Talk given Feb. 2017, California Missions Foundation conference, Santa Ines Mission

The practices of the cattle industry have changed profoundly since the early 1800s.  Because of this many of the first person accounts of Californio horse and cattle practices sound either fantastical or just plain odd.  I recently read The Nature of Horses by Stephen Budiansky which explains the good sense of many Californio practices.  Here are some of what I think are the most interesting ones. Most of the quotes are from William Heath Davis’ book 75 Years in California.

“To account for the fast traveling in California on horseback, it is necessary to explain the mode by which it is accomplished.  A gentleman who starts upon a journey of one hundred miles, and wishes to perform the trip in a day, will take with him ten fresh horses and a vaquero.  The eight loose horses are placed under the charge of the vaquero, and are driven in front, at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, according to the speed that is required for the journey.  At the end of twenty miles, the horses which have been rode are discharged and turned into the caballada, and horses which have not been rode, but driven along without weight, are saddled and mounted and rode at the same speed, and so on to the end of the journey.” p. 27, Bryant, Edwin, What I Saw in California.

Edwin Bryant actually did ride this way from San Jose to San Francisco, sixty miles as he stated, with stops for lunch and a breather, and it took them from 11 AM to dusk.  This riding was commonplace.

Budiansky explains how it is possible:

“The zoologist C. Richard Taylor made an extensive study of energy consumption in animals traveling at various gaits.  He trained animals to run on a treadmill whose speed could be varied, and he calculated energy consumption by fitting the animals with face masks that measured how much oxygen they consumed as they worked.  When he studied horses (actually Shetland ponies) he found a striking pattern. At each gait- walk, trot, and gallop—there was one narrow range of speed where energy consumption was lowest.  These optimum speeds were almost precisely the same as the speeds the animals themselves naturally chose at each gait.”

Horses, whether at a walk, trot, or gallop, will choose the miles per hour rate that is most energy efficient.

“When the ponies were forced to move at an unusually slow or fast walk, the energy they spent to move a given distance shot up; the same thing happened at the trot and canter.”

 

This helps prove that a most efficient speed exists in every gait.

“Another remarkable finding—and one that has been shown again and again in other animals—was that the total energy expended in traveling a kilometer at a walk, a trot, or a canter WAS EXACTLY THE SAME, so long as the ponies were allowed to move at the optimal speed for each gait.”

What this means is, that horses are not like us humans. If we want to lose weight by using up more energy, we jog or run. But a jog or a run, for a horse, uses the same amount of energy as walking, as long as he can choose his pace. Budiansky’s book has explanations of the physics involved that allows this to occur.

So, the Californio practice or riding at a canter, which is 10 to 17 mph, uses up horses’ energy just as fast as walking them does.

Back to California:

“The horses were never stabled.  They were broken for the saddle only, and were almost wholly for herding cattle.  They were divided up into caponeras, or small bodies of about 25 each, each caponera having a bell mare, which was always a yegua pinta, (calico mare,) having a beautiful variety of color, whom they followed, and so accustomed were they to their leaders that the different little bands never mixed; and if by chance one got into the wrong company he would presently go back to where he belonged.” “On a rancho with 8,000 head of cattle, there would be, say, twelve caponeras.  One or two of these divisions, containing the best horses, were specially for the owner of the rancho.” WHD

Budiansky says horses have good vision and are easily capable of telling one horse from another.  They form pair bonds like friendships, and form a social dominance hierarchy based on personal space, and preferential access to resources.  The band leader is not always the most dominant horse but often the oldest mare.

Budiansky: “But so general is this drive to bond that it appears within horse society in many contexts that have nothing to do with mating.”

The term caponera was used specifically for these bands of riding horses, not for stallion-centered breeding harems.

“The breeding mares were divided up into manadas, or little bodies of 25, with a stallion for each, and so accustomed were they to follow their stallion that each band kept distinct and never mixed with other manadas.  The stallions were equally faithful to those under their charge, and never went off to other bands.”

“It was the custom of a stallion, on the approach of a strange horse or number of horses, to circle round his mares, keeping them well together, and driving the visitors away, so jealous were they of intruders.”

“The manadas were formed at first by the vaqueros herding the band during the day, and at night securing them in a corral.  They continued this day after day until the animals had become so accustomed to the arrangement that there was no danger of them separating.  They were then left to go free, and continued together month after month and year after year.”

