Cattle Ranching in the Venezuelan Llanos and the Florida Flatwoods: A Problem in

Comparative History
Author(s): J. S. Otto and N. E. Anderson
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 672-683
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/178887
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Cattle Ranching in the Venezuelan
Llanos and the Florida Flatwoods: A
Problemin ComparativeHistory
J. S. OTTO and N. E. ANDERSON

Universityof Maryland and Centerfor AmericanArcheology, Kampsville,

Illinois

By 1860, Cuba had become Spain's leading plantationcolony in the New

World, producingcash crops such as sugar, coffee, and tobacco for export.
Cuba devoted so much effort to cash crops that the colony found it necessary
to importfoodstuffs to feed its slave and free populations.' Among the essen-
tial foodstuffs that Cuba importedwere dried beef from Venezuela and beef
cattle from Florida.2Venezuela, a Spanish colony that achieved its indepen-
dence in 1821, and Florida, a Spanishcolony acquiredby the United States in
1821, had become Cuba's leading beef suppliers by the mid-nineteenth
century.
Venezuela contained an estimated six million beef cattle by 1860.3 The
bulk of these cattle grazed upon the llanos of the Orinoco Valley-low-lying
floodplainswith expanses of native grasses. Althoughtherewas an abundance
of grass, the cattle-grazing potential of the llanos was limited by floods,
droughts, pests, and predators. In Venezuela, the months from May to
November were rainy, while little rain fell from December to April. During
the rainy months, the llanos were subject to flooding, but grasses were lush
and plentiful. During the dry months, floodwaters receded, but the grasses
died, and forage became scarce. Given the inadequateforage, Venezuelan
cattle experienced dramaticweight losses during the dry season, which de-
layed maturity and limited beef production. In addition, the llanos were

Researchfunds were providedby a "State, Local, and Regional Studies" grantfrom the National
Endowmentfor the Humanitiesand fellowships from the Newberry Library,Chicago, and the
John CarterBrown Library, Providence, Rhode Island.
I Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (New York: Harperand Row, 1971), 109-
35.
2 Alexandervon Humboldt,The Island of Cuba, J. S. Thrasher,trans. (1856;
rpt. New York:
Negro Universities Press, 1969), 317; Joe A. Akerman, Jr., Florida Cowman, A History o(f
Florida Cattle Raising (Kissimmee, Fla.: Florida Cattlemen's Association. 1976), 100-101.
3 C.
LangdonWhite and John Thompson, "The Llanos-A Neglected Grazing Resource,"
Journal of Range Management, 8 (January1955), 14.
0010-4175/86/4419-2831 $2.50 ? 1986 Society for ComparativeStudy of Society and History

672
 CATTLE RANCHING IN VENEZUELA AND FLORIDA 673

plaguedwith biting insects and disease-bearingticks. Such biting pests weak-

ened cattle and furtherlimited beef production.Finally, the Venezuelanllanos
containedjaguars, crocodilians, and even piranhas.These and otherpredators
took a yearly toll of llanos cattle.4
Despite these hazards, cattle flourished in the Venezuelan llanos. Spanish
explorers had introducedthe first cattle in the 1550s. Over the next three
centuries, these Spanish bovines evolved into small but hardycriollo cattle.
The criollos migrated to higher ground during floods, traversedgreat dis-
tances to locate grass and water during droughts, developed an immunityto
tick-borne diseases, and attempted to protect their calves from predators.
Thoughcriollo cows lost many calves each year, they still produceda sizeable
annual surplus.5
The yearly surplus of calves permitted successful cattle ranching-"the
rangingof cattle in considerablenumbersover extensive grazing groundsfor
the primarypurposeof large-scale productionof beef and hides."6 Since the
llanos possessed poor soils with little farming potential, cattle ranchingwas
the only feasible agriculturalpursuit. Consequently, Spanish colonial au-
thoritiesawardedhuge estates, or hatos, to prospective settlers. Hatos were
grants of roughly circular, unfenced llanos range with a ranchsteadat the
center. Typically, this ranchstead included dwellings, gardens, and cattle-
pens, or corrals.7
A large Venezuelan hato often contained forty or fifty thousand head of
cattle and required ten to twelve hired laborers (staneros or llaneros) to
managethe herd.8Since the ratioof cattle to llaneros was aboutfour thousand
to one, the cattle could not be tended on a daily basis. They were left to fend
for themselves during most of the year, receiving no protection, supplemen-
tary fodder, or veterinarycare. The llaneros nevertheless burnedthe llanos
duringthe dry season-a custom that had such beneficial effects as removing
dead forage, exposing fresh grass, and killing many pests.9 During the dry
4 See J. G. Myers, "Notes on Vegetationof the VenezuelanLlanos," Journal of Ecology. 21
(August 1933), 338-39; White and Thompson, "The Llanos." 11-12; C. Langdon White,
"Cattle Raising: A Way of Life in the Venezuelan Llanos," Scientific Monthly, 83 (September
1956). 125.
5 Edward B. Eastwick, Venezuela: or, Sketches of Life in a South-American Republic
(London: Chapmanand Hall, 1868), 261; John E. Rouse, The Criollo. Spanish Cattle in the
Americas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977). 61-62, 124-25; White, "Cattle
Raising," 124.
6 Charles J. Bishko. "The Peninsular
Background of Latin American Cattle Ranching."
Hispanic American Historical Review, 32 (November 1952), 494.
7 White and
Thompson. "The Llanos," 13-14; Don Ramon Paez, Wild Scenes in South
America: or, Life in the Llanos of Venezuela (New York: Charles Scribner. 1862), 28-29.
x Edward Sullivan, Rambles and Scrambles in North and South America (London: Richard
Bentley. 1852), 403. A herd of forty to fifty thousand cattle would have yielded eight to ten
thousandmarketablebeeves each year.
9 Myers, "Notes on
Vegetation," 347; White, "Cattle Raising," 125; Paez. Wild Scenes,
185.
674 J. s. OTTO AND N. E. ANDERSON

