US at Great Bntain France exico Spain United States before the Louislana Purchase of 1803 Americans went to the West looking for things they couldn't find in the growing cities of the East like land fresh air and clean water They hated work ing long hours in factories for only a dollar or two a week Many people fled starvation or lives of servi tude in Europe to settle in the West After the Civil War many people left the South including many freed slaves People wanted to own land of their own hoped to get rich or just looked for adventure A few people found that the West wasn't what they had expected and went back but most stayed and built towns and villages schools and churches and tried to make it as much like the place they had left as they could Here Comes the Horse Things were very different in western North America long ago Native North Americans had lived on the
plains and deserts of the West for 20 000 years They lived on the land planting small gardens and hunt ing fishing or gathering what they needed They traveled to trade with others who did the same thing Then one day a strange animal arrived that changed their lives forever the horse New Spain Mexico This map shows how horses spread into North America after 1600 In 1519 eleven stallions and five mares came ashore from a Spanish ship off the coast of what is now Mexico Before that arrival no horses had lived in North or South America since prehistoric times when a small horse called eоhippus roamed among the dinosaurs Each year the Spanish herds in the New World grew and horses spread out across the continent Some were sold others stolen Some escaped the
herds and ran wild When the Native North Ameri cans first saw horses they couldn't believe their eyes They had never seen an animal like it before They had to think of a name for the strange looking crea ture At first they called them god dogs or elk dogs Some wanted to butcher and eat the animal others were afraid of it It wasn't long though before the Indians tamed the horses they caught and learned to ride swiftly across the vast plains Indians made ropes of grass hair or buckskin They rode without saddles guiding the horse with the pressure of their knees and by speaking softly to it The arrival of the horse was exciting and impor tant It changed the way the Native North Americans lived in many ways Before the horses arrived the Cheyenne Arapaho and Dakota Sioux had been farming in small villages After the Indians acquired horses they began hunting the huge buffalo herds and traveling in tepee camps across the plains With horses North American tribes could move swiftly and easily They began to travel farther raid ing other tribes and stealing horses from them This caused war something that hadn't been as common before the horse arrived Men became warriors not hunters and farmers Women worked harder than ever tanning the hides and preserving all the food that buffalo hunters mounted on horses rather than on foot now brought to camp Soon many tribes had hundreds of horses people
began to count their wealth in horses and warriors became more important The simple life of the farm villages had changed forever How High A horse is measured in hands from the ground to its shoulder Materials Ruler Pencil n North American Indian horses were small stand ing about 14 hands tall A horse is measured in hands a hand being 4 inches To measure a horse you start at the ground and go up to the shoulder How many hands tall are you Have someone mark your height in inches on a wall with a pencil then measure it and divide by
