day Canada were riding horses.
Almost simultaneously Kino and his companions were
pushing a second Spanish wedge into Arizona, establishing
stock ranches in twenty places by 1700. Here also the horse
multiplied and natives soon began to steal them. Portola
brought horses from Lower California, and Anza from Ari-
zona, into Alta California, where they increased pro-
digiously. Exportation thence to Hawaii began in 1803 and
reached extensive proportions by 1830. So numerous did
they become that thousands of them were slaughtered, or
driven off cliffs and into the ocean to drown.
Just as the Western horse came .from Mexico so the
foundation stock of the East was -bred in Spanish Florida.
By 1650 this district had seventy-nine missions, eight large
towns and two royal haciendas whence horses spread to the
Indians-not from remnants of De Soto's horses as has been
commonly supposed. Indian revolts and English depreda-
tions at the close of the 1600's tended to spread the horse.
The English, Dutch, and French brought in few horses
from Europe before the nineteenth century. When Cap-
tain Smith left Jamestown the colonists ate their mounts.
Virginia received a few horses in 1613 from Argall's French
venture, although most of these were returned to England.
The Canadian Indians got their first glimpse of the "Moose
of France," as they called the horse, when a shipload came
in from Le Havre in 1665, and, except for the horse sent to .
Montmagny in 1647, these were the first horses in Canada.
Their number increased, for the Jesuit relation of 1667 says
there were many horses. The French thereafter did not
import many more horses and used the canoe for inland
transportation. Wood, Sandys, and Gookin, the first im-
porters to Virginia, brought Irish horses about 1620, but
they were still scarce in 1640. Horses and cattle were im-
ported into Massachusetts in 1629, and 1638 the Swedes and
Finns brought horses to Delaware. In the southern border
warfare at the close of. the century the English obtained
Spanish stock. Soon so many horses were running wild in
the backwoods of the Southern Colonies that they were a
menace to the crops. The Dutch obtained most of their
original horses from Curacao, although two Dutch schooners
brought in twenty-seven mares from Flanders on one trip
in 1660. The Dutch herding policy, like the southern Eng-
lish colonies,. allowed the stock complete freedom. They
did not employ town herders for the village commons as
did the New Englanders. The sugar mills of the West
Indies soon exhausted the island horses and horses were
exported from the English colonies as early as 1656 by
Coddington, but not until the eighteenth century did this
West Indian trade reach its peak. Some of the New Eng-
landers seeing the possibilities of this "jockey-ship" trade
began raising horses, Hull stocking Boston Neck for the
trade in 1685. New England with its communal grazing
and constant herding had enough stock for its use almost
from the start, the price of horses dropping from an average
of £34 in. 1635 to around £2 in 1800. The drop in price was
proportionate throughout the colonies. It was not only due
to the increase in supply, but also to the inferior quality of
most of the stock, which had degenerated because horses
of small stature and bad points were allowed to run with
the herds while the better horses were kept for saddle and
coach. This explains why the rich men continually im-
. ported small numbers of good animals for personal use.
Patrick Henry sent to the Pawnee country for the "best and
most pure Spanish breed," as he calls the horses, many of
which did indeed bear Spanish brands. Spanish blood con-
tinually filtered into the colonies from the West as well as
from the South. Many came at an early date from Jamaica
or down a pirate gangplank. Available data at present
seems to indicate that the American horses came almost en-
tirely from the Spanish stock of Mexico and Florida and at
an earlier date from the islands of the West Indies. Until
the nineteenth century only small numbers were imported.
;"
}
/
BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HORSES 257
258 NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL REVIEW
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Because of the very nature of the subject, the materials
covering the arrival and growth of the horse in North Amer-
ica are scattered throughout all our records of the white
man's conquest of the New World. Any such commonplace
essential as the horse usually only evoked a passing refer-
ence from the historian, although the success of the Euro-
pean in his various enterprises against the geographical
and aboriginal obstacles that arose in the Western Hemi-
sphere can be largely attributed to his horse. As an agent
of colonial expansion and European- dominance it was
probably without peer.
The horse and horsemanship of the Spaniard upon his
arrival in the New World were principally of Moorish
origination, and to understand the method and manner of
training, riding, and fighting employed by the conquista-
dores "it is necessary to examine some European sources.
Several Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese writers have de-
voted themselves to the noble equestrian art and so we have
such priceless works as Don Bernardo de Vargas Machuca's
