The history of the horses in Mexico was traditionally looked at from the angle of the conquerors, the Spaniards. Horses symbolized the Conquest, the colonial domination. The thesis, the mexican horse, investigates the interactions between the horses and the social groups stemming from the spanish colonisation. It intends to shed new light on the emergence and the spreading of an original horse culture taking roots in the Nueva España, which attests to the crystalisation of the modern mexicanity as soon as the XVIth century. "Mexican horse" is an expression created by Thomas Gage, an english dominican monk who traveled and lived in the West Indies during the second quarter of the XVIIth century. We have been inquiring into the origins of the equestrian practices introduced by the horse-riding conquerors at the time of the conquest of Mexico in the early XVIth century and into the process of their " americanization " throughout the XVIth and the XVII century, thus giving to the history of the mexican horse its long term dimension.These horse-riding conquerors introduced in Mexico equestrian arts and practices for war (the brida, the jineta and the estradiota) that they had inherited from the age-old spanish-arabic history. Until the secund half of the XVIIth century,there was a huge passion for the jineta, of which the city of Mexico was the world showcase. The documentation to which we had access and analysed was extensive and varied : manuscripts, mexican colonial codex, maps, admnistrative and criminal archives, etc.). This work allowed for a first attempt at drawing up the genesis of the mexican horse from the angle of social and cultural history and it enhances the importance of the native contribution to equitation and dressage techniques. Also, it reveals the existence of an original mexican colonial horse culture. Finally, varios portraits of horse owners , traders and thieves in the XVI and XVII century constitute a colourful contribution to micro-history of that period in Mexico, as they are the first ones of that kind.
The mexican horse in New Spain, 1519-1639