HISTORY 



OF THE AMERICAN HORSE. 



At a very remote period in the history of America, this most 

 vahiable of all the animals subject to man, began to be imported 

 from Europe by the earliest settlers, it being conceded that, al- 

 though the horse had at some former time existed on this con- 

 tinent, as is proved by his fossil remains, he had become extinct 

 previous to its colonization by the white nations. 



It is generally believed that the horses, which are found in 

 a feral state over the pampas of South and the prairies of North 

 America, so far east as to the Mississippi, are the progeny of 

 the parents released by the Spaniards at the abandonment of 

 Buenos Ayres ; but it seems to me that this date is too recent 

 to be compatible with the vast numerical increase, and the 

 great hordes of these animals now existing in a state of nature ; 

 and I should be inclined to ascribe their origin to animals es- 

 caped, or voluntarily liberated, in the earlier expeditions and 

 wars of the Spanish invaders, the cavalry of that nation con- 

 sisting entirely of j^erfect horses, or mares. 



It must have been the case, in the bloody wars of Mexico 

 and Peru, where the battles more than once went disastrously 

 for the Spaniards, that war-horses, their riders being slain, would 

 recover their freedom, and jDropagate their sj)ecies rapidly, in the 

 wide, luxuriant and well-watered plains, where the abundance 

 of food, the genial climate, and the absence of beasts of prey 

 capable of coping with so powerful an animal as the horse, 

 would favor their rapid increase. 



We know that De Soto had a heavy force of cavalry in that 