season, llaneros also conductedthe annualround-upor rodeo to count, mark,

and cull the cattle herds. Mounted llaneros used rawhide ropes (lazos) to
capturestrays as well as pikes (garrochas) to drive the cattle into corrals for
processing. Llaneros then selected calves for marking, notching their ears
with distinctivecuts and brandingtheir flanks with hot irons, and also culled
the marketablebeef cattle. Releasing the calves and breeding stock on the
llanos, mountedllaneros, armedwith lazos and pikes, drove the beef cattle to
coastal markets.' The final productof Venezuelancattle ranchingwas a 700-
poundcow, yielding a tick-bittenhide and perhaps 100 poundsof dried beef,
or tasajo. I Each year, Venezuelaexportedtons of tasajo to Cuba, which was
also importinglive beeves from Florida.
By 1860, Florida contained more than 388,000 cattle.12 Most of these
grazedupon the Floridaflatwoods-low-lying pine forests with an understory
of native grasses. During the rainy months from May to October, the flat-
woods were subject to flooding, but grass was abundant. During the dry
winter months from November to April, frosts and droughts killed most
grasses, and forage was scant.13 It was not uncommonfor a flatwoods cow to
lose more than a hundredpounds in weight duringthe winter. Such seasonal
weight losses delayed development and limited the beef productionof adult
animals. In addition, flatwoods cattle suffered from mosquitoes, flies, and
fever-bearingticks duringthe summers,and they fell prey to wolves, cougars,
bears, and even alligators.14
In spite of these problems, cattle multipliedin the Floridaflatwoods. Span-
ish colonists introducedthe first cattle in the 1560s. During the next three
hundredyears, Hispaniccattle devolved into the tiny but tough "scrub" cattle
of the Floridaflatwoods. 5 Weighing only a few hundredpounds, scrubcattle
could "cover range so sparse that heavier blooded stock literally walk[ed]
themselves to death trying to find enough to eat." 16Scrubs also developed a

(} Paez, Wild Scenes, 175-93; Sullivan, Rambles and Scrambles, 390, 393, 399.
I Rouse, The Criollo, 125: Alexander von Humboldt,Personal Narrative of Travels to the
EquinoctialRegions of America, during the Years 1799-1804, ThomasinaRoss. trans. and ed.
(London:George Bell and Sons, 1889), II, 137-38. To produce tasajo, workers cut the back
meatfrom a cow into long strips, which they salted and dried in the sun. Each cow yielded 4 or 5
arrobas (100 to 125 pounds) of dried beef. See Paez, Wild Scenes, 33-34; von Humboldt,
Personal Narrative, II, 138.
12 United States Census Office, Agriculturein the UnitedStates in 1860 (Washington,D. C.:
GovernmentPrintingOffice, 1864), 18.
13 Joe A. Edmisten, "The Ecology of the FloridaPine Flatwoods" (Ph.D. diss., Universityof
Florida, 1963), 1-4, 6. 11, 13; L. H. Lewis, Beef Cattle in Florida, Florida Departmentof
AgricultureBulletin no. 28 (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1944), 117.
14 W. G. Kirk, A. L. Shealy, and BradfordKnapp,Jr., WeightChangesof Cattleon a Florida
Range, AgriculturalExperiment Station Bulletin no. 418 (Gainesville: University of Florida,
1945), 18, 22; Robert S. Rummell, "Beef Cattle Productionand Range Practices in South
Florida," Journal of Range Management, 10 (March 1957), 75-76.
i5 Rouse, The Criollo, 186.
16 Stetson Kennedy, Palmetto Country (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942), 216.
 CATTLE RANCHING IN VENEZUELA AND FLORIDA 675

toleranceto Florida'sbiting pests as well as an immunityto tick-bornefevers.

