Horse Raising in Colonial New England 903 



the reasons given, the numbers exported soon exceeded those from the 

 Eng'lish ports. Concerning the beginning of this trade AVinthrop writes 

 in 1647: '' It pleased the Lord to open to ns a trade with Barbados 

 and the other islands . . . which as it proved gainful, so the 

 commodities which we had in exchange for our cattle and provisions, 

 as sugar, cotton, tobacco, and indico were a good help to discharge our 

 engagements with England " (75). 



As to whether there were aiiy horses among these " cattle " which 

 Winthrop states were being sent to the West Indies, there is no evi- 

 dence. The record of such exports is, in fact, much like that of the 

 early imports into the country, and specific mention of such ship- 

 ments is not frequent, even though more general statements, such as 

 those to be found in the reports to the Board of Trade in London, 

 indicate that they were taking place. In 1648 Winthrop notes in his 

 journal the presence of a ship " lying before Charlestown with eighty 

 horses on board bound for Barbadoes " (76), and this is probably the 

 first recorded exportation of horses from New England to the West 

 Indies. Wallace states (77) that there was a shipment of eighty head 

 in 1640, but he does not give the source of his information and it is 

 more than probable that it is this exportation of 1648 to which he refers, 

 inasmuch as the demand for horses had hardly begun in Barbados as 

 early as 1640. 



The exportation of horses from New England in 1648 or before was 

 evidently not limited to this one cargo, however, for a writer who styles 

 himself Beauchamp Plantagenet, describing a visit to Barbados in that 

 year, states that '' New England sendeth horses and Virginia oxen *' 

 to turn the sugar mills in the island (78). In 1649 the Massachusetts 

 Bay court passed an act forbidding the exportation of mares and plac- 

 ing a tax of sixpence on every gelding sent out of the country (79). 

 This was obviously an effort in the main to protect the breeding stock 

 of the area, and Massachusetts Bay urged that similar prohibitions be 

 adopted by all the United Colonies of New England. The colony at 

 New Haven was. the only one to act on the recommendation (80), and 

 in Plymouth and Rhode Island there continued to be no restriction on 

 such shipments. That such a law was found desirable in Massachusetts 

 was due partly to military considerations, but the fact serves also as 



