THE HISTORY
The Evolutionary Lineage of the Horse
The evolutionary lineage of the horse is among the best documented in all paleontology. The history of the horse family, Equidae, began during the Eocene Epoch, which lasted from about 56 million to 34 million years ago.
During the early Eocene, there appeared the first ancestral horse, a hoofed, browsing mammal commonly called Eohippus, or the “dawn horse.” Eohippus was tiny, only around 16-20 inches tall, and was found throughout North America and Eurasia. Although Eohippus fossils occur in both North America and Eurasia, the subsequent evolution of the horse took place primarily in North America.
Equus, the genus to which all modern equines, including horses, donkeys, and zebras, belong to, evolved some 4 million to 4.5 million years ago during the Pliocene. Equus was extremely successful and spread from North to South America and to all parts of Eurasia around 2.5 million years ago. Equus flourished in its North American homeland but then, sometime about 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, they disappeared from North and South America.
The cause of this disappearance is unknown, but scholars have offered likely explanations including the emergence of novel diseases and hunting by early human populations.
Even though horses evolved in North America, they were unable to migrate back from Asia due to the submergence of the Bering Land Bridge. Horses were then domesticated sometime around 6,000 years ago in the areas of modern-day Ukraine to Kazakhstan. Horses were then reintroduced to North America by first the Spanish conquistadors and then subsequently other European colonists as well.
Photo at top: Ancient Origins Horse Diorama, Matt Shanley
The History of the Mustang
Horses and burros populated the western half of North America by the 17th century as Europeans made their way north. American settlers came to call the horses running wild in the region mustangs, derived from the Spanish term mesteño.
Most of the continent’s Indigenous peoples were thought to have secured consistent access to horses with the arrival of European colonists in the American Southwest and by the eighteenth century, however, new research reveals that horses were present in the grasslands by the early 1600s, earlier than many written histories suggest.
The timing is significant because it matches up with the oral histories of multiple Indigenous groups that recount their people had horses of Spanish descent before Europeans physically arrived in their homelands, perhaps through trading networks. At any rate, horses were fundamental to the life of many Indigenous peoples, particularly on the North American grasslands.
Horses and burros were vital to the development of the American West. Horses were used for transport, freight, and working farms while burros were used in mining operations and for hauling equipment.
By the 19th century, bands of horses roamed from California to the Mississippi River. However, by the turn of the 20th century, the American West had changed and become industrialized and modernized. Mechanized transport such as the automobile replaced horses and burros.
Unsettled rangelands were officially organized under the US government and they began limiting the number of ranchers who were allowed to graze livestock on these public lands and started to charge fees for these grazing rights. Wild horses and burros now directly competed with privately owned livestock for the same grazing resources, which mattered more now since grazing was no longer free.
At the same time, agricultural depressions following both world wars drove up the need for inexpensive meat, which wild horses provided. Further, the development of advanced vehicles and aircraft made finding and gathering wild horses much faster and significantly less dangerous than chasing them on horseback
By the 1950s, so many horses had been rounded up, it seemed to many Americans that wild horses and burros might disappear from public land all together.
Wild Horse Protection Began in Nevada
Reno native Velma Bronn Johnston, a rancher’s daughter, became aware of the ruthless and indiscriminate manner in which wild horses were being rounded up from the rangelands. She started gathering facts and evidence of these cruelties and put together presentations to all levels of society.
Velma was a commanding public speaker, she delivered her message with passionate conviction, inspiring a sense of justice and compassion for the wild horses in her listeners.
In 1952 after many fiery meetings in Virginia City, she earned her nickname, “Wild Horse Annie”. Wild Horse Annie lead a grassroots campaign, involving mostly school children, that outraged the public and ultimately got them fully engaged in the issue. Through her campaigning, in 1955 a state bill was passed that banned aircraft and land vehicles from capturing wild horses on state lands. However, this left around 86% of horses in Nevada unprotected, since they lived on federal lands, as well as the horses living in other states.
Wild Horse Annie continued her passionate campaign and in 1959, with support from Nevada’s U.S. Representative Walter S. Baring, they passed the “Wild Horse Annie Act”
This federal law prohibited the use of any form of motorized vehicle to round up horses and prohibited the poisoning of watering holes done either to capture or kill the horses. However, this bill did not include her recommendation to create a program to protect and manage America’s wild horses.
By the mid-1960s it became clear this law was not enough since wild horses and burros continued to be rounded up and shipped for slaughter.
Through her dedication, Wild Horse Annie inspired a massive letter-writing campaign, where thousands of people of all ages and economic backgrounds came to advocate for wild horses. Congress received more letters on this issue than any other issue except the Vietnam War. The result of this campaign was the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act which was unanimously passed in 1971.
This act directly states: That Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.
However, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, amended the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 to allow the use or contract for the use of helicopters and motorized vehicles to manage wild horses and burros on public lands, thus bypassing the major stipulation of the Wild Horse Annie Act.