Cattle Drive - photo: Longhorn Alliance[/caption]Although these days not everyone celebrates Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America, today seemed like a fitting day to look at how fences played a role in European settlement in North America and this article on the History of Longhorn Cattle is illuminating.
As many of us memorized, it was in 1492 that the first ships reached the shores of the Americas. As soon as the following year in 1493, Spanish settlers accompanying Christopher Columbus brought the first few long-horned Iberian cattle with them to the Antilles Islands (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola). It wasn't until November 1868 that barbed wire was developed (Patents for improvements to wire fencing were granted to Michael Kelly and Joseph Glidden). So all the way through to the late 19th century, missionaries, followed by private ranchers would raise cattle on open plains.
Through the 16th and 17th centuries Iberian Longhorn cattle were imported to Mexico, as far north at 200 miles from the border of what is now Texas. Ranches were established quickly, and soon large populations of Iberian longhorns were seen throughout the Panuco Delta as well as south and west of the port of Vera Cruz. From there, long-horned cattle gradually migrated, with Spanish explorers, settlers, and mission priests, north along both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The first known cattle in Texas arrived in the early 1700s with Franciscan missionaries as they began to build a chain of missions extending through the San Antonio River valley and out to the present city of Goliad. Spanish expeditionaries brought sheep, goats, horses and “horned” cattle on their overland voyages both as food on the hoof to sustain them during their travels and also as seed stock for settlers once having arrived at their destinations.
Before barbed wire, the lack of effective fencing limited farming and ranching practices, and the number of people who could settle in an area. The new fencing changed the West from vast and undefined prairies/plains to a land of farming, and widespread settlement.
It's also notable that during the 18th and 19th centuries, the commercial importance of longhorns (since they were at that time the predominant breed of cattle) was to supply the hide and tallow industries of Europe and, after the Revolutionary War, of New England as well. Before the advent of electricity in the early 20th century, candles were the world’s chief source of night light. Tallow, the main ingredient in candles, soaps and lubricants, was obtained by rendering animal fat. Hides were important to the shoe, boot and leather industries. Therefore, “Hide and Tallow” companies became the major users of cattle carcasses, first in California and later in Texas and other southern states. In the absence of refrigeration, meat was largely a byproduct and of little commercial value.
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