Libro de exercicios de la gineta (Madrid, Pedro Madrigal
1500) and Gon<;alo Argote de Molina's· El libro de la mon-
teria (Sevilla, 1582). Other works, such as Josep Delgado
Hillo's Tauromaquia 6 arte de torear a caballo y a pie
(Madrid, .Imp. de Vega, 1804) and Antonio Galvani
d'Andrade's Arte cavallaria"de gineta e'esrtradiota (Lisbon,
Joam da Costa, 1678) are unexcelled for the continental
manner of horsemanship.. Another item of bibliographical
interest is Alonso Suarez' Recopilaci6n de .los mas famosos
autores griegos y Latinos que trataron de la excelencia 11
generaci6n de los cavallos (Toledo, Miguel Ferrer, 1564).
As· for references to -actual transport to America, few
are found. It is only by carefully scrutinizing such docu-
mentary sources as Martin Fernandez de Navarrette's
Colecci6n de los viajes y descubrimientos. .. (Madrid, 1825-
37, 5 vols.) and Pachecoy Cardenas' Collecci6n de docu-
mentos ineditos relativos al descubrimiento. .. (Madrid,
1864-84,42 vols.) that any references may be found.
The original historians of the conquest as a rule made
few direct references to the horses, although they must be
read to obtain the story. Francisco Lopez de Gomara's
La historia general de las Indias. .. (Antwerp, 1554) and
Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas' Historia general. ..
(Madrid 1601-15, 8 vols. in 4) and the same author's Des-
cripci6n ed las Indias ocidentales ... (Madrid, 1726) and
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes' Cr6nica de las India.~
(Salamanca, Juan de Junta, 1570) and the same author's
Historia general y natural de las Indias . .. (Madrid, 1851-
55,4 vols.) are aU basic. Certain chronicles, however, prove
the exception and do include many details concerning. the
horses. In such works as the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's
La Florida del Inca (Madrid, 1723) and the same author's
Primera parte de los commentarios reales· (Madrid, 1723),
and Augustin de Zarate's Historia deldescubrimiento y
conquista de la provincia del Peru (in Biblioteca de Autores
Espanoles, Madrid, 1826) and Felix de Azara's Apuntia-
miewtos para la historia natural de las cuadrupedos del
Paraguay y Rio de la Plata (Madrid, 1802-5,3 vols.) numer-
ous references to horses abound.
By far the most ou.tstanding work on the conquest,
especially in the eyes of a horseman, is Bernal Dias del Cas-
tillo's Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espana
(Mexico, Garcia, 1904, 2 vols.) ; Diaz, an unusual horseman
in an age of horsemen, never missed an opportunity to tell
of horses and with the possible exception of the ietters of
Cortes (best English version probably F. A. McNutt's Let-
ters of Cortes, New York, 1908, 2 vols.) showed his love of
horses and horsemanship more than any other writer of the
period. Modern writers, with two notable exceptions, have
not been very interested in the horses of the conquest. In
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham's Horses of the Con-
quest (London, 1930) is the best single account, though
Graham occasionally allows his narrative powers to stretch
!
(
i
BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN HORSES 259
260 NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL REVIEW
the story a little beyond the known factors. Gustavo
Barroso (pseud., Joao de Norte) occupies a similar position
in regard to Brazil, his books being a mine of customs, leg-
ends, horse and folk lore. The best is his Terra de Sol (Rio
de Janeiro, 1912). An unpublished master's thesis at the
University of California entitled Spanish Horses in the New
World, the first fifty years (Berkeley, 1937) collects much
of the available data, although some of the work is obviously
but a rehash of Graham.
For the advance in the trans-Mississippi West such
works as Charles Wilson Hackett's Historical documents re-
lating to N ew Mexico, Nueva Viscaya and approaches
thereto. .. (Washington, 1923-27, 3 vols.), and Alonzo de
Benavides'Memorial... (Madrid, 1630 [reimpreso, Mexico,
1899]) and Pierre Margry's Memoires et documents pour
servir a l'histoire. .. (Paris, 1879:..88) are invaluable. Hu·-
bert Howe Bancroft's Arizona and New Mexico (San Fran-
cisco, 1888) furnishes a good secondary source and Herbert
Eugene Bolton's Rim of Christendom (New York, 1936) and
Outpost of Empire (New York, 1931) are excellent.
For the Atlantic coast Genaro Garcia's Dos antiguos
relaciones de la Florida (Mexico, 1902), Herbert Eugene
Bolton's Spain's title to Georgia (Berkeley; 1925), Justin
Winsor's Narrative and critical history of America (New
York, 1889, 8 vols.) and Reuben Gold Thwaites's Jesuit re-
lations and allied documents (Cleveland, 1900, 72 vols.) are
outstanding. To really discover material on the horse before
the eighteenth century it is necessary in almost every case
to get original narratives and correspondence and piece the
story together from the many and varied locations where
they are found. When this is done completely, an interest-
ing and important link in the history of the colonization of
America will be complete.
ROBERT DEN HARDT,
Bancroft Library,
University of California.


The Beginnings of American Horses

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1143&amp;context=nmhr

The Beginnings of American Horses

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of New Mexico