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Descended from the mounts of the Conquistadors,
shaped by a vanishing frontier, wild horses have
been renegades for centuries, becoming romantic
symbols of freedom.
The name "Mustang" comes
from the Spanish word, mesteno, meaning
"stray or ownerless" horse. This term aptly
describes all wild horses in the United States.
The Pueblo Indians learned to ride and passed
this skill on to other Indians. In 1680, the
Indians revolted against the Spanish rule and the
Spaniards left thousands of horses behind in their
hasty retreat. The Indians could have rounded up
these horses, but chose to let them run wild. It
was much easier to raid the Spanish settlements
and steal horses. In an effort to stop the Indian
raids, the Spanish government shipped a steady
flow of mounts to the New World. It was hoped that
the Indians would catch the "wild" horses and
leave the Spaniards alone.
Tens of thousands of the Spanish-bred horses
were herded to the Rio Grande and turned loose in
a 200-year period. These horses soon met up with
draft horses and cowboy ponies that escaped from
the ranchers and farmers arriving from the East.
Their numbers exceeded two million by the year
1900.
Ranchers took to killing
these horses to protect the range-land for their
cattle. Fewer than 17,000 horses remained by the
year 1970. Stating that Mustangs were "living
symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the
West," Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse
and Burro Act in 1971. An estimated 41,000
Mustangs roam public range today, but few if any
have much original Spanish blood.
Information
supplied by the North American Mustang Association
and Registry
and the Bureau of Land Management
Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas in the
early 1500s, bringing with them both domesticated
horses and cattle to help them conquer the vast
new world.
The journey over the seas was often a grueling
one for man and beast alike. When a ship anchored off the coast of the New
World, the horses that survived the voyage were
brought out of their stalls in the ship's hold. In
order to prevent the horses from panicking, they
were blindfolded and carefully raised from below
deck by hoists attached to slings surrounding the
horses' bodies. In these early days before wharves
were built, the horses were lowered into the water
and made to swim ashore, led by men in row boats.
The horse would become a central factor in the
settlement of the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish
also brought cattle that became the foundation
stock for the great cattle industry that was to
develop extensively during the 19th
century. Once the conquistadors destroyed the
Aztecs and other Indian peoples, many Spanish
horses escaped or were turned loose and became
feral or wild. The Spanish horses, which we now
describe as Andalusians, were from the finest
strains and were regarded as the foremost breed in
Europe. They formed the nucleus of the great herds
of wild horses that spread upward from Mexico into
the United States and the western plains country.
The North American Indians' astonishment at these
"horse-men" contributed to their submission to the
conquistadors. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who
accompanied Cortes in his 1519 incursion into
Mexico, wrote "The natives had never seen horses
up to this time and thought the horse and rider
were all one animal. " But over time, the Mexican
Indians became the original cowboys. Enslaved by
Spanish conquerors who put them to work tending
herds on their vast rancheros, the Indians became
highly skilled horseman, developing a close
bond with this magnificent creature and the
beginning America's long romance with wild horses
In
1541, Viceroy Mendoza put allied Aztec chieftains
on horses to better lead their tribesmen in the
Mixton War of Central Mexico. This appears to have
been the first time that horses were officially
given to the Indians. Indians were seen to rub
themselves with horse sweat, so that they might
acquire the magic of the "big dog."
But the early relationship between Native
Americans and horses was not always mutually
beneficial. Indians, especially the Apaches,
acquired a taste for roasted horse meat. After
1680, the Pueblo Indians forced the Spanish out of
New Mexico. Many horses were left behind. The
Pueblo learned to ride well but didn't live by the
horse. They mainly valued the horse as food and as
an item to trade with the Plains Indians for
jerked buffalo meat and robes. Horses and
horsemanship gradually spread from tribe to tribe
until the Plains Indians became the great mounted
buffalo hunters of the American West.
Plains Indian Horsemen
The alliance of the American Indians and the
Spanish horse gave the Indians great mobility and
changed their way of life. Tribes of horses were
dominant over other tribes who relied on moving
camp on foot. The plains Indians were great
mounted buffalo hunters. They traded meat and
buffalo hides for glass beads, metal tools, cloth
and guns.
In many tribes, horses were the measure of wealth.
So, horses were often the cause, as well as the
means of waging war between alien tribes. The
Indians' own pictographs often featured their most
prized possession and companion - the horse
The Comanche became legendary horsemen,
terrorizing their enemies, frightening away
settlers, keeping the plains open and wild. By the
late 1800's more than a million mustangs roamed
the Texas frontier. So many mustangs that early
maps of the region labeled the plains with just
two words -- "Wild Horses."
By the end of the 19th century civilization had
pushed the wild horse herds into the most desolate
and rugged regions of the west. The Nevada desert
became the true home of the wild horse.
Interbreeding with the horses of ranchers, miners,
and pioneers, wild horses belonged to no one and
everyone.
In frontier days ranchers respected mustangs for
their speed and their stamina. They captured the
finest stallions and mares to breed with their
domestic stock. But by the 1920s, tractors began
replacing horses on American farms. No longer a
resource, the wild horse became a pest and a
nuisance of use to no one. In the 1930s the U.S.
Government authorized the removal of wild horses
from the public range. Wild horses were killed in
large numbers.
Once two million mustangs roamed the American
west. Soon there would be fewer than 17,000. Dawn
Lappin laments the results,
"So they'd be gathered up and sent to slaughter
and, of course, it made a lot of money. At the
time the hanging weight of horses was somewhere
around 10 cents a pound but if you gathered 2 or
300 horses at a time and took them to slaughter
you could make yourself a tidy bit of change."
Few people knew or cared about the slaughter. But
that was about to change with the crusade of a
rancher's wife named Velma Johnston, whose father
had taught her to love horses. In her later life
the sight of reinforced corrals where horses were
brutally treated saddened her eyes and aroused her
anger. Her enemies derisively gave her a name she
now proudly bears, "Wild Horse Annie."

In the 1950s America finally woke up to humane
treatment of these animals thanks in part to "Wild
Horse Annie," who took their cause to those who
could make a difference. The mustangers long
running brutality and disregard for humane
treatment of the wild horses propelled a movement
to protect the remaining wild horses. Annie
changed national policy through inspiring a
grassroots campaign.
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