A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the New Madrid earthquakes of December 1811 through January 1812, which was when a horse from John Pitchlynn’s at Plymouth Bluff suddenly stumbled, fell and died.

I could not help but think of Pitchlynn, who had been appointed U.S. interpreter for the Choctaw Nation by George Washington, and his huge herd of horses on the Blackland Prairie west of Columbus circa 1800 to 1835. The ancestors of those horses have a fascinating story. Six years ago, I wrote about those horses, but since then much more history has come to light.

Both the Choctaws and Chickasaws were noted for their horses, which were said to be Spanish Mustangs descended from horses brought from Spain by the early explorers and conquistadors. What is known as the Blackland Prairie was prime horse country.

In many publications Blackland is now used rather than just Black Prairie, as it is more descriptive. It was known as the savannah between the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations and was considered some of the finest grazing land in the world. The earliest evidence of modern horses in the area has been found around Starkville and near Demopolis, Alabama. The native North American horse lived during the ice age and by about 10,000 years ago was extinct.

Archaeological surveys and excavations funded by the Chickasaw Nation in Oktibbeha County have found pieces of 1500s style Spanish horseshoes and a probable mid-1500s brass bridle ornament with a gold-colored cross on it. They were found at a Chickasaw village site that dated to the 1500s and produced other evidence of contact with the Spanish de Soto expedition of 1540-1541. The University of West Alabama found 1500s style Spanish horseshoes at a site near Demopolis, Alabama, which also revealed other evidence of Indian contact with the de Soto Expedition in 1540. Both of these sites are in the Blackland Prairie.

By the 1760s, the Chickasaw had large herds of horses and Smyth wrote in 1774 that the Chickasaw were a nation who were “very careful of preserving a fine breed of Spanish horses they have long preserved.” In his “History of the American Indians,” published in 1775, James Adair wrote that “the Chikkasah (Chickasaw) and Choktah (Choctaw) horses are Spanish barbs, and long winded, like wolves.” Henry Laurens of Charleston, South Carolina, wrote in 1785 the Chickasaw horses “are generally esteemed as good horses as any in America.”

One of the more interesting horse references appears in early Marion County, Alabama, and Monroe County, Mississippi, court records pertaining to the estate of William Cooper. He was a free Black man working and trading during the 1790s in the Choctaw Nation in what is now Mississippi and Alabama. In 1791, he sold John Turnbull of Natchez and Baton Rouge 20 horses at $15 a head. Cooper had also traded Turnbull his horse called “Cooper’s Grey” for Turnbull’s “mulatto servant” Medlang, who Cooper took as his common law wife.

George Gaines, who moved into the Tombigbee River Valley in 1805, said that Pitchlynn “had about 500 horses in the range. The Colberts (in the Chickasaw Nation north of Tibbee Creek) also had many horses. Horses of various Colours looked splendid in the prairies – settlers sold ponies at $10 to $50 – better kind of horses $50 to $100 – drove them to New Orleans, Pensacola, and Mobile.”

When Pitchlynn died in 1835, he still had more than 100 horses on the prairie. In Pitchlynn’s estate, there is an accounting that includes the sale of his horses. His horses, when described as Sorrel, Gray, Bay or Roan, sold for as low as $15 and as high as $75. Most sold for $50 to $60. Those horses described as work horses sold for $50 each, while those described only as stock horses sold for $30 each.

In Noxubee County, east of Brooksville, flows Horse Hunters Creek. The large prairie that spreads out east of the creek was named Horse Hunters Prairie. Those names appear in the 1833-1834 original United States Survey. They reflect not just a place name but the name of Horse Hunter – a Choctaw who had lived there and was said to be noted for raising horses.

H.B. Cushman, who grew up at the Mayhew Indian Mission and lived with the Choctaw in the 1800s, described the Choctaw horse as a “chubby little pony.” According to Cushman the Choctaw horse was a “veritable forest camel to the Choctaw hunter. … His unwearied patience, and his seemingly untiring endurance of hardship and fatigue, were truly astonishing … and proving himself to be a worthy descendant of his ancient parent, the old Spanish warhorse.”

Interestingly, Cushman commented that the Choctaw did not use horses in battle but always dismounted to fight. The Choctaw used horses both for riding and as pack horses and would suspend a little bell from the neck of each horse.

The Chickasaw and Choctaw horses were, and are, a colorful and people-friendly breed of horse noted for their stamina and endurance.

Those traits were put to the test during the Trail of Tears in the 1830s, when thousands died alongside the Chickasaws and Choctaws on the horrific heart-rendering Indian Removal treks from Mississippi to the western Indian Territory. The northern Choctaw “Emigration Road” began at the Hebron Mission north of present-day Starkville and passed through what is now the northwest corner of Starkville. Now only place names and scattered artifacts recall the great nations and extraordinary horses that were once here.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].