Up until the mid 1600s, American Indians had to walk wherever they went. They hunted on foot and either carried things or lashed them to a couple of sticks to be dragged by a dog.

They didn’t use horses because there weren’t any. Indigenous horses on the American continent had been extinct for thousands of years.

Deane Phillips, in his book, Horse Raising In Colonial New England, wrote that the horses colonists brought from Europe gave them both an offensive and a defensive superiority over the Indians, so colonists passed laws forbidding the sale of horses to natives.

The Spanish, who were settling vast chunks of the southwest, were the largest importer of horses to the New World. Being able to move at horse-speed was a huge advantage. This technology allowed them to conquer the native peoples they encountered, and so they, too, made it against the law for an Indian to own a horse.

Despite Spanish efforts to keep horses out of the hands of Indians, over the years, tribes near Spanish settlements managed to get hold of some, either by illegal trade or by stealing them. For the most part, though, access to Spanish mounts remained limited. And it probably would have stayed that way, but for a large three-part mistake.

Beginning around 1598, the Spanish enslaved a people. They made the slaves take care of Spanish horses. And they treated the slaves with harshness. For us, looking back, it’s easy to have 20-20 vision and know what the outcome would be. But foresight is myopic, and the Spanish couldn’t see where this was heading.

The people the Spanish enslaved were the Pueblo tribe. Because the care of  horses required a lot of manual labor, Puebloan boys were trained in every aspect of horsemanship, from feeding and watering to saddling and stabling. Officially, the boys were forbidden to ride, but sometimes circumstances made it necessary for their masters to use the boys as riders.

For many years, the Pueblo people suffered at the hands of the Spanish, who were hard taskmasters. Beatings were common. Families were broken up. Hunger was rampant. And for practicing tribal customs that conflicted with Spanish Catholicism, the penalty was death.

In 1680, after eight decades of enslavement, harsh treatment, and suppression of their religious ceremonies, the Pueblo Indians revolted. On an appointed day — 11 August — they rose up and attacked many points in northern Mexico. More than 400 Spaniards were killed. Several thousand survivors fled to El Paso, leaving behind homes, farms, cattle, and an estimated 1,500 horses.

The Pueblo had no use for that many horses, so they traded them to other tribes. Some horses eluded capture and became wild. Spain’s technological advantage was lost, and in years to come, this would cost them dearly. Eventually, Indians no longer needed to hunt or fight on foot. Some warrior bands, particularly the Comanche, became excellent horsemen, among the best in the world. And their ability to wage mounted warfare prevented the Spanish, the French, and also Americans from settling the southwestern plains for almost 200 years.