Livestock at Bent’s Old Fort: Horses, Mules, Oxen, Sheep and Peacocks

Bent, St. Vrain & Company depended on domestic animals for its very existence. Draft animals kept goods moving between major trade centers and scattered outposts, while cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry fed the fort's employees and travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. At times huge herds grazed near the walls; one observer watched several hundred horses, mules and oxen being brought into the corral for the night, and other travelers remarked on the sounds and smells.

Among the Plains tribes, wealth was often counted in horses, and capturing, trading for or stealing horses and mules brought great prestige. In Nuevo México and the United States alike, breeding oxen, horses, mules and donkeys for draft and packing was critical to freighting — and so to commercial success.

A horse and mule hitched to the fur press inside the fort's plaza. NPS photo.

Horses

As a trading center, the fort likely saw many kinds of horses. Plains Indians, always watching for prime horseflesh, probably brought many stolen animals into its herds. Horses and mules from the south usually carried a fierro (a large brand) and a venta (a sale brand), and New Mexicans, very attached to their stock, frowned on extranjeros riding or trading branded animals. The Cheyenne chief Yellow Wolf once gave William Bent a fine Comanche horse.

New Mexican vaqueros were famous horsemen and muleteers; Cooper wrote that even the "Comanches themselves cannot excel them." He judged Mexican horses inferior to American ones in size, beauty and vitality, though those he saw were clean-limbed, well proportioned and light.

The "American horses" were riding stock brought west by U.S. citizens, descended from Thoroughbred, Arabian, Morgan and Standardbred sires. On the prairie they suffered from mosquitoes, scarce winter forage, cottonwood-bark diets and the extreme climate. Prairie-bred horses — mostly descended from stock traded or stolen after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 — had been made small and tough by winter hardship and years of indiscriminate breeding, and many felt they lacked the size, bone and build of an American saddle horse.

Mules

Before 1830, a large mule industry was growing at both ends of the Santa Fe Trail. In Missouri, Mexican jacks helped produce a strong working mule; in New Mexico, the atajo — a mule train led by a bell mare — crossed sandy jornadas and rugged peaks.

Randolph Marcy, in The Prairie Traveler, told how on a Rocky Mountain crossing, with scant dry grass and heavy work in deep snow, all but two of his American mules died "while the Mexican mules went through."

Many people preferred mules in rough country. William Bent, who could have afforded any horse, is said to have chased raiding Comanches on his favorite black mule. The Bents sent thousands of mules to Missouri every year, mostly bought in Nuevo México from Indians who had stolen them from Mexicans, and others from haciendas or wild herds. Mostly black and medium-sized, some carried packs or pulled freight wagons, but most went east to market and were sold to the Army. Soldiers in turn traded worn animals at the fort; in 1846 Lt. James Abert noted that volunteers whose horses had broken down would "not stand upon trifles at the price of a fresh animal."

A team of oxen yoked to a wooden cart. NPS photo.

Cattle and oxen

Cattle were a major source of income. In 1846 William Bent had an Army order for 500 beeves, and he bought black, brown and red Spanish cattle from Nuevo México — a broad, heavy-horned type that could also be trained as oxen. Oxen are castrated bulls of any breed, trained to work in pairs. The Bents traded one good ox for two worn-out ones, fattened the tired pair on pasture and traded them to later travelers; they did the same with mules and horses. Indians didn't care to eat oxen, so they were seldom stolen on the trail.

Milk cows supplied milk, cheese and butter. In 1845 clerk Alexander Barclay wrote that the fort had twelve milk cows and about thirty other cattle for sale. He later helped start farming and ranching in the Arkansas Valley, living at El Pueblo and Hardscrabble.

Bison

Bison were food and the heart of the robe trade, but some were also livestock. In 1839 Matt Field saw two buffalo calves grazing contentedly with the cattle at "Fort William" — though the cow had to be tied, since the calves handled her udder roughly. Fort hunter Dick Wootton once found twin calves whose mother had been killed; they followed him back and were put to nurse on a gentle milk cow. Some raised buffalo were taken east with the cattle as curiosities; others were butchered for meat considered far tastier than beef.

According to Nicholas "Cheyenne" Dawson, an angled yard off the fort's east wall held poultry, cows, sheep and goats along with tamed prairie animals — a white bear, buffalo calves and caged wild birds.

Sheep

In the 1840s sheep grew in importance. Raised mostly near Taos by the company's Mexican herders, they were driven to the fort when wagon trains formed, and the Bents shipped hundreds to St. Louis every year; mutton was eaten at the fort too. Flocks often grazed on the Arkansas River's south, Mexican bank. Plains tribes had little interest in sheep, so they were fairly safe to drive east. They were probably of Spanish origin: Churro sheep, brought to New Mexico before 1550, became the Southwest's standard breed, and purebred Merino rams didn't reach Santa Fe and Taos until 1859. Many sheep bones excavated at the fort prove they were kept there — perhaps several breeds.

A peacock and chickens in the fort's corral. NPS photo.

Poultry and peacocks

George Bird Grinnell, drawing mostly on George Bent and other Southern Cheyennes, wrote that the plumage and harsh voices of the fort's peacocks "astonished and more or less alarmed the Indians, who called them thunder birds," and that the post was "abundantly supplied with poultry" — pigeons, chickens and turkeys bred well there. Barclay hoped the arrival of about thirty chickens would liven up the plain daily fare, and mentioned four domestic turkeys, descended from Mexican birds, possibly crossed with English game birds.

Visiting today

Horses, mules and other animals can be seen in and around the fort at Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. For your safety, don't approach the livestock.

Sources

Based on "Livestock at Bent's Old Fort," Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.