One of my favorite horse portraits. From Wallcoo.net

Hidalgo is a quasi-historical production about Frank Hopkins, a Wild West rider who takes his mustang on a treacherous race through the Arabian desert. At face value, it’s fun and attractive and more of a family flick than a plausible historical epic. But once you’ve seen it (and the epilogue explaining that the whole thing was a true story) your first thought is to find out more about this amazing guy who used his outstanding feats on horseback as a catalyst for one of the greatest efforts of wild mustang preservation.

Aside from the mustang outreach, the film’s other attraction was its roots in Plains Indian culture. Hopkins isn’t just a cowboy; he’s a born-and raised Lakota struggling to come to terms with his mixed white heritage, serving as an army scout and finding himself involved in the fateful events at Wounded Knee. By movie’s end he is able to reconcile his purpose in life by embracing his Indian heritage and working to preserve the horse lifestyle.

It’s obvious to any objective viewer that the story line is a little far-fetched, slightly on the feel-good side of reality. The reinvented cowboy figure sanctified by his Indian heritage, making it more politically correct for a modern audience; damsels in distress (an Arabian princess, no less); a journey of self-discovery and redemption, and the impossible victory of the underdog in a typical Disney-ish fashion.

Add to this the faux pas of having a half-Lakota portrayed by a blond Nordic (you probably already know my feelings about Indians played by non-Indians), and some really deplorable geography (Damascus is nowhere near the sea, and a 3,000 mile race would take a rider far out of the range of the film’s setting). But that’s my more abrasive approach. You’d really have to see it to get that it really works. It’s good in a genuine, almost-but-not-really-believable sort of way.

The Hopkins Controversy

But back to my investigation. Unbeknownst to me, the movie had already stirred up a long-standing, long-winded debate about this marvelous legend of a man, Frank Hopkins. “Camp A” lauded Hopkins’s accomplishments as a champion endurance racer, and his landmark efforts of preserving the mustang and traditional Lakota knowledge of horsemanship. “Camp B” called him a hopeless huckster, and Hidalgo merely the cheap and devious sequel to his colossal fraud. Some of these even purport that he may never have ridden a horse in his life, and the whole legend was the pipe dream of a thwarted wannabe cowboy. Oddly enough, this time, the cry of stretched or embellished facts was not aimed directly at Hollywood.

I was interested in what first provoked such a vociferous debate. It seems that if Hopkins were half the man he was claimed to be – and did half the things he was claimed to have had accomplished – he should literally be the most famous man on earth. Excuse my ignorance but I had never heard of him before I saw the movie. Apparently, the historical record is none too familiar with him either. A quick read of his biography and you can easily sympathize with Hidalgo’s detractors:

“As well as spurring his mustang to victory in (to be exact) 452 endurance races around the globe, Frank Hopkins also has an impressive list of other achievements. He claimed to be the most famous dispatch rider in the West, an associate of Buffalo Bill Cody and one of the “cowboys” from the Congress of Rough Riders of the World performing in Buffalo Bill’s internationally famed Wild West Show. He says he was Chief Crazy Horse’s protégé, put on a two-hour equestrian performance before Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and helped famed plainsman Buffalo Jones capture and tame the first buffalo.
 
Hopkins also said he served with the Pinkerton detective agency, was a secret agent of the US government during World War I, a guide in the Grand Canyon for big game hunters including novelist Zane Grey, and once charged up San Juan hill with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. All this, of course, was in addition to mentoring Billy the Kid.”
 
“Hidalgo: A Film or Flimflam?” by Peter Harrigan, Arab News

Please give me a break. Either he suffered from borderline personality disorder, senility, or the world’s worst midlife crisis – or someone was seriously messing with this man’s memoirs.

I am not about to get embroiled in the convoluted debate over whether Hopkins was the world’s greatest endurance racer, or which episodes of his exploits are plausible and which are merely spin; there’s far too much literature on the subject for me to add more (and almost nothing about the man is not in question, starting with his date of birth!) But the material points here are 1) what’s the best evidence for and against the legend of Frank Hopkins, and 2) what to make of Hidalgo the movie?

