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Frio Point 200 B.C. to 600A.D.
Mountain
Man
North West
Token
Beaver Pelt
Bead Work
Grey Owl
Backrest
Wampum
Cooking Pot
Horn Spoon
North West
Coat of Arms
Stone Hammer
Seed Beads
Plainview Atlatl Point
8150-8010 B.C.
There
are thirty-three historical articles on this site. The articles cover
Pre-historic Indians, Anasazi and Fremont Indians, Lewis and Clark, David
Thompson, Mountain Men, Plains Indians Horses, Smallpox, and Alcohol, Oregon and
Mormon Trail, Martin Willey Handcart Companies, Western Expansion and Manifest
Destiny to the Oregon Country and California, Forest Fires. All of the articles
contain Pictures, Maps, and based on Historical Facts.
Comments, Questions, or Suggestions
Spanish Colonial Horse and the Plains Indian Culture
by
O. Ned Eddins
Early Indian ethnologists
believed the feral Spanish mustangs that roamed the Plains descended from Spanish
horses lost by
Cortez, and that the Plains Indian horses came from these wild Spanish 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
What become the Plains Indian horses were brought to North America by Spanish Conquistadors in the sixteenth century. The original horses from Spain were relatively unselected as to type and conformation. These Spanish horses carried the blood of Spanish Barbs, Arabians, Lipizzaners, and some other European breeds. The horses brought here are now referred to by a variety of names: Spanish Barb, Spanish Mustang, Spanish Colonial Horses (Sponenberg). The Spanish Colonial horses exhibited a wide variety of characteristics in terms of color, size, and conformation. The Spanish horses acquired by the Plains Indians 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 - Nokota Horse
War Chief displays the typical conformation of the Plains Indians Spanish mustang. Dr. Castle McLaughlin, a cultural anthropologist and professor at Harvard University, conducted a study of the Nokota horses between 1987 and 1990. Her report concluded that the Nokota horses are descendants of those that have roamed the badlands of North Dakota at least since the 1880s. It is believed these horses are direct descendent of horses used by Sitting Bull and the Sioux Indians. The photo of War Chief was taken by Dr. McLaughlin. The Nokota Horse 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
Francis Haines states that by the early seventeen hundreds all the tribes south of the Platte had some familiarity with 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 Sioux of upper Missouri, but two years later the Yankton Sioux had horses.
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. By the end of the seventeen hundreds, the Indian horse had reached most of the Rocky Mountains and Plains Indians.
An extensive Indian trade network existed between the Indian tribes decades before explorers and fur traders reached the Missouri River villages. 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. From the trade fairs held at the Missouri River villages horses spread to the Cree and Assiniboine in Canada.
Horses were the one trade item that did not make the Indians dependant on 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. 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.
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 brought about a dramatic change in the Indian Culture, but horses did not materially change the Indians hunter-gather 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 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 another tribes women, or taking prisoners to be used as or sold as slaves, were applied to the taking of horses.
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 buffalo was for members of the village to try and surround a herd and drive it into a corral (Piskun), or run the herd off a cliff. At first, the horse was used to drive the buffalo in the same manner as they had done on foot.. 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.
The prized possession among warriors was the buffalo horse. A buffalo horse was trained to run beside the buffalo during a hunt. Without these specially trained horses, it was hard for warriors to provide enough meat for an entire village. The highly valued buffalo horses were kept inside the lodge at night or picketed nearby. For many tribes the highest war honor was to take a picketed buffalo horse from an enemy village.
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.
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, "The Man Who Listens to Horses", or the painter George Catlin, as your reference. Monty Roberts is currently being sued for staged demonstrations and untruthful statements http://citizensforjustice.org/monty/.
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.
The Indian Horse article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, 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
Reader Response:
This is an excellent post. I am sorry that the writer did not leave his or her
name.
"You state on your site that 'Horses were adapted to fit the Indian lifestyle; they did not change it.
It's hard to imagine just how much the horse changed Indian life. The horse increased tribal mobility, enlarged hunting ranges, provided competitive advantage with other tribes without the horse, etc., etc. Of course, the horse was enlisted to perform tasks that were once accomplished by humans and by other animals (e.g. dogs), but the horse literally changed the relationship the Indian had with the local (and perhaps regional) environment. The relationship with the U.S. military was greatly affected by the introduction of the horse to tribes (and their mastery of their military uses). Some tribes self identity was altered to revolve around the horse. Personal prestige and honor went to those who controlled large numbers of horses - this was but one major cultural change for many tribes.
One could go on and on listing the actual and probable changes to Indian culture and life brought by the introduction of the horse. In short, the introduction of the horse was the introduction of a major technological change for Indian tribes - a technological change that altered the human-ecological equation over a vast portion of the North American continent."
