CALL FOR ALL-NATURAL CATTLE

 I am looking to conduct research on cattle bones for various archaeological implications, including seeing if there is a way to determine the breed of cattle found at various archaeological sites across Texas. Other implications of this research include public outreach to ranchers getting them involved in Texas archaeology and early ranching technique, as well as adding to further research on Criollo cattle spanning from Western Texas to Southern California. Therefore, I am in search of recently passed ALL NATURAL cattle (grass fed, no antibiotics and hormones given) of various breeds of cattle. If you have a recently passed cow (male or female, young or old) and are willing to donate its remains to research please leave a comment in the section below.

Photo taken from Criollo Cattle? | Rainfall to Groundwater

Cattle Trails

There were several cattle trails heading out of Texas in the early 1800s because they were transporting the cattle to their new location before the cow was slaughtered or used by a rancher. One of the reasons cattle routes are important to Texas history is because it was the only way to transport cattle to rail lines in the north. On top of that, there are still many places around Texas that preserve this part of Texas history, such as the Stockyards in Fort Worth, TX (insert picture here). The four main cattle trails rolling out of Texas in the 1800s are the Shawnee Trail, Chisolm Trail, the Western Trail, and the Goodnight-Loving Trail. You might notice that some of these trails, such as the Chisolm Trail are, still existing today except in a different compacity, such as the Chisolm Trail toll road up in the Dallas Fort Worth area. For this post, I will look at these four major cattle trails as well as the XIT Ranch cattle trails.

The four major cattle trails mentioned above arose in the 1800s because, as it is today, cattle ranching is a business. In the early 1800s, the rail lines out west (including Texas) mainly ran west to east, so they had to have cowboys, who were typically young men, transverse the elements with hundreds of cattle to reach the rail lines where they would be sold out east. The other trail examined here is the XIT Ranch trail. The XIT Ranch was founded in 1885 by the Farwell brothers when they acquired 3 million acres of land, spanning from the Texas Panhandle into eastern Montana, in return for building the capitol building in Texas (XITranch.com). This, in turn, helped not only drive parts of the Texas cattle industry but also to establish and grow the cattle industry in Montana.  

If you look at the map above, this photo was generated in ArcGIS by overlaying two historical maps (XIT cattle trails and Texas cattle trails) onto a base map. Once the maps were georeferenced and overlayed in transparency, lines were drawn emphasizing the direction of the trails vs the direction of the early railroad system in the Great Plains. From this, you will see that the cattle trails in the golden brown mainly run north to south as the cattlemen are moving the cattle to and away from the railroads (in red). This was very common until the late 1800s and into the early 1900s when railroads began running from north to south in this part of the United States.

NOTE: In the comment section below, tell us any interesting facts about the cattle trails or Texas’ cattle history merging with Montana’s.  

 References: 

Continuing the Legacy. XIT Ranch – Honoring the Heritage of the XIT Ranch

Feicgt, J., (NA) Cattle Trails and the Wild West. Cattle Trails - Jonathan Feicht's Website 

Mendel, S.A., (2014). Texas History- What were the Four Major Cattle Trails in 1800s Texas? The Mendel Law Firm, L.P. www. mendellawfirm.com/texas-history

Miller, M.M., (2015). Cowboys and Capitalists: The XIT Ranch in Texas and Montana, 1885-1912. Montana The Magazine of Western History. 65(4). www.jstor.org/stable/26322830 

Cattle Branding

 

What is a Brand? 

  A brand is an identifying marker on an animal that can signal who the animal’s owner is. This practice is not native to the Americas; in fact, there have been depictions of branding dating back 4000 years to an Egyptian tomb portraying such scenes (Dary, N.A.). Over the years, this practice was brought into Texas via the Spanish, who would use a hot iron to leave their identifying mark on the cattle. Some of the first cattle brands were first used in Mexico when the Spanish began settling the lands and expanding out from Mexico City with missionaries (Dary, N.A.). Most of the early brands appeared in counties closer to the Texas coast.

Once the Spanish cattle industry expanded in Texas, all cattle were ordered to be branded (Dary, N.A.). In the early years, each rancher would have created their own brand. The brand wasn’t always in letter form but could have also been made with pictographs and placements of the brand on the cattle. Once the Republic of Texas was formed, this law was not enforced (Dary, N.A.).  Then in 1848, brands had to be registered with the county clerk to provide “legal” ownership over the animal. Meaning if the owner of the cattle got into a dispute with their neighbor over whose cattle it was. If the cow was not branded with a registered brand, he could lose the cattle. Many counties out in western Texas did not even have brand registration until the 1870s-1880s (Dary, N.A.).

