Native Americans tell a story about how the creator, angered that they had forgotten how to live in harmony with the creatures of the land, sent down a great earthquake that opened a chasm between men and the four-legged creatures. The creatures, scared of the humans, ran into the forest, except for the dog and horse, who returned – gifts from the creator to be treated as honored guests (Hamilton, 92). Unfortunately, the horse has not held such an honored and protected position in other parts of the world. In fact, the horses described in the preceding story are likely mustangs, the descendants of only a handful of horses that survived the journey from Spain with the conquistadors who, unironically, sought to dominate Native Americans in the same fashion they had done with their horses. Despite this, and the similar treatment from European settlers in North America in the following centuries, the mustang has persisted, rewilding itself and demonstrating an untamed spirit and incomparable vigor.

The atrocities committed by the Spanish in the Americas are too many to list, with many lost to history. Though they are known for the widespread destruction and enslavement of Native American populations, animals weren’t immune from the barbarity. Even before their arrival in the New World, the Spanish were known to make their horses ‘walk the plank,’ sending a countless number of equine into the depths in order to lighten their load when they reached what would become known as the ‘Horse Latitudes’, an area within the Atlantic with decreased tradewinds (Stillman,6).

Making landfall with the Spanish, the life of the horse in the Americas wouldn’t improve much. In their time on the Caribbean islands and trekking across Central America with the Conquistadors, they were used in battle and as beasts of burden. Bernard Diaz del Castillo documented the Cortes expedition in great detail. Though he claims that the horses were well-cared-for and their wounds dressed, he also details their general treatment – aggressive use of spurs and ‘breaking-in’ techniques. Fortunately, Diaz del Castillo’s comprehensive journals also tell us in detail about the original sixteen horses to make landfall with their party in 1519, giving us a look at the lineage of the mustang dating back several centuries (Castillo, 54). Not since the extinction of the Equus, over eight-thousand years ago, had equidae roamed North America. The horse had returned home.

Castillo gives several accounts of the Aztecs’ fascination with, and fear of, horses. Over the following decades, and having subjugated many Native American tribes, the Spanish began trading with them. Expectedly, the horses were one of the items the Natives were most interested in trading for. In addition to the brood mares and stallions from the initial expedition, another 340 Spanish horses were brought over with the De Soto expedition of 1539. Over the three years of that expedition, though, only half survived (Stillman, 52). Those who remained – and their progeny – were traded to the Native Americans, who often let them live on pasture instead of being confined, as the Europeans were known to do. Additionally, several Spanish horses escaped over the years or were stolen by the Native Americans (74). This would be the reintroduction of the wild horse in North America. Essentially, the genesis of what could be considered the mustang breed.

By the time the colonies declared their independence from England, wild mustangs dominated the great plains and southwest of what would become the United States, as plentiful as the bison. Like the Spanish, French, English and other settlers had brought horses with them on their expeditions. Likewise, these animals escaped, were traded, or were stolen. The unmitigated mixing of these breeds in unsettled North America created the modern mustang. The strong and hardy animal that, due to its genetic lineage, comes in a variety of colors and with any number of markings. Event rider Elisa Wallace and geneticist Laura Patterson Rosa, DVM, did an in-depth examination of Wallace’s eight-year-old mustang and found that his primary genetic makeup consisted of European heavy horse, carriage horse, Iberian, North Sea, and thoroughbred. Compared to the genetic makeup of other modern horses, this mix is most similar to the Irish draught and Appaloosa. Though neither have as much Iberian or North Sea as the mustang, while the mustang has little European heavy horse and thoroughbred influence when compared to these nearest genetic relatives (Etalon).

Sadly, the plight of the mustang didn’t end with its spread across the continent. As settlers moved west, these wild horses were a ready source of food for starving travelers and their dogs. Having been respected as gifts from the creator, the Native Americans hadn’t hunted horses en masse. The Europeans were different. Along with the plains bison, many of the over two-million estimated horses were wiped out in the name of Manifest Destiny (Philipps, 80).

With the Transcontinental Railroad came the industrialization of America and the exploitation of any available resource in the name of capitalism. Any type of animal could be considered a resource, including horses and people! No longer valuable as draft animals with the advent of mechanized farming and the automobile, horses were a depreciating commodity in the less agrarian United States of the early twentieth century. The price of a mustang had fallen to as low as $1.50 by the 1920s. This, however, wouldn’t stop industry from finding a way to make use of them. By 1923, a struggling beef plant in Rockford, Illinois, converted their operation away from cattle and began using horse meat to make dog food and fertilizer. Wild mustangs could be rounded up for next-to-nothing on the plains and shipped by rail to Rockford, where they’d create a huge profit margin for any company unscrupulous enough to partake. Many other factories soon followed suit, springing up along the rail lines throughout the plains (83-87, 102).

It wasn’t long before horsemeat was deemed a suitable substitute in the human diet and these plants increased production – even attempting to introduce draft horses into the wild population to increase the size of the mustangs. The larger domestic stallions, however, were chased off by the wild mustangs. It also wasn’t long before people began to oppose the use of horses as foodstuff. In fact, only two years after the opening of the first Chappel Brothers horse plant in Rockford, Frank Litts attempted to blow the factory up. It was assumed, given the labor climate in the US at the time, that he’d done so in solidarity with the workers. Upon his arrest, Litts admitted that he’d done so to stop the wholesale decimation of the mustangs. He even confessed to getting a job at the factory to investigate for himself, but quit almost immediately upon seeing the horrors inside. Litts’ attack and his subsequent publicized trial was a platform for early animal rights, an idea that was almost unheard of in the nineteen-twenties. Consequently, Litts was found criminally insane at trial and sent to an asylum where he later escaped and returned to Rockford. He was arrested before he could receive the 150 pounds of dynamite he had ordered (111-118).

Although the American public generally denounced the eating of horse meat by the end of the Great Depression, wild mustangs were still rounded up and processed into dog food for another fifty years. Not until The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was it made illegal for mustangs to be caught from public lands or sold for ‘destruction’ (United States Congress, Public Law 92-195). The thus-established Bureau of Land Management does maintain the population of the remaining wild mustang. Often, animals will be rounded up and rehomed. Even as technology has advanced, the mustang persists in its bid for freedom. Modern-day roundups include the use of helicopters and long-range rifles – yet many wild mustangs still evade capture.

The indelible spirit of the mustang, their continued existence from their days of being jettisoned from Spanish ships through their time as the primary ingredient in canned dog food, persists. They’ve come to represent strength, speed and liberty; look to the Ford Mustang as an example. Our own duality is wrapped up somewhere in our history with this animal. While it has been a patient and loyal companion, people have viewed these horses as a tool and a resource. Is it possible, though, with the rewilding of the mustang, we can see in ourselves a desire to be one again with the four-legged creatures? To live in harmony with the land? To be free?

Works Cited

Díaz del Castillo Bernal and John Ingram Lockhart. The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz Del Castillo Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. J. Hatchard and Son 1844. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32474/32474-h/32474-h.htm.

Etalon Diagnostics. Genetic Deep Dive: Can Eton the Mustang be a Friesian? The American Mustang’s Ancestry & Composition. 20 May, 2021. https://www.etalondx.com/post/genetic-deep-dive-eton-and-the-american-mustang.

Hamilton, Allan. Zen Mind, Zen Horse: The Science and Spirituality of Working with Horses. Storey, 2011.

Phillips, David. Wild Horse Country. W.W. Norton & Co, 2017.

Stillman, Deanne. Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008.

United States, Congress. Public Law 92-195. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. Bureau of Land Management, 2006. https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/programs_wildhorse_history_doc1.pdf.