And, though small in size, scrubs possessed the long horns of their Hispanic
forebears.Bandingtogether, hornedbulls and cows saved most of theircalves
from the attacks of predators.17
Given the yearly surplusof scrub calves, cattle ranchingproved feasible in
the Florida flatwoods, an environmentcharacterizedby poor drainage and
sandy, infertile soils. Because of the poor soils, few planters and farmers
claimed flatwoods land, and the bulk of the flatwoods was still unclaimed
public land as late as 1860. The flatwoods attractedcattle ranchers,however,
who knew that sandy soils yielded grasses for their stock. Settling in the
flatwoods, ranchers grazed their cattle in the unfenced public lands at no
charge, a practice that was safeguarded by state law. Although Florida
rancherssharedthe public flatwoods range, they purchasedsmall homesteads
for their dwellings, gardens, and cattle pens. 18
By 1860, a large Florida rancher such as John Lanier owned a modest
homesteadof only 400 acres, but he grazed 1,900 cattle on the public range.
To manage his herd, Lanier called on his "cow-hunters"-his two teenage
sons, his marriedson, and his black slave man.19Given the high ratioof cattle
to cow-hunters,rancherslike John Laniercould devote little attentionto their
stock duringthe year. Lanierand otherFloridaranchers,however, burnedthe
flatwoods range during the dry winters, a practice that removed frost-killed
vegetation, exposed fresh grass, and destroyedmany pests.20With the advent
of the spring rains, ranchers and their cow-hunters began collecting range
cattle for brandingand marketing,a procedurethat continued until fall, not-
withstandingthe inconveniencecaused by standingwaterin the flatwoods. To
gatherstock in the unfenced flatwoods, mountedcow-huntersrelied on cow-
dogs, or "cur-dogs," to capturestraysas well as on whips to drive cattle into
pens for processing. After penning the cattle, cow-hunters matched un-
brandedcalves with their branded mothers, notched the calves' ears with
distinctivecuts, and brandedtheir sides with hot irons. Concurrently,workers
selected the beeves for market. These were the maturesteers, weighing six

17 Joe G. Warner,Biscuits anid'Taters.:A History of Cattle

Ranchingin Manatee Counlit(St.
Petersburg:Great Outdoors Pub., 1980), 2, 5-6.
18 John S. Otto,
"Hillsborough County (1850): A Community in the South Florida Flat-
woods," Florida Historical Quarterly, 62 (October 1983), 181-82, 191.
19 Data on John Lanier's cattle ranch are derived from the
manuscriptreturnsof the Eighth
United States Census (1860) for Hillsborough County. Florida, Schedule 1: Free Inhabitants,
Schedule 2: Slave Inhabitants,and Schedule 4: Agriculture, on microfilm at the National Ar-
chives, Washington, D. C., and the Robert ManningStrozierLibrary,FloridaState University,
Tallahassee. Since Florida cattle ranchersroutinely marketeda tenth of their herds each year.
Lanier's 1,900 cattle would have annually yielded about 190 marketablebeeves. See Otto,
"HillsboroughCounty." 189.
20 Otto, "Hillsborough
County," 191; H. L. Stoddard, "Use of Fire in Pine Forests and
Game Landsof the Deep Southeast," Proceedings of the First A1nnualTall TimbersFire Ecology
Conf.erence(Tallahassee:Tall Timbers Research Station, 1962). 33.
676 J. S. OTTO AND N. E. ANDERSON

hundredpounds on the average and yielding about three hundredpounds of

fresh beef. Releasing the remainingcattle on the flatwoods range, mounted
cow-hunters,accompaniedby cur-dogs, drove the beeves to Floridaports for
shipmentto Cuba.21
Although Floridacattle ranchersand their Venezuelancounterpartsshared
the same Cubanmarket,their ranchingpracticesdiffered in several respects.
Venezuelan ranchersgenerally owned their range lands, whereas Floridians
utilized the public range. Venezuelans, in turn, collected range cattle during
the dry season, while Floridianscollected them duringthe rainy season. And
the Venezuelanllaneros used lazos and pikes to collect rangecattle, whereas
Floridacow-huntersrelied on dogs and whips to gather stock.
Outweighingthese few differences are the strikingsimilaritiesin the cattle-
ranchingsystems of Venezuelansand Floridians.Cattleranchingin the Vene-
zuelan llanos and the Florida flatwoods shared such features as Hispanic-
derived cattle, grazing on unfenced range, annual range burning, periodic
round-upsof rangecattle, markingand brandingof calves, and traildrives of
beef cattle to market. This remarkablesimilarity in the cattle-ranchingprac-
tices of two such widely separatedareas as the Venezuelan llanos and the
Florida flatwoods poses a significant problem in comparativehistory: Were
the similarities in ranching in Venezuela and Florida the result of parallel
adaptationsto similar grazing environmentsin the llanos and flatwoods? Or
were the similaritiesthe result of a shared Spanish cattle-ranchingheritage?
Scholars have often hypothesized that all cattle ranchingin the Americas
has a common Spanishorigin.22When Spaniardsemigratedto the New World
after 1492, they introducedtheir cattle, their traditionalranchingsystem, and
even their love of beef. By 1800, Spanish-Americancattle ranching had
diffused as far south as Patagoniaand as far northas California,Texas, and
Florida. During the nineteenth century, however, British-Americansim-
pinged upon this Spanish-Americancattle-ranchingempire. English-speaking
Americans annexed California, Texas, and Florida;they settled among the
Spanish-Americaninhabitants;and they presumablylearned Spanish cattle-
ranching practices. Thanks to this tutelage, it is claimed that the English-
speakingsettlersin Floridaand elsewhere became as proficientat cattle ranch-
ing as their Spanish-speakingneighbors.23