Nowadays, various states have laws on brand registration. Though it is not as popular as it was back then because we now have tagging (ear tag), DNA testing, and various other modern measures to help prevent theft (Stamp, 2013). Some brands we see today, such as the King’s Ranch brand up in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

 

Ways to Brand 

Today there are three different ways in which you can brand cattle (Note: Horses can also be branded using similar methods.) 

Hot iron branding: Historical method: This method required a hot iron rod with your brand that would be burned into the cattle’s hide, scaring the brand into their skin.  

Electric branding: Works in a similar fashion to a hot iron, but it is powered by electricity to generate heat instead of fire.  

Freeze branding: This does not burn the animals, but rather uses a coolant apparatus that will destroy any pigmentation in that area, creating a permanent discolored mark in the shape of the owner’s brand.  

Examples of Brands used in Texas. Photo was taken from 

TSHA | Cattle Brands (tshaonline.org)

Types of Brands (GISMAP) 

When you compare the ArcGIS map below of the early branding counties to the present-day cattle population map from generated by the USDA-National Agriculture Statistics Service, you will see that most of the early pre-1850s brands were appearing closer to the Texas coast, as mentioned above. Then in the latter half of the 1800s, we start to see cattle brands appearing in counties in north and west Texas. This contrasts with the present-day cattle population in Texas, where most of the heavy cattle populations appear in the panhandle of Texas and a bit in the black land prairies of Texas. Today, the early counties that had brands (along the coast) still have cattle populations; however, with the expansion of cities like Houston, the population of cattle has dropped.

Figure 1: Picture made in ArcGIS using known cattle brands from the 1880s. The dark green dots are brands from the pre1850s and the orange dots are well-known brands from 1847-1910. 

Figure 2: Picture showing the cattle populations across Texas in 2022

Photo taken from the USDA- National Agriculture Statistics Service. 

NOTE: What else can you tell us about brands? Does anyone have any examples they can show us? 

References: 

Dary, D. (NA) Cattle Brands. TSHA: Texas State Historical Association. TSHA | Cattle Brands (tshaonline.org)

Stamp, J. (2013) Decoding the Range: The Secret Language of Cattle Branding. Smithsonian Magazine. Decoding the Range: The Secret Language of Cattle Branding | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine 

Introduction of Cattle into Texas

Spanish expeditions and missionaries traveling into Texas are the ones who are credited as first brining cattle into the Americas, this includes both Mexico and Texas. Early explorers, settlers, and missionaries would travel into what is present day Texas from the west, south, and along the coast and they would bring cattle along with them as an important source of both labor and food. An example of this is Fransisco de Coronado, who in his 1541-1542 expedition brought along 1500 heads of cattle and sheep (Flint, 2003). Some of which survived as they cut across the Panhandle of Texas. However, it was not until centuries later that the early Texas cattle industry began to form. One of the first breeds to be introduced into Texas was most likely the Criollo cow because of their small and sturdy nature they could survive in the arid and dry conditions of Texas. It is our hope that with this research we can narrow down exactly when cattle began to be incorporated into Texas tribes and settlements as well as what breeds of cattle, they were bringing in.  

     The first cattle to enter into Texas were coming in from Spain and New Spain and therefore, there was an influx of cattle ranching techniques that have been adapted from Spanish influence (Utley, 1966). The Spanish government even “encouraged stock raising with liberal land grants” that helped to increase the herd size for many private ranchers in both central and south Texas in the early 1700s (Utley, 1966). During this time, we not only see herds forming but there were also wild populations of cattle that are assumed to have come from the strays that would wander away from the herds, because unlike today, there would not always be fences to hold in the herd (Utley, 1966). With these wild herds came names for the cattle based on whether the cow could safely be captured (mestenas) or if it was too wild to be tamed (cimarrones).   

Over time Spanish ranching techniques would merge with those that were being introduced from east of Texas who had a more English influence. Not only do we see a change in ranching styles as these two types began to merge but we also see Spanish cattle being breed with English cattle for favorable traits. One of the more popular breeds to come from this is the Texas Longhorn.  

Photo: Taken from the internet

NOTE: I know that this tiny introduction is only a fraction of the introduction of cattle into Texas. So, in the comment section below comment on old ranching techniques and anything on the history of cattle in Texas. 

Reference:

Vierra, B.J., & Hordes, S.M. (1997). Let the Dust Settle: A Review of the Coronado Campsite in the Tiguex Province. In the Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva: The 1540-1542 Route Across the Southwest. University Press Colorado. pp. 249-261. 

Utley, R.M., (1966). The Range Cattle Industry in the Bg Bend of Texas. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 69(4) pp. 419-441. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30240946