Reply: This is a question of semantics, not disagreement. As is so well stated above, there is absolutely no question that the horse altered the Indian culture in every respect, but the Plains Indian lifestyle was still that of a hunter-gatherer. The Indians lifestyle changed when they were forced to give up their hunting grounds and live on reservations. It is ironic that once on reservations, the horses that had served the Indians so well had to be replaced with ones big enough to pull a plow.
Ken Weidner - Kansas
I am in complete agreement with most of what you write here, except one topic. I whole heartedly agree that the Plains Indians ORIGINALLY got the horse from trade and not by catching wild stock. However, after they were familiar with the horse, there were many men that caught wild horses. This is documented in many sources, I don't have time right now, but I can find references, such as Grinnell, George Bent, etc....
I mainly study Southern Cheyenne so that is what I mainly read about. In fact one band of the Southern Cheyenne was known as the Hairy rope band, from the ropes they made of buffalo hair. They were supposed to be very good for riding with, and I'm going from memory here, but I believe for catching horses also. I may be wrong on this point though. There is one story of Cheyenne horse catchers in Eastern Colorado that ran into Kiowa or Comanche horse raiders that had just stolen Horses from the Cheyenne camps farther North. The Cheyenne re-stole their own horses. But originally they were out catching wild horses.
They usually caught the wild horses in Spring after winter when the mustangs were in poor condition and when they were pregnant. Usually they ran them in relays so that they would wear the mustang down. After catching them they would tie them to a gentle mares' tail and take them home. Now I do have trouble accepting the thought that the mustangs were gentled in a few days. I've messed with enough horses to know that is hard to believe.
Reply: Ken's point is well taken. I am sure by the mid-eighteen hundreds some tribes were chasing wild horses. A good many of these horses probably become "wild" after the owners died in the smallpox outbreaks that decimated several upper Missouri River tribes.
Florida Cracker Horses are the descendents of horses brought here by Ponce de Leon in 1521. These horses have been restricted to a relatively small geographical area making them as pure in bloodline, if not more so, than any of the other descendents of early Spanish horses. The name comes from the loud crack of whips used by riders while herding and penning cattle. Cracker horses have been known by a variety of names: Chicksaw Pony, Seminole Pony, March Tackie, Priare Pony, Grass Gut.
Robert Millus
In response to Robert Jones on the Florida Cracker, the Seminole Ponies could have had several different originations or even different mixes of that period. For example, Ponce de Leon, Panifillo Narveaz, Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, and of course Hernando de Soto who brought the largest invasion force with him not to be surpassed until way after Jamestown, Virginia. My bet would lay with Panfillo Narveaz and his failed expedition into La Florida. Just thought you'd like to know. But, of course the Florida Crackers could have come from any number of wrecked ships or attempts at colonization. Jean Ribualt for one. Remember that most of all the ships whether English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese usually had or originated from either Spain or Portugal or at least had crew or navigator from the same.
Delor Wheeler - Teacher in Training
Recently I had the privilege to go to the Kentucky Horse Park Museum in Lexington, Kentucky...they have an excellent computer interactive program for finding out about the wild mustangs...I highly recommend it as a follow-up to this great site.
Roger Baker - Idaho
I have worked with a number of Spanish horses of over the years. In 1997 I used a Stallion (POCO) from the Wilbur Cruce herd of Spanish Colonial horse to breed back with Peruvian Paso, Morgan, and Kentucky Mountain mares. The resulting foals were amazing when compared to any other horses I've raised. They were all born with fully exposed upper front teeth, at 3 days old they ate green grass, and at 5 -6 days they began passing little green horse stools. They were very alert, trusting, and very easy to train. Today, every horse resulting from that crossing has become the best riding horses I've ever raised. If you want a trusting, easy to train family horse, I recommend a Wilbur Cruce Spanish Colonial.
Echoes of Time is an oil painting by wildlife artist Lorna Hester Hawkins of Afton, Wyoming.
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References:
Dobie, J. Frank. The Mustang, Castle Books. Edison, New Jersey. 1934.
Ewers, John C. The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture: With Comparative Material
from Other Western Tribes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. 1985.
Haines, Francis. The Plains Indians. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 1976.
Hyde, George E. Indians of the High Plains.
University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma. 1986.
Jablow, Joseph. The Cheyenne in Plains Indian Trade Relations 1795-1840.
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska. 1994.
Roe, Frank G. The Indian and the Horse. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma
Press. 1968.
P. Jean Nelson. The Plains Cree and the
Horse, Journal of Indigenous Thought. Regina: SIFC-Department of Indian
Studies (1998).
Internet Sites:
D. Phillip Sponenberg Spanish Mustangs from Conquistador Magazine.
www.conquistador.com/mustang.html.
Rachel
Berry Cayuse Indian Pony.
www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/Horses.htm
Przewalski horse
www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/Horses.htm