21 See Warner, Biscuits and 'Taters, 18-23; John S. Otto, "Florida's Cattle-Ranching Fron-
tier: HillsboroughCounty (1860)," Florida Historical Quarterly. 63 (July 1984), 79, 82.
22 For
example, see Arnold Strickon, "The Euro-AmericanRanching Complex," in Mani,
Culture, and Animails:The Role of Animals in HlumanEcological Adjustments,Anthony Leeds
and Andrew Vayda, eds. (Washington, D. C.: American Association for the Advancementof
Science, 1965), 229; D. B. Grigg, The Agricultural Systems of the World:An Evolutionary
Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 243-48; David Dary, Cow\boy
Culture:A Saga of Five Centuries (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1981), 4-26.
23 See Rouse, The Criollo, 27-88; Fred Kniffen, "The Western Cattle Complex: Notes on
Differentiationand Diffusion," Western Folklore, 12 (July 1953), 182-85; Dary, Cowvboy
Culture, 44-104.
 CATTLE RANCHING IN VENEZUELA AND FLORIDA 677

In the case of Venezuelan cattle ranching, the Spanish-originshypothesis

has obvious merit. Spanishcolonists are known to have introducedtheircattle
and ranchingpracticesto the Venezuelan llanos in the mid-sixteenthcentury.
Among these early Spanish colonists were many emigrants from Andalusia
and Extremadurain southernSpain.24It is significantthat southernSpain was
one of the few areas in medieval Europe to have developed true cattle
ranching.25
In medieval southern Spain, ranchers acquired large grazing estates or
grazed their cattle on shared municipal ranges. These unfenced ranges in-
cluded much matorral-tracts of poor land containing little more than ever-
green shrubsand seasonal grasses. Ranchersburnedthe matorraleach spring
to reduceshrubberyand expose fresh grass for theircattle. They then gathered
up theircattle, penned them in corrals, and identifiedthe new calves with ear
marks (sefales) and brands (hierros). Once marked, cattle grazed on the
unfenced range underthe watchful eyes of mountedherdsmen, or vaqueros.
Armed with pikes (again garrochas) and accompanied by herd-dogs, the
vaqueros protected stock from predatorsand prevented cattle from straying
into fields. They also rounded up the cattle each fall, selecting grass-fed
beeves for marketand drivingthem along overlandtrailsto cattle fairs for sale
and slaughter.Beef, whetherfresh or dried, became a staple food in medieval
Spain.26
Settling in the Venezuelan llanos, the Andalusianand Extremaduranemi-
grantsapparentlyreproducedmuch of theirtraditionalcattle-ranchingsystem.
Venezuelan ranchers acquired large grazing estates, annually burned the
range, relied on mounted laborersto manage their herds, and continued the
customs of cattle round-ups, markingand branding,trail drives, and the use
of drief beef as a common foodstuff. In Venezuela, however, labor was too
scarce to provide herds with daily protectionas in Spain. Cattle were left to
survive on their own in the Venezuelan llanos, suffering losses to predators
and subsisting on withered grass during the dry season. When llaneros
gatheredthe surviving cattle for brandingand marketing27at the close of the
dry season, they retained the traditionalSpanish garrochas, but they aban-
doned Hispanic herd-dogs in favor of saddle ropes or lazos-an Hispanic-
Americaninnovation.28A llanero fashionedone end of his lazo into a noose,

