How Did The Native Americans Get Horses?

It would be hard to imagine the most famous Native American tribes, the Sioux or Lakota, Cheyenne, Comanche and famous battles like Little Bighorn and the Adobe Walls without the spirited mustang horses they rode. In terms of how long people have inhabited the Americas however, horses are a very recent addition to their cultures, only being introduced by the Spanish expeditions into North America in the 17th Century. With the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680 whole herds escaped onto the Great Plains and the secret weapon of the Spaniards had been exposed to the Native tribes that lived in its vicinity. Even before this the Apache, Geronimo's ancestors, had been raiding the Pueblo settlements under Spanish protection and had acquired horses for themselves, becoming the first mounted tribe in America's history. Soon more would follow. Most famous of these were the Comanche, Quannah Parker's ancestors, who by all accounts were the most skilled riders as documented by the accounts of the artist George Catlin. By the 18th Century horses had been traded and raided right the way into the northern reaches of the Great Plains in what's now Canada among the Blackfeet Nations who referred to them as "big dogs" and later "elk dogs" as they'd never before encountered such creatures until their Shoshone enemies used them in battle against them.

Further Reading:

Empire of the Summer Moon - S. C. Gwynne
(This is the book I'm reading at the moment and is a great introduction ot the history of the Comanche tribe of the Southern Plains. An account is also given of how the Apaches first obtained and learned to use horses and then how the Comanches did.I would highly recommend this even if you're not well versed in Native American History.)

Comanches: The History of a People - T. R. Fehrenbach
(This is a far more in depth study of the Comanche and more broadly other tribes and trends that affected them with detailed sections on interactions with both the Spanish and their horses and enemy tribes that had French backing.)

Blackfeet: Raiders of the Northwestern Plains - J. C. Ewers
(This covers the Blackfeet Tribe who hailed from Wyoming and Montana into Alberta in modern-day Canada. It covers the early interaction with horses and the enemy tribes that came in from the East as well.)

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Music Used:
Ride of the Valkyries - Richard Wagner
Lost Frontier - Kevin MacLeod
River Fire - Kevin MacLeod
Teller of Tales - Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

#History #USHistory #NativeAmerican

[historywithhilbert]

Thanks for stopping by and watching this one on how Native Americans acquired horses; if you enjoyed it please let me know with a cheeky thumbs up, and if there's anything you'd like to know or want to add please feel free to do so in the comments below! New uploads every Wednesday and Saturday so stay tuned for more!

If you want more about Native Americans check out my video on Dances With Wolves:

[ferrjuan]

The horse was such a game changer for Native American Tribes and no other mastered the horse as well as the Comanche that is why they were “The Lords of the Southern Plains.”

[bradn]

Well done, Hilbert! As an U.S. archaeologist specializing on Northern Plains prehistory, your overview was pretty spot on. Some of the most exciting sites I've worked on have been Protohistoric camps with metal arrowheads, trade beads, and other Euroamerican objects mixed with traditional camp features, stone tools, and the like. I swear sometimes that I can still smell the burning cottonwood in some of those old buried firehearths. If you're ever out this way again, do visit the reservations, just even to enjoy their love of horses. A very famous US. horse breed developed by the Nez Perce is the beautiful Appaloosa.

[thomasmarren]

The Oijibwe tribe of Northern Wisconsin where I live drove the the Sioux tribe out of Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota with guns the Oijibwe got though the fur trade with the French. The Oijibwe had more guns than any other Native tribe at that time and even European settlers. I also used to live in the Four Corners region of New Mexico in Farmington for a time where I learned about Navajo culture as well. The name Anasizi means something like ancient enemy or ancestor of my enemy because the Navajo were at war with the Pueblo tribe who in turn named the the Navajo which means head basher in Pueblo. The Navajo call themselves Dene. I have seen Pueblo sites at Mesa Verde in Colorado and at Aztec a town in New Mexico between Farmington, NM and the mountain town of Durango, Colorado.

[CptPandy-tjty]

I'm a Comanche native and it's always nice to see videos on my culture as I'm a city boy in Dallas I don't really have much actual traditions that I practice but I'm very much interested in old history

[rockthered]

Do more about native North Americans. They dont get enough coverage on YouTube from the history community

[elipadgett]

In Nitsitapoisin the language of the Nitsitapiiks (Blackfoot) we call horses Ponokamita which literally translates to "Elk-Dog". Combining the words Ponoka "Bō-nō-kah" (elk), and Imiita "ēmē-tah" (dog).

[Dionaea_floridensis]

The history of the Seminoles is really interesting, I think you'd like it

[TheSoulCollector]

Florence and the Machine has a song called Dog Days. There's a line that was going through my head,
"The Dog days are over, the dog days are done, the horses are coming, so you better run"

[plutochan]

I hadn't learnt much about native Americans and how they acquired horses, so this was really interesting :)

An interesting related tidbit. Wild horses are considered invasive species as a result of them being introduced to the Americas but are left alone despite debates on their continued presence in a lot of parks and reserves in the Southwest and Midwest.

[canecorsomolosser]

We should be proud that dogs and horses has helped us for centuries, just unbelievable how much they gave us🙏 and don't ask anything back, just love, respect and playing 😊

[ronnietodd]

Camanche, Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, Crow, Arapahoe, Piegan Blackfeet and Kiowa. The best Horseman on the Great Plains, in that order!!!

[conanmcdonagh]

I love your videos about Native American culture & history! Please make more of them. It's of particular interest to me as I am partly Apache.

[HighFlyer]

I'm married to a Navajo. She has no interest in teaching the kids about their ancestral culture, so I try to learn as much as I can.

Aside from a few minor differences in what I've learned you did an excellent job. I'm not sure whether being an outsider helped or hindered that.

[Nygaard]

Try the “Commanche Empire” by Pekka Hamaleinen, it’s a great look at the plains as a center of a civilization and not the edge of one.

[tonalddrump]

Ever just wake up and wonder, “How did native Americans get horses?”

[dylanmcnab]

Fun fact: since horses replaced the role of dogs for dragging supplies for nomadic tribes like the Cree they were "Big dogs" atim (a-tim) means dog, and misatim (mis-a-tim) means big dog/horse.

[larson]

The Apache depicted in stagecoach were circa 1880, they definitely had horses

[cryhavoc]

Legend has it that Geronimo wanted to marry the most beautiful girl in the tribe. But her father despised Geronimo, so he set the price at 100 horses, knowing there was no way the marriage would happen. Several weeks later, the thunder of hoofbeats was heard, before Geronimo came into camp at the head of a herd of horses. He had stolen them from the Mexicans. deal is a deal. The father had no choice.