Jes' S'pose

If we are serious about teaching the history of the Spanish horse in early Colonial America we need to include not only the western story, but also the story of the Spanish horse in the southeast. Few people consider the fact that there was a time when the frontier of settlement was east of Richmond, Virginia. Even fewer realize that as early as 1621 feral horse bands were causing crop damage in eastern Virginia.

One of the reason that "history" is not relevant to many of us is that "history" has, all too often, been taught as simply the story of how rich folks used to live. Few of us are rich and in the past an infinitesimally smaller percentage were rich.

The story of the common settler (with uncommon courage)and his ordinary Spanish horse (with extraordinary ability) is rarely told.

Jes' S'pose...There was an outdoor living history museum with an accurate depiction of such a settlers' simple plank cabin, tobacco patch, gardens, goat,chicken, and pig pens, and his beautiful little Spanish horse, say from about the time of 1674. Jes' s'pose that that living history museum featured authentic, nearly extinct breeds of early colonial livestock. Jes' s'pose that that living history museum also served as a center to breed and promote all of these endangered heritage breeds of livestock.

Jes' S'pose we built it in pasture number 1.