“A stallion when taken away from his manada and confined in a corral would squeal and neigh and manifest the greatest uneasiness and anxiety until restored to his company.”

“Except for this training to form them into manadas, these mares were entirely wild and unbroken.  They were never used for riding, and only occasionally for work at the harvest season.”

The research that Budiansky uses is from contemporary feral horses in the Western United States.  In those conditions, the average manada is four or five mares and their foals, with the stallion.  This is a much smaller grouping, but other factors hold true.  Once a stallion has a manada, he will not search out additional mares.  His mares will obey his commands to move along in a direction he drives them.  These manadas are nomadic, but tend to keep in a favorite territory, and there is evidence that stallions will use the scent of each other’s droppings to avoid each other, where these territories overlap.  The stallion will threaten any outsider approaching, as described by Davis.

There is anecdotal evidence from people who keep horses and pasture them together, that when new horses are included, their place in the social hierarchy is worked out very quickly, within days.  The herding that the vaqueros would do, would function to keep the group together long enough for the social hierarchy to form.

There is one other Spanish term for a grouping of horses, and this is “remuda.”  A remuda is a group of horses specifically ridden by one vaquero, or one rider.  A remuda consists of six to ten horses.  Vaqueros did not usually own their own remudas.  A newly hired vaquero would get the worst of the lot and gradually work up.  In the southern San Joaquin valley in the 1920s, Rojas tells us that each vaquero would be given five horses to break to saddle in the fall.  He would saddle each ten to twelve times, over several weeks, then let them loose until the spring branding started.  It is likely that this was the same routine practiced for several hundred years.

To move on to cattle:  vaqueros also assisted in creating cattle herds or tropillas, in Alta California:

 

“Although the cattle belonging to the various ranchos  were wild, yet they were under training to some extent, and were kept in subjection by constant rodeos. (Rodeo here means a round up; it also means the place they are taken to; it does not mean a competition as it does today).  At stated times, say two or three times a week at first, the cattle of a particular ranch were driven in by the vaqueros, from all parts thereof, to a spot known as the rodeo ground, and kept there for a few hours, when they were allowed to disperse.  Shortly they were collected again, once a week perhaps, and then less seldom,  until after considerable training, being always driven to the same place, they came to know it.  Then, whenever the herd was wanted, all that was necessary for the vaqueros to do, was, say, twenty-five or thirty of them, to ride out into the hills and valleys and call the cattle, shouting and screaming to them, when the animals would immediately run to the accustomed spot; presently the whole vast herd belonging to the ranch finding their way there.” p. 58 WHD

Charles Darwin in The Voyage of the Beagle describes the behavior of cattle that makes this possible:

“The chief trouble (meaning daily work) with an estancia is driving the cattle twice a week to a central spot, in order to make them tame, and to count them.  This latter operation would be thought difficult, where there are ten or fifteen thousand head together.  It is managed on the principle that the cattle invariably divide themselves into little troops of from forty to one hundred.  Each troop is recognized by a few peculiarly marked animals, and its number is known; so that, one being lost out of ten thousand, it is perceived by its absence from one of the tropillas.  During a stormy night the cattle all mingle together; but the next morning the tropillas separate as before; so that each animal must know its fellow out of the thousand others.” Darwin, p. 150.

You may wonder as I did, how big a space a rodeo full of cattle might have been.  Here are my estimates: one of the first feed lots in Lubbock, Texas, held 35,000 cattle, and was 125 acres.  I used a feed lot because the animals are kept close but not crammed in, and 35,000 was a possible herd size for a mission.  This much acreage is the equivalent of 56 city blocks, using the engineering standard of 2 1/4 acres per city block.  To picture that, picture a piece of land 7 blocks by 8 blocks.  If you also picture  one vaquero per city block on the perimeter, to keep them in order, that is about 30 vaqueros, which would not have been an unusual number to take care of 35,000 head.

I personally think that rounding up a whole mission herd was rarely done, if at all, but this shows that it was possible.  The rodeos that happened twice a year, were for the work of either slaughter, or for branding and castrating, and took several months to accomplish.  The vaqueros would have only brought in as many cattle as could be processed in a few days.

(look at Criollo cattle on wikipedia for the photos of Spanish cattle I gave with the talk.)