The Modern History of the Horse in America
Many people today believe that the horse was indigenous to the Americas but died out at the end of the last ice age. The source of this belief was the widely held belief of the first Europeans that the horse was native to Europe, and couldn't be found in America. This belief didn't diminish when the Spanish saw the terror of the Aztecs, who had never seen such an animal. Cortez used this fear to conquer Mexico. It was the widely held belief that horses were native to Europe, when Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon in 1829. The mention of horses in the Book of Mormon seemed like a blunder, since everyone knew that the horse was a European animal. Everyone was wrong.
In 1847, paleontologist Joseph Leidy published “On the Fossil Horse of America”, proving that the horse was actually native to America as well. This seemed to corroborate the Book of Mormon. So the scientific community changed their stance; they now believed that the horse was native to America, but must have died out. Joseph Smith had already been assassinated by 1847. The controversy of the Book of Mormon had spread far and wide. Thousands of Mormon immigrants flooded the US in the following years, on their way to the Utah territory.
The question arises whether this was a false assumption, since it was based on a false premise. Why should we assume that the horse died out at all? The Mexicans had apparently never seen one, but by the time the Spanish got to Texas, the plains indians already had not only seen them, but become horseman. And in their own mind, it was the only way of life they knew. They had no history or belief that the horse was a recent arrival. And their horses were pintos, which the Spanish considered unsuitable for riding.
Frank Gilbert Roe attempted to find out when the native Americans first started riding horses, and his investigation is found in the book "The Indian and the Horse". In many cases, the first explorers to meet a tribe, record the presence of horses, and these journals go back into the 1700's. Tribes as far west as Oregon were expert horsemen by 1700 at the latest. The early Spanish explorers also took great care in recording the horses that were brought over, and what happened to them. He simply could not match up one to the other. The Spanish brought over mostly stallions of solid color, with very few mares. These horses were killed either in battle against the indians or eaten by the Spanish. There are almost no reports of any escaping into the wild. So the question becomes, where did the painted ponies of the indians come from, and why are their none in South America? Are we to believe that the solid colored stallions of Cortez escaped and made their way to Oregon, and changed colors, multiplying into the tens of thousands in just 100 years? Le Page du Pratz was a French explorer that noted that horses were numerous in Lousiana in 1719, and that they didn't look like the Spanish horses. Henri de Tonti noted that the Missouri tribe had horses in 1682. The Arakaras of North Dakota had horses at least as early as 1680, and wild horses were described as pests in Virginia in 1669.
Hernán Cortés brought 16 horses in 1519. His own horse died before the first battle. The other horses died in later battles.
Pánfilo de Narváez brought 42 horses to Florida in 1528. According to Spanish records only one was left alive 6 months later. They were either eaten, or killed in battle. Hernando De Soto brought 223 more horses to Florida in 1539. By 1542, only 40 remained. By 1543, only four or five horses were left, all stallions. The rest had all been either killed in battle, or fed to the men. The remaining horses were slaughtered by the indians while the departing Spanish ship was still in sight of land.
In 1540, Francisco Coronado brought 556 stallions, and 2 mares, to aide in the war against the Mexicans. The northward expansion of the Spanish was stopped cold by the plains Indians, who already rode horses.
One has to assume that the Spanish were bold faced liars, engaged in some ridiculous conspiracy, or look to some later expedition, to account for the mysterious color and/or gender changing horses. If they were telling the truth, then where did the horses come from, and how did horses become so numerous in the next 160 years, filling the country all the way to Oregon? And when did the Indians learn to ride them?
According to the native histories of various tribes, horses were a part of their culture from the beginning. Western science, however, is still toeing the line that horse died out.
But there are a few who challenge the status quo. Recent DNA testing of the North American Curly Hair has found no ancestor in Europe. A horse bone in Texas was dated to a mere 6000 years ago, well past the end of the last ice age. Another in Colorado dated to around 1300 AD.