24 White and
Thompson, "The Llanos," 13; Peter Boyd-Bowman, "Patterns of Spanish
Emigrationto the Indies until 1600," Hispanic American Historical Review, 56 (November
1976), 583-88.
25 Bishko, "Peninsular
Background," 495.
26 See CharlesJ. Bishko, "The Castilianas Plainsman:The Medieval RanchingFrontierin La
Mancha and Extremadura,"in The New WorldLooks at Its History, Archibald R. Lewis and
Thomas F. McGann, eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1963), 49, 55-56; idem,
"PeninsularBackground," 496-513.
27 See Rouse, The Criollo, 61-62.
2X The New World
origins of the Hispanic-Americanlazo are discussed in Dary. Cowboy
Culture. 21, 31-35.
678 J. S. OTTO AND N. E. ANDERSON

tied the otherend to his saddle or to his horse's tail, and then threw the noose
over the head of a stray calf. As the calf ran off, the lazo tautened, and the
runninganimal pitched to the ground, where it could be tied, marked, and
branded.29
Despite the adoptionof the lazo and other changes, an essentially Spanish
form of cattle ranching flourished in the Venezuelan llanos from the 1550s
until independencewas won in 1821.30 Such was not the case in Florida, a
Spanish possession that the United States annexed in 1821. Florida was in-
deed the scene of Hispaniccattle ranchingfor much of its historyas a Spanish
colony (1565-1763 and 1783-1820).3' Yet, when the United States acquired
Florida, little was left of this Hispaniccattle industry,except the criollo cattle
that wanderedin the flatwoods.32From 1821 to 1861, Floridaattractedthou-
sands of British-Americanrancherswho incorporatedthe hardy criollo, or
scrubcattle, into theirherds. Surprisingly,these English-speakingnewcomers
to Floridawere already acquaintedwith the practiceof grazing cattle on the
unfencedrange, annualrangeburning,use of horses, dogs, and whips to herd
cattle, periodic round-ups, marking and branding of stock, trail drives to
market, and the use of beef as a staple food.33
This cattle-ranchingcomplex, moreover, was not confined to English-
speaking Floridians. These practices were also found among British-Ameri-
cans living in southern Georgia and the coastal Carolinas.34 In fact, the
complex apparentlyoriginated within coastal South Carolina, a colony first
settled by British immigrantsin 1670.35
Cattle are known to have arrived with the first British colonists of Car-
olina.36 During the proprietaryyears (1670-1719), these early British colo-
nists includedmany Irish, Scots, Welsh, and "West Country"English.37It is

29 See Sullivan, Rambles and Scrambles, 401-2; Col. J. P. Hamilton, Travels through the
InteriorProvinces of Colombia (London:John Murray, 1827), I. 202; Paez, Wild Scenes, 181,
192-93.
30 White and Thompson, "The Llanos." 13-14.
31 CharlesW. Arnade, "Cattle Raising in Spanish Florida. 1513-1763," AgriculturalHisto-
ry, 35 (July 1961), 116-24; Akerman, Florida Cowman, 2-16.
32 Charles Vignoles, Observations upon the Floridas (New York: Bliss and White, 1823),
106-7; Lewis C. Gray, Historyof Agriculturein the SouthernUnitedStates to 1860 (Gloucester,
Mass.: Peter Smith, 1958), II, 901; Rouse, The Criollo, 186.
33 Otto. "HillsboroughCounty," 182, 184, 186, 189, 191; idem, "Florida'sCattle-Ranching
Frontier," 72, 76-77. 79.
34 See John B. Pate, History of TurnerCounty (Atlanta:Stein PrintingCo.. 1933), 29-31,
36-37, 41-42; Julia E. Harn, "Old Canoochee Backwoods Sketches," Georgia Historical
Quarterly, 24 (March 1940), 382-83; Elizabeth W. A. Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923), 17-18.
35 Terry G. Jordan, Trail to Texas: Southern Roots of Western Cattle Ranching (Lincoln:
Universityof NebraskaPress, 1981), 38-41.
36 G. A. Bowling, "The Introductionof Cattle into Colonial North America." Journal qof
Dairy Science, 25 (February1942), 149-50.
37 [SamuelWilson], AinAccountof the Province of Carolina in America (London:G. Larkin,
1682). 7: [John Norris], ProfitableAdvicefor Rich anidPoor . . . Containinga Description, or
 CATTLE RANCHING IN VENEZUELA AND FLORIDA 679

significantthat the western British Isles may have been one of the few Euro-
pean areas outside Spain to evolve a form of cattle ranching.38
In postmedievalwesternBritain,cattle raiserslived in scatteredhomesteads
and grazed their stock on the commons-the shared, unfenced range.39 In
westernBritain,most commons were moors, tractsof poor soil that supported
little more than evergreen heather and seasonal grasses. To improve the
moorland forage for their cattle, western Britons burned the moors during
winters, and the cattle grazed there from spring until fall.40 To identify their
stock on the unfenced moors, western Britons markedor brandedtheir ani-
mals.41Once marked,cattle grazed underthe care of hired herdsmen, "moor
men" or "neat herds," and their herd dogs, or "curs." To handle stock on
the moors, herdsmenrelied on curs to drive animalsinto fenced enclosures, or
"penns." The penns not only held animals for markingbut also served to
protect stock from nighttime predators and thieves.42 Cattle continued to
graze until fall, when frosts killed grasses and forage on the moors became
scarce. Each fall, owners gatheredup theircattle, retainedthe breedingstock,
and sold surplusanimals to the professional drovers who toured the western
moors. Drovers, mounted on horses and accompanied by cur-dogs, trailed

