Horses were as important as bison and there were plenty of mustangs, as well as tempting Spanish stock down at San Antonio. There is a probably apocryphal story that in 1690 Alonso de Leon left a “bull and a cow, a stallion and a mare at each river crossed” as he traveled to establish his missions in east Texas. By 1716 Spaniards reported black Castilian cattle and horses along the Trinity River and likely throughout Texas. The Apaches and Comanches hunted the cattle, called cimarrones, which were said to have been more difficult and dangerous to hunt than bison or deer. These cattle browsed along the Bosque River, removing thornless shrubs, so that when the Anglo settlers reached the river they found that the berries of thorny rusty blackhaw and redhaw much more common than today.

Dan Young. Unpublished Manuscript, 2022.