Dolly Happy and Running Free!
Finally, I could open the gates and let Dolly into the big pasture. She entered with a combination of caution and curiosity. And then this—
Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2011
Ainslie Sheridan copyright April 2011
It was such a thrill to be able to watch this once discarded, emaciated creature run and leap in the early spring sunshine. And then more to come: when the freedom of the moment and the excitement of all the new space became too much, she came thundering back to me for reassurance and a shoulder scratch. Here is video of one of those moments.
When she had regained her breath and plucked up her courage, she would burst off once again in a gallop punctuated by bucks and leaps, striking the air with her forelegs.
I’d like to take the opportunity to welcome a new student. Julia is in the 8th grade and lives with her parents, brother, and adorable dog Bethany in Winchester. She’s had two lessons so far, the last being aboard Nitelite, who (you can see) is not at all camera-shy.
Don Deraska copyright April 2011
Ainslie Sheridan copyright April 2011
In the last blog I talked about the Marwari horses from the great subcontinent of India, and how British imperialism, coupled with the age mechanization, nearly wiped it out. The Appaloosa horse is another breed nearly eradicated due to America’s appetite for expansion.
“But,” you say, “didn’t the conquistadors bring the first horses to North America, and then weren’t they later ridden by colonists?” That’s true, but the Nez Perce Native Americans developed the Appaloosa breed in the fertile valleys of what is now northeast Oregon. Just as India and the Marwari horses were protected by the great Himalayas, so the Nez Perce could live and develop their stock in the relative isolation provided by the great Rocky Mountains.
The spotted horse, however, did not originate in North America. There are 20,000-year-old cave paintings of spotted horses in southern France. And in 17th- and 18th-century Europe spotted horses were highly prized. I’ve seen paintings of spotted horses performing “airs above the ground” in Viennese museums.
The Nez Perce nation of the Wallowa Valley in northeast Oregon acquired their horses in the early 18th century. They developed a superior breeding program. Any animals determined inferior were castrated or traded away to other tribes. Eventually the spotted horses—with their iron hooves, hardy physique, and great endurance—became their preferred mount. To outsiders these horses became known first as the “Palouse” horse, after the river where the Nez Perce grazed their herds. The name evolved into “Appaloosa.” The breed numbered close to ten thousand. The population of the Nez Perce numbered near ten thousand as well.
Meriwether Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition reported back to President Thomas Jefferson that Chief Joseph, legendary leader of the Nez Perce, “is one of the most ethical men I have ever met.” And this is what Lewis wrote of their horses in his diary in 1806:
Their horses appear to be of an excellent race; they are lofty, eligantly [sic] formed, active and durable . . . some of these horses are pied with large spots of white irregularly scattered and intermixed with black, brown, bey [sic] or some other dark color. http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/breedsofhorses/appaloosahorse.html
In the following decades, though our government broke treaty after treaty, Joseph continued to work tirelessly and peacefully with those in power in order to have new settlers removed from the lands of his tribe. The white man had not only brought fences and cattle, but also epidemics of measles, mumps, and smallpox.
A faction of discontented Nez Perce braves— unbeknownst to Joseph—plotted an attack. In the end, a series of battles was touched off by the deaths of four settlers at the hands of these warriors. The Nez Perce surrendered but the U.S. government immediately broke terms of the surrender. The Nez Perce had agreed to return to a reservation in Idaho but instead they were forced to go to Kansas. There, due to a malaria epidemic, their numbers continued to dwindle to fewer than two hundred and seventy men, women, and children.
Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce had had enough. Still pursuing his policy of non-aggression, they headed north to seek political asylum in Canada. For three months they eluded capture, covering over 1800 miles of difficult terrain on their cherished Appaloosas but, in the end, the weakened condition of his people caused Chief Joseph to surrender for the last time in the Bear Paw mountains of Montana. Here is the message of that surrender:
The superiority of the Appaloosa—their ability to outrun and outlast cavalry remounts—was the very cause of their demise. Most of the Nez Perce horses were confiscated or shot outright. Bounty hunters were offered one bottle of whisky for every dead spotted horse. Compelled to turn to farming on their reservation, the proud horse breeders were forced to breed what few Appaloosas they had left to draft horses in order to produce offspring better suited to pull plows.
Relevant quotations:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. -- Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.
-- Chief Joseph
[To] incorporate with us as citizens of the United States . . . is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but in the whole course of this it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. -- Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, 1803. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/indian_removal/jefferson_to_harrison.cfm
I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises.
-- Chief Joseph
Chief Joseph was never permitted to return to his beloved Wallowa Valley in eastern Oregon. His days of commanding a people of 10,000 and the largest herd of the finest horses in North American were over. He died in 1904 at age sixty-four, it is said, of a broken heart. http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/chiefjoseph.htm
Here is a moving youtube about this great man:
Here is a moving youtube about this great man:
Next week will begin with more of Dolly’s training, students in training, and perhaps a little chat about horse
Until then and thank you for reading the Windflower Weekly Blog,
Ainslie
So Fabulous to see Dolly enjoying life & the wonderful care you've given her. Thanks for sharing!
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