Supporters vs. skeptics

In Camp A are such supporters as writer John Fusco, the administrator of FrankHopkins.com, mustang preservation activist, and last but not least, author of the Hidalgo screenplay. He has spent many years researching Hopkins’s life and offers the testimonies of first-hand acquaintances and friends of Hopkins. They vouch for his vast knowledge of unorthodox horsemanship gleaned from many years of intimate association with mustangs and Native horsemen:

“Whoever Frank Hopkins was—whether or not he made some spectacular long rides in underground competitions; whether or not he or Gert [Gertrude Hopkins, who published her husband's biography after his death] padded a more modest history with purple prose– one thing is now incontrovertible fact, supported by living witnesses:
 
The man was acknowledged and respected as “the ultimate in horsemanship”, a skilled trainer who used natural techniques long before they became trendy, and a passionate and eloquent spokesman for the preservation of an endangered breed. He was extremely knowledgeable about Native American horsemanship and Native horse medicine. He was an inspiration to later preservationists… and he remains an inspiration to the new wave of preservationists. He was also–according to everyone who has come forward to say they knew him—a very decent and quiet man.”
 
John Fusco, from FrankHopkins.com

Fusco and others also tout Native oral traditions which may or may not support the story of the epic desert race depicted in the movie. This draws the ire of opponents such as Vine Deloria Jr., renowned Lakota scholar, and likewise of Arab scholars who contest the idea of screenwriters with insider knowledge of a grand ceremonial race which has apparently defied all historic record – even in the Middle East.

The rallying cry of the Hopkins supporters is the adage “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” – this in response to the fact that there is no concrete information about his upbringing, his pony express career, his racing record, or any overseas performance; no record of his service as an army scout and interpreter; and no documentation of his being in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Oddly enough, the only extant employment records for Mr. Hopkins are from the early 1900s – as a manual laborer in the shipyards and subways of the Eastern seaboard, and as a horse handler for the Ringling Brothers Circus (the irony there being that the show horses were Arabians, not mustangs).

A History Channel documentary entitled “The True Story of Hidalgo” featuring many of Camp B’s Hopkins opponents outlines many of the arguments discrediting the Hopkins story. Most damning perhaps is the text of the autobiography itself, with its outlandish Quixotic exploits (some of which no doubt were added at a later date) and its egregious distortions of Native history. In this respect it was a dubious move on the part of Fusco and the producers to use such a distasteful example of cultural appropriation as a source for a film supporting a Native image. Really, would it have been so difficult to start from scratch?

The most extreme naysayers paint a portrait of Hopkins as the most insidious kind of charlatan, slandering the movie Hidalgo and conjuring every possible criticism to the point of crying conspiracy. But between those who claim he is a neglected and maligned hero, and those who claim that he never rode a horse in his life, my instincts tell me that the truth is to be found somewhere in the middle. Our best bet is to work backwards – before the movie, before the publications.

Hopkins did work as a horse handler, so it’s likely he was able to pick up a good bit of the trade. Unfortunately any evidence of his prowess as a rider is circumstantial at best. If he was anything as good as he is claimed, then it is highly suspect that no more substantial record exists in all the annals of the West. (Movie fans should also remember that the film depicts only one hand-picked episode from Hopkins’s fantastic memoirs; if we had been presented with the lump sum of his Wild West escapades, it would certainly never pass for reality.) Until Hopkins researchers come up with more solid evidence to support his reputation as a champion horseman, his case is shaky at best. The fact that almost nothing is known about his life outside of his memoirs remains the primary obstacle, and explains why the story is such fertile ground for imagination.

What about his real role in mustang preservation? Supporters claim that he started the first wild mustang preserve in eastern Oklahoma, where his beloved Hidalgo was released to run free with a wild herd. I haven’t been able to find record of any such preserve. In fact the next best thing is the project organization of none other than writer John Fusco, who founded a mustang refuge for the Indian ponies of the Oklahoma reservations. This, incidentally, is the place where he claims Hidalgo’s descendents can be found today – an uncanny and somewhat confusing find that brings the search full circle. (I’ve got to admit, I’m not totally on board with Fusco’s line of logic through all of this.)

During Hopkins’s time in the limelight, and up to his death in Queens, New York in 1951, he was an outspoken advocate for the mustang and urged for steps to be taken to ensure its survival:

“In my day I watch the destruction of the buffalo and the antelope, We say their destruction was due to a benighted profligate generation, If we permit the MUSTANG to disappear we may be accused of the same qualities and we will deserve the accusation, The MUSTANG is as AMERICAN as George Washington and AMERICA is a vast enough land and IMPORTANT enough Nation to have A HORSE of our very own, HE IS FACING HIS LAST STAND, TO LET HIM GO WOULD IN MY OPINION BE A MAJOR AMERICAN NATIONAL TRAGEDY.”

Frank Hopkins, quoted from Reno Wild Horse Tours – About Nevada and Mustangs

Whether his interest in the mustang was from personal experience, or merely part of some fantasy, wild horses were the height of romance in the early 1900s – part and parcel of the “vanishing frontier” that spawned so much sensational spin and so many hollow heroes. Hopkins’s legend survived because it embraced the lure of the West, interwove it with popular fantasies about its Native peoples, and captured the romance of the horse in much the same way as the Wild West shows, dime novels, and early Western movies. If Hopkins was a complete fraud, then he’s by far not the biggest or the worst that has been perpetuated into the present day.