True Relation of South Carolina, anl Einglish Plantation, or ColonY, in Anmerica(London: J. How,
1712). 13. 83-84; Edward McCrady. The History of South Carolina under the Propietarl
Government, 1670-1719 (New York: Macmillan Co.. 1897).
3x Bishko, "PeninsularBackground,"494. Also see RobertTrow-Smith,A History of British
LivestockHusbandryto 1700 (London:Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1957), 213, 223. 229: Crispin
Gill, The West Country(Edinburgh:Oliver and Boyd, 1962), 9--10.
39 Jay A. Anderson, " 'A Solid Sufficiency': An Ethnographyof Yeoman Foodways in Stuart
England" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Pennsylvania. 1971), 7. 10; E. Estyn Evans, The Person-
alitv of Ireland:Habitat, Heritage, and History (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress. 1973),
38-39, 53, 60-61; W. G. Hoskins and L. D. Stamp, The CommonLands of England and Wales
(London:Collins, 1963), 108.
40 John F. Hart, The British Moorlands: A Problem in Land Utilization, University of Georgia
Monographsno. 2 (Athens: Universityof Georgia Press, 1955). 3-4, 9-10., 18-21; A. J. Kayll.
"Moor Burning in Scotland." Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Tall Timber.s Fire Ecology
Conference (Tallahassee:Tall Timbers Research Station, 1967), 32-35.
41 Mildred Campbell. The English Yeoman under Elizabeth and the Early Stuarts (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1942), 200-201: Edmund Spenser. A View o.fthe State of 'Ireland
as It Was in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Dublin: Laurence Flin. 1763), 251-52: Lyman
Carrier, The Begiinnings of Agriculture in America (New York: McGraw-Hill. 1923), 145.
42 Joan Thirsk, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales: 1500-1640 (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversity Press. 1967), 76; Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Hus-
bandrie, W. Payne and S. J. Herrtage,eds. (London:English Dialect Society, 1878), 141; A. L.
J. Gosset, Shepherds of Britaini: Scenes from Shepherd Life, Past anid Present (London: Consta-
ble and Co.. 1911). 145: Edward MacLysaght. Irish Lift' iin the Seventeenth Century (Shannon:
Irish University Press, 1969), 167-68.
Pen, or penn, was the generic Britishterm for a stock enclosure. See Joseph Wright,ed.. The
English Dialect Dictionary (London: Henry Frowde, 1898), IV, 464; Ernest Weekley, An Ety-
mological Dictionary of Modern English (London:John Murray, 1921), 1063. Such enclosures
were also known as ff.dds in Wales, folds in Scotland and Ireland, and ba\mns in Ireland. See
Dorothy Sylvester. The Rural Landscape of the WelshBorderland(London: Macmillan. 1969).
508; Wright, ed., Eniglish Dialect Dictionary, II. 439: Weekley, Etymological Dictionary, 127.
680 J. S. OTTO AND N. E. ANDERSON

beeves from western moors to English marketsfor sale and slaughter. Fresh
and salted beef products were common foods in postmedieval Britain, and
barrelsof salt beef provisionedthe Britishships that sailed for the New World
colonies.43
Arriving in the Carolina colony, western British settlers found a natural
environmentwhich was reminiscent of their ancestral homeland. Much of
coastal Carolinawas flatwoods, or pine barren,which was roughlycompara-
ble to the British moors with their poor soils, heather, and grasses. The term
pine barrendepictsitscharacter,forthesoil was a "light,sterril[sic] Sand,produc-
tive of little else but pine-trees."44The pine flatwoods neverthelesscontained
an understoryof coarse grasses that offered forage throughoutthe year.45
Finding a familiar environment in the Carolina pine barren, the western
Britons apparentlyretainedmany of their traditionalcattle-raisingpractices.
Caroliniansacquiredhomesteads, or "plantations," but grazedtheircattle on
the common range as in Britain. In addition, Caroliniansburned the range
during winters, thus adaptingBritish moor-burningto the local flatwoods.46
Since Carolina cattle ranged "abroad in the Woods and not Fenc'd in
Fields," the ranchers,or "planters," continuedthe Britishpracticeof identi-
fying stock with "ear [marks] and burnt marks [brands]." They annually
collected theirrangestock, "bringingtheircattle to theirrespectivepenns and
markingthem as they were accustomed."47 Caroliniansalso maintainedthe
Britishcustom of selling off surplusanimals in the fall;48using cur-dogs and
whips, they collected range cattle, selected marketablesteers, and trailed
beeves to Charlestonfor butchering,salting, and barreling.49In a typical year
such as 1713, the portof Charlestonexportedover 1,900 barrelsof salt beef to
British colonies in the West Indies.5?

