Horses’ History

Mankind and horses – a history of centuries. I’m glad that my daughters learned to ride a horse (my wife and me too) – and now our three grandsons at least sat on a pony’s back. Often I hate to get in my car, following the modern hectic as usual. Imagine, we all had time enough to ride with a horse to a place, where someone waits for us …

Blackfoot Chief at Bow River, photo uploaded in the flickr stream of Sylvia Kitchen, she comments the photo of Edward S. Curtis, shot 1910: “By the late 1700’s most tribes were mounted or had access to horses. The horse, first introduced to the Blackfoot in the 1730’s greatly improved their mobility. The Blackfoot chief pictured here poses proudly for Curtis’ camera in the beautiful setting of the Bow River. Photographed by Edward S. Curtis in 1910. I love this photo, as old as it is you can see the ripples and the reflection of the horse in the water…”
comment by “The Lady of Shalot”(57 months ago): “I love this Native American series, as well as ancient photos. It is a pity we lost so much of entire cultures…”
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photos below sent by Randy, who converted an American dream to reality again (leaving New York):

comment by Randy:
Another interesting part of horses in American history is when Lewis and Clark had to use horses to continue their journey to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. They were exploring the Louisiana Purchase by order of the President at that time. I think it was Thomas Jefferson. They had the now famous Sacagawea as their guide. The river became too shallow and they had to use horses to continue over the Lemhi Pass in Montana. The journey would not have been possible without the horses.
Our website is:
http://maxtackequestrianproducts.wordpress.com/
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title=”Ending the journey / Finalizando el día” – photo by Claudio.Ar, click on the image to enter his galleries on Flickr
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Related articles

• HW Pick: ‘North American Indian’ By Edward Curtis (harlemworldmag.com)
• Immortal Images of Native Americans (lens.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Roosevelt, Morgan Backed Indian Epic Now Going for $1.8 Million – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Edward S. Curtis North American Indian photo set sells for $1.2M (cbc.ca)

title=”Ganhando o céu” – photo by Eduardo Amorim, click on the picture to enter his galleries on Flickr
P.S.:
a sad thing I’ve heard about horses: in my neighborhood, city: Essen, Germany, after the WW II, the coal miners brought their horses in a long line to the butchers. They had worked with them as companions many years in the darkness. Now they were blind. The horses. But I think: the coal miners too: how could they do that. Being poor, needing money from the butcher, is not an apology. The German term for the coal miners horses is “Grubenpferd” – Pit_Pony – http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grubenpferd + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_pony + http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheval_dans_les_mines
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we had horses (pulling boats with coal) in my hometown, river Ruhr, about 1900. The daylight job for horses was better than working in a coalmine: they never saw the sun. 1945, when coal-miners were poor and starved, they fetched the horses, hundreds of them, out of the dark and brought them in a long march through the streets of the town ESSEN: to the butchers. The most sad thing I heard about the history of horses…

About Didi van Frits

writer, photographer, guitarist, painter

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