Spanish conquistadores saddled their horses in Vera
Cruz and rode until they had mapped the continents from the
Horn to Montana and from the Floridas to the harbors of the
Californias. The padres with them rode on horseback, too, and
made every mission a horse ranch. The national dance of
Mexico, the Jarabe, is an interpretation of the clicking of
hoofs and the pawing and prancing of spirited horses that the
Aztecs noted when the Spaniards came. Likewise, the chief
contribution made by white men of America to the folk songs of
the world--the cowboy songs--are rhythmed to the walk of
horses.
Astride horses introduced by the conquistadores to the
Americas, the Plains Indians became almost a separate race
from the foot-moving tribes of the East and the stationary
Pueblos of the Rockies. The men that later conquered and
corralled these wild-riding Plains Indians were plainsmen on
horses and cavalrymen. The earliest American explorers and
trappers of both Plains and Rocky Mountains went out in the
saddle. The first industrial link between the East and the
West was a mounted pack train beating out the Santa Fe Trail.
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