43 Hart, "British Moorlands," 24, 26; RichardJ. Colyer, The Wels/hCattle Drovers: Agri-
cultureand the WelshCattle Tradebefore and during the NineteenthCentury(Cardiff:University
of Wales Press. 1976), 7; CarolineSkeel, The Cattle Trade between Wales and Englandfrom the
Fifteenth to the NineteenthCenturies. Transactionsof the Royal HistoricalSociety no. 9 (Lon-
don: Offices of the Society. 1926), 147. 155; K. J. Bonser. The Drovers: WhoThey Were and
How They Went (London: Macmillan, 1970). 23, 35, 45, 104, 106-8.
44 Mark Catesby, The Natural History of Carolina. Florida, and the Bahamas Islands
(London: privately printed, 1743), II, iv.
45 Duringthe summers,five acres of pine forest rangeproducedenough grass to feed one cow,
but during winters, fifteen acres provided barely enough to sustain that same cow. See Sam B.
Hilliard, Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840-1860 (Carbondale:
SouthernIllinois University Press, 1972). 136.
46
[Wilson], An Account of the Province (' Carolina, 13; [Norris]. Profitable Advice, 91.
47
[Norris], Profitable Advice, 51; Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South
Carolina (Columbia:A. S. Johnston, 1837), II, 106-7, 261-62.
48 [Norris], Profitable Advice, 25; John Lawson, The History of Carolina: Containing the
Exact Description and Natural History of That Country (London: T. Warner, 1718). 80-81.
49
Jordan,Trails to Texas, 31, 34, 41. The use of whips and dogs to herdcattle was apparently
a British custom, for Australiancattle ranchersalso relied on whips and dogs to manage their
stock. See John Greenway, "AustralianCattle Lingo," American Speech, 33 (October 1958).
163.
50 Clarence L. Ver Origins of a Southern Mosaic: Studies of Early Carolina and1(
Steeg,
 CATTLE RANCHING IN VENEZUELA AND FLORIDA 68I

Though there were continuities from the British past, Carolinian cattle
ranching underwent considerable change in adapting to local conditions.
When the first colonists landed in Carolina in 1670, the proprietorsof the
colony gave them cattle-keeping instructions that were typically British:
"You are alwayes to have one or more [herdsmen]to looke after yor Catle,
who must bring them home at night, & putt them in yor enclosed Ground
[penn], otherwisethey will grow wild & be lost."'5 Yet, laborwas too dearin
early Carolinato provide herdsmenand daily care on the British model, and
the cattle were left to survive in the flatwoods, overcominglosses to predators
and subsisting on native grasses. "Having little winter, the woods furnished
[cattle] with both shelter and provisions all the year; neither houses nor
attendantswere provided for them, but each planter's cattle, distinguished
only by his mark, everywheregrazed with freedom."52 Since cattle required
little care, laborerswere needed only to collect stock for brandingand market-
ing, for which tasks ranchersacquiredblack slave herdsmen,who were collo-
quially known as cow-hunters.53
Originatingwithin the Carolina flatwoods during the period 1670-1719,
cattle ranchinghad spreadthroughoutthe colony by the mid-eighteenthcen-
tury. By 1750, South Carolina contained an estimated hundred thousand
cattle, and the colony annually butcheredtwelve thousand animals for salt
beef.54 However, these numbers representedmore livestock than the land
could support, and South Carolina's rancherssoon were leading their herds
into the neighboringcolonies of North Carolinaand Georgia.
North Carolina was a colony of farmers and planters who resented the
intrusionof the South Carolinacattle ranchers. In 1766, the North Carolina
colonial assembly passed an act "to preventthe Inhabitantsfrom South Car-
olina driving their Stocks of Cattle from thence to range and feed in this
Province,"unless they purchased "a sufficient quantityof Land for feeding
the said Cattleon."55 Finding legal obstacles in theirpathway, most Carolina
ranchersturnedsouthwardto Georgia.
Soon after its founding in 1732, the colony of Georgia importedcattle from
its northernneighbor, South Carolina. Since the trustees of Georgia forbade

