This issue was devoted entirely to early cattle raising in North America. All of the papers were read at The Agricultural History Society’s meeting in Dallas, April 18, 1960.
The contents are: “Cattle Raising in Spanish Florida, 1513-1763,” by Charles W. Arnade; “Colonial Carolina Cowpens,” by Gary S. Dunbar; “The Early History of the Range Cattle Industry in Northern Mexico,” by Donald D. Brand; “Cattle and Range Forage in California: 1770-1880,” by L. T. Burcham; “Early Cattle Ranges of the Ohio Valley,” by Paul C. Henlein ; “Origins of the Range Cattle Era in South Texas,” by Francis L. Fugate; and “Museum of the Great Plains,” by R. Haliburton, Jr.
Several of the articles, together with C. Julian Bishko’s “The Peninsular Background of Latin American Cattle Ranching,” HAHR, vol. 32, 1952, provide interesting information concerning this vital industry of the colonial era. Arnade has located many of the ranches of Spanish Florida and uncovered 17th century tax records that indicate a substantial cattle industry. Brand has produced a periodization for the development of the cattle industry in northern Mexico. Burcham discusses the range ecology of California during the first century of occupation. Fugate gives an account of the rise and spread of cattle ranching in the vast plains of Texas. Together these articles provide glimpses of one of the fundamental events of the Spanish conquest—the introduction of cattle and horses.
