Horse Culture and English Customs: The Importance of the Saddle Horse in 18th-Century English Colonies
Author(s): Sara Rivers Cofield
Year: 2013
Summary
Research into the origin of horse furniture found in colonial assemblages in Maryland has revealed new information about the predominance of saddle horses for travel there. English Customs records from 1697 to 1770 illustrate that more bridles and saddles of English manufacture were imported to Maryland and Virginia than to any other English colony in the New World, indicating that saddle horses may have been far more important in the Chesapeake than in other English colonies. This paper looks at the differences between Maryland and Virginia settlement patterns, landscape, and culture to identify factors that promoted travel on horseback, and therefore impacted the amount of horse furniture left in the archaeological record.
Cite this Record
Horse Culture and English Customs: The Importance of the Saddle Horse in 18th-Century English Colonies. Sara Rivers Cofield. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Leicester, England, U.K. 2013 ( tDAR id: 428263)
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Keywords
General
Colonial Economy
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Horse
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Trade
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Travel
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
18th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 238