Mustangs In History

The earliest mustangs

The first mustangs descended from Spanish horses brought to Mexico in the 1500s by the Conquistadors. Most of these horses were of Andalusian, Arabian and Barb ancestry. Some of these horses escaped or were stolen by Native Americans, and rapidly spread throughout western North America. There is some evidence that tribes may have posessed prehistoric myths about horses and many Indian people claimed, long before verified by modern science, that "the grass remembered" horses.

Native Americans quickly adopted the horse as a primary means of transportation. It replaced the dog as a travois puller and greatly improved success in battles, trade, and hunts, particularly buffalo hunts. Many tribes bred their horses carefully to improve them for their purposes. Among the most capable horse-breeding people of North America were the Comanche and the Shoshoni. The Nez Perce in particular became master horse breeders, and developed one of the first truly American breeds: the Appaloosa.

Mustangs in the 19th century

Starting in the colonial era and continuing with the westward expansion of the 1800s, horses belonging to explorers, traders and settlers that escaped or were purposely released joined the gene pool of Spanish-descended herds. It was also common practice for western ranchers to release their horses to forage for themselves in the winter and then recapture them, or other mustangs, in the spring. Some ranchers also attempted to--arguably--"improve" some wild herds by shooting the dominant stallions and replacing them with pedigreed animals, including Thoroughbreds. In some cases, this helped avoid inbreeding, especially in areas where the herds could become genetically isolated during periods of drought. In other places, especially when the domesticated stallions introduced were of breeds unsuited for prairie survival, such as draft or other heavy work horse breeds, it was a disaster that led to a reduced population and a decrease in quality of the animals that managed to survive.

Mustangs in the 20th/21st centuries

By 1900 North America had an estimated two million free-roaming horses. Mustangs were viewed as a resource that could be captured and used or sold (especially for military use) or slaughtered for food, especially pet food. The controversial practice of mustanging was dramatized in the John Huston film The Misfits, and abuses, including hunting from airplanes and poisoning, led to the first federal wild free-roaming horse protection law in 1959. Protection was increased further by the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Protection Act of 1971. Congress recognized wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West that contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.”

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