Georgia, Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures no. 17 (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1975), 116.
51
[Langdon Cheves. ed.], Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society (Richmond:
William Jones, 1897), V, 126.
52
[Alexander Hewatt], An1Historical Account of the Rise land Progress f' the Colonies of
South Carolina and Georgia (London: Alexander Donaldson. 1779). I, 95.
53 Gary S. Dunbar, "Colonial Carolina
Cowpens." Agricultural History, 35 (July 1961),
126, 130.
54 Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Royal Goverlnment, 1719-1776
(New York:MacmillanCo., 1901), 396: David D. Wallace, The Historyof'SouthCarolina (New
York: American Historical Society, 1934). I, 451.
55 Walter Clark, ed.. The State Records
of North Carolina (Goldsboro: Nash Bros., 1904),
XXIII, 676.
682 J. S. OTTO AND N. E. ANDERSON

slavery duringthe first years of the colony's existence, Georgia cattle raisers
hired free white cow-hunters to tend their cattle. But in 1749, Georgia
droppedits prohibitionagainst slavery. South Carolina's ranchersand their
slave cow-hunters were free to enter the new colony to graze cattle in the
unfenced flatwoods.56
At the eve of the revolutionarywar, British-Americancattle rancherswere
found throughoutcoastal Georgia and South Carolina.57Following the close
of the war in 1783, ranchersbegan moving into southernGeorgia, where they
established a cattle industry that supplied beeves to coastal cities such as
Charlestonand Savannah.These ports, in turn, exportedbeef and other live-
stock productsto the West Indies.58
After the United States acquired Florida in 1821, cattle ranchers from
Georgiaand Carolinamoved theirherds into the new territoryand claimed the
criollo cattle they found grazing in the flatwoods. Thanks to the influx of
these British-Americanranchers,Floridabecame the leadingcattle-producing
state in the cismississippi South by 1860.59Each year, Floridaranchersdrove
thousandsof scrubbeeves to ports such as Charleston,Savannah,and Tampa.
And by 1860, the port of Tampa was exporting more than four hundred
beeves monthlyto Cuba,60thus continuingan export tradeto the West Indies
that began in colonial South Carolina.

CONCLUSIONS

Although Florida and Venezuela shareda Spanish colonial experience, their

cattle industriesin 1860 did not emerge from a common Spanishorigin. Cattle
ranchingin Floridatracedits origins to westernBritain,whereasthe Venezue-
lan form stemmed from antecedents in southern Spain. Despite these dif-
ferences, Floridianand Venezuelanranchinghad evolved in remarkablysim-
ilar fashionby 1860. The similaritiesmay be explainedas paralleladaptations
to similar grazing environmentsin the New World.
Western Britain and southern Spain, the source areas of Floridian and
Venezuelan ranching, were among the few regions in the Old World where

56 John H. Goff. "Cow

Punching in Old Georgia." Georgia Review, 3 (Fall 1949). 341; E.
MertonCoulter,ed., TheJourinal of WillialnStephens. 1743-1745 (Athens: Universityof Geor-
gia Press, 1959), 97; Gray, History of Agriculture. I, 100. 148.
57 See William Bartram, Travels through North aiid South Carolina, Georgia, East atld West
Florida (Philadelphia:James and Johnson. 1791), 18-19, 309-11.
58 See Fussell M. Chalker, Pioneer Days along the Ocmulgee (Carrollton.Ga.: Thomasson
Printing. 1970), 45; Victor Davidson. History of WilkinsonCounty (Macon, Ga.. J. W. Burke
Co.. 1978). 107; Folks Huxford, The History of Brooks County. Georgia (Athens. Ga..
McGregorCo., 1949), 25; Hilliard, Hog Meat and Hoecake, 122.
59 John S. Otto, "Florida's Cattle-Ranching Frontier: Manatee and Brevard Counties
(1860)." Florida Historical Quarterly. 64 (July 1985), 59-61.
I' "List of Produce, &c. Shipped from the Portof Tampa, duringthe Past Season." Florida
Peninsular[Tampa], 3 December 1859; "A New Era in the Historyof Tampa." Florida Penin-
sular [Tampa]28 July 1860.
 CATTLE RANCHING IN VENEZUELA AND FLORIDA 683

true cattle ranching developed. British and Spanish cattle ranching shared
such featuresas grazing on the unfenced range, annualrange burning,use of
herdsmen,markingand brandingof stock, periodic round-ups,and trail driv-
es to market.And when Britishand Spanishsettlersintroducedcattle ranching
to Florida and Venezuela, they reproduced many of these parallel cattle-
ranchingpractices.
The parallels in British and Spanish ranchingpractices were enhanced by
adaptationsto similar grazing environmentsin the Florida flatwoods and the
Venezuelan llanos. Although, unlike Venezuela, Floridaexperienced killing
frosts, the subtropicalflatwoods and the tropicalllanos sharedsuch attributes
as seasonal forage scarcities, disease-bearingticks, and a host of predators.
Ranchers overcame these grazing limitations by raising criollo cattle-the
acclimateddescendantsof the Iberianstock introducedby Spanishcolonists in
the sixteenthcentury. Though criollos were poor beef animals, they survived
on sparse native grasses, developed immunities to disease, and produced
sufficient calves to overcome losses to predators.Given their ability to re-
producein such harshenvironments,the criollos became the key to successful
cattle ranchingin the Florida flatwoods and the Venezuelan llanos.