The mustang – and by extension the man who rides it – has always captured our imaginations and embodied our wildest fantasies of adventure and freedom. That’s the natural reason most people will be biased in favor of this kind of story: just like enthralled audiences of the early 1900s, we’d really love to believe it’s true. It’s why the Hopkins’s legend still looms large and the movie has caused such a huge splash.

The legend and the movie

“As far as I’m concerned, if they [the producers] would’ve made it clear from the very beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Juti Winchester, curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyo. (Quoted from “Hidalgo the Horse Hoax” – Blue Corn Comics

This is only partly so, given that the Hopkins controversy was seething long before Hidalgo ever saw the light of day. But the interest stirred by the movie’s production has certainly served to intensify the public debate over historical accuracy, and added a few more questionable elements to the mix.

For instance, the movie makes a focal point of Hopkins’s Native heritage, whereas beyond his memoirs’ aggrandized tales of kinship with several well-known Native leaders, there’s no indication that he had any Lakota ancestry. As far as it’s presented in the movie, it’s pure literary license. And the part about his using the winner’s purse from the Arab race to save a herd of doomed mustangs that still roams free today, is likewise pure fiction. It appears that the film writer has channeled his own honest desire to protect and celebrate the mustang into a partly fictional persona who was less real than his on-screen portrayal.

“I took what was a very banal, saddle-tech account of Hopkins’ own desert memories of 1891 and turned them into an action-adventure celebration of a story that has long fascinated me. Today, some critics actually believe that Hopkins himself dreamed up bandit ambuscades, hunting leopards, daring rescues, a three second victory margin, and the dramatic name of the race: the Ocean of Fire. He did not. I did.”

John Fusco (FrankHopkins.com)

In my mind, tacking on the “true story” line was the clincher – an underhanded marketing spiel that contributed absolutely nothing to the efforts of validating Hopkins’s life and achievements. It merged the Hopkins controversy with what should have been a completely separate issue about film making and performance. If writers or producers want to take a few liberties with a historical idea and make it into a movie, we can all live with that. But using already disputed material, embellishing it, and then passing it off as the real thing, is a recipe for disaster – hence the ridiculously voluble debate that’s still going strong several years after the film’s release.

Critic Roger Ebert’s 3-out-of-5-star review sums it up perfectly (in addition to describing the movie to a tee):

“Whether you like movies like this, only you can say. But if you do not have some secret place in your soul that still responds even a little to brave cowboys, beautiful princesses and noble horses, then you are way too grown up and need to cut back on cable news. And please ignore any tiresome scolds who complain that the movie is not really based on fact. Duh. ”

“Hidalgo” Review – RogerEbert.com

The Long Riders Guild “The Hopkins Hoax” – a huge directory of Hopkins-related research (mainly debunking the legend)

Weaving a Cinematic Web: Hidalgo and the Search for Frank Hopkins By Juti A. Winchester, Ph.D., Former Curator, Buffalo Bill Museum

FrankHopkins.org Article about the Hopkins debate – from John Fusco’s site dedicated to Hopkins research

“Hidalgo – the Horse Hoax” from Blue Corn Comics – more research about Hopkins and the movie Hidalgo and correspondence with John Fusco

“Hidalgo” on Internet Movie Database

Images:
Brego.net – Hidalgo
Wikipedia

The Spanish horses brought to the Americas during the Age of Exploration represented the pinnacle of thousands of years’ worth of equine breeding from three continents. These large, hardy, spirited Iberian horses – like the Lusitano, Andalusian, and Barb – were the product of each successive civilization in the Iberian peninsula to leave its mark with a signature breed of horse.

Their illustrious ancestry traces through the region’s rugged native ponies; the prize horses introduced by the Romans; and desert stallions brought from North Africa by the Moors, which carried the bloodlines of still more distant Asian breeds like the Akhal Teke and the Arabian.

By the time they reached the Americas, the ancestors of the mustang had witnessed – and even participated in – the rise and fall of many of the world’s empires. Used as an instrument of conquest, it just as easily transformed into a weapon of revolt and an emblem of independence. It is altogether fitting that this remarkable shape-shifter became not only a potent spiritual symbol, but an emblem of the New World whose convoluted heritage it so closely mirrored.

Image: Best-Horse-Photos.com

After several generations of living in the wild in the American Southwest, natