Indian history in Mustang

The history of the West to 1900 takes up six of nine chapters in Deanne Stillman's new book, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West. It's fair to say the book is about cowboys and Indians as well as horses.

Here are a few excerpts from Mustang to give you a flavor of Stillman's writing. First, on Custer before Little Bighorn:On June 16, the Seventh began to encounter with some would later view as portents. They passed an Indian burial ground—an orchard of corpses on scaffolds in trees, including the body of an infant whose face was painted red. Three days later, when the Tongue and Yellowstone rivers join, the Dakota column spent the night at an abandoned Indian camp. The driftwood pony shelters were still there, and the troops used the wood for fires. Again, there was an airborne cemetery, and some of Custer's men stole beaded trinkets from the bodies in the cottonwoods and as the Seventh resumed its march the following day, they brandished the souvenirs from their saddles, not just whistling past the graveyard but taunting the dead to come and get them.On Buffalo Bill's trip to Europe:As Buffalo Bill sailed into port in 1887, Spain was about to lose Mexico to the United States, the West had been fenced in, and the Indian was not just vanishing but nearly purged from his homeland. The children of England had accomplished much since the Boston Tea Party, and now on board the State of Nebraska, they were met by a tug flying American colors. The passengers cheered in the cowboy band struck up "Yankee Doodle." Cody recorded the moment in his memoir:

A certain feeling of pride came over me when I thought of the good ship on whose deck I stood, and that her cargo consisted of the early pioneers and rude, rough riders from that section, and of the wild horses of the same district, buffalo, deer, elk and antelope—the king game of the prairie—together with over 100 representatives of that savage foe that had been compelled to submit to a conquering civilization and were now accompanying me in friendship, loyalty and peace, five thousand miles from their homes, braving the dangers of the to them great unknown sea, now no longer a tradition, but a reality—all of us combined in an exhibition intended to prove to the center of old world civilization that the vast region of the United States was finally and effectively settled by the English-speaking race.On actor William S. Hart and his 1925 Western Tumbleweeds:Critics loved the movie but it did not do well at the box office. Yet Hart was still popular enough to win an invitation to the Little Bighorn battlefield for the fiftieth-anniversary commemorations in 1926. For a famous movie cowboy to speak at the memorial was no small thing; three movies about Custer had already been made, and a "renegade" Indian named Willie Boy had recently been gunned down by a white posse in the Mojave Desert and was billed as the last "wild Indian." At the commemorations, Hart spoke of old warriors in full regalia, "the volleys fired over the graves of the dead, the soft sound of 'Taps' echoed back by the hills like a benediction, the low, weird death song of the Indian women." When he returned to Hollywood, a lifelong fascination with Indians became a defense of Crazy Horse. "Crazy Horse was a very plain man," Hart said, "simple in all his habits, and a great statesmen, and always looking out for the Indians."Comment:  Except for the overlong sentence in the Custer excerpt, not bad. Rob says: Check it out. (I'll let you know what I think of it when I get around to reading it.)

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.

Horse sense in Mustang

Indians and horses have had a storied history together ever since the time of Columbus. Author Deanne Stillman has written about this history in her new book, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West.

Stillman was kind enough to send me a review copy of the book for my inspection. Therefore, here are some quotes from her press materials on the history of horses in the West.55,000,000-4,000 years ago:  The horse evolves on the North American continent, primarily in the West, adapting to shifting geography and climate. Some lines go extinct. Others cross the Bering land bridge, repeating the pattern of extinction and survival around the world. At the end of this period, Equus caballus—or simply Equus—appears. This is the fleet, big-hearted athlete of the plains, the direct ancestor of the modern wild horse.

12,000 years ago, the Ice Age:  Equus goes extinct on this continent, but not before crossing the Bering land bridge like its forebears and populating Eurasia and elsewhere.

1493:  The second voyage of Columbus brings horses to Cuba and sets up a staging ground for the conquest. This first wave of horses is soon joined by others sent from Spain. Cuba becomes the first horse-breeding center in the New World.

1519:  Fernando Cortés leaves Cuba for Mexico with 16 horses. One of them foals during the voyage. The 16 horses of the conquest launched the Spanish entrada into Mexico. As the war against the Aztecs unfolds, the original horses perish, but replenishments arrived. Two years later, Cortés says, "We owe it all to God, and the horse."

1598:  Juan de Oñate enters into Mexico with 1,500 horses and mules.

1680:  Pueblo Indians revolt in Santa Fe, capturing 3,000 horses; the horse makes its way to other tribes.

1687:  A descendant of Carvajal’s, Alonzo de León of Nuevo León, brings hundreds of horses and mules from his ranch into Texas, supplying the burgeoning mission system with animals. Soon the missions are plundered, and the horse moves onto the deserts and plains, joining the horses taken in the 1680 revolt.

1700s:  There are so many wild horses in Texas that maps mark certain areas as "Vast Herds of Wild Horses," or simply "Wild Horses." The Lakota Indians enter the heart of the Great Plains and their horse culture begins to flourish.

1840:  The Ute leader Wakara mounts the greatest horse raid of all time, sacking several Los Angeles missions over a period of days with the help of multinational gangs, making off with thousands of horses. Around the same time, Crazy Horse is born on the Great Plains, although he has not yet been given that fateful name.

1868:  Custer lays waste to Black Kettle’s band of Cheyenne on the Washita River in Oklahoma. After most of the men are killed, he orders the massacre of the tribe’s 800 ponies.

1876:  Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne destroy Custer and his Seventh Cavalry gray horse unit. More horses than soldiers perish. Later, a badly wounded horse is found wandering the field. He is nursed back to health and becomes famous as the Army mustang named Comanche.

1887:  Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show travel to England for a command performance for Queen Victoria. Among the cast are Annie Oakley; Buck Taylor, the King of the Cowboys; nearly 100 Lakota men, women, and children, including Black Elk; and 200 horses, 18 buffalo, and various other animals. The trip inspires ongoing British and European fascination with the West.

1889:  Sitting Bull drops out of the Wild West show. According to an apocryphal story, Buffalo Bill gives him the white horse he rode for a farewell gift. Later, when Sitting Bull is killed in the battle outside his cabin, his horse dances until the shooting has ended.

1894-1926:  The age of silent movies, many of which are Westerns. Mustangs become America's first movie stars, and the most famous couple in cinema history—the cowboy and his horse—becomes a permanent part of the cultural landscape.

1902:  Scores of horses from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show die in a train accident while traveling through North Carolina. Annie Oakley is injured. The wreck signals the end of an era.Comment:  I've quoted Stillman in America's Cultural Mindset, so you know she must be okay.

P.S. Smart authors send me free books if they want to get mentioned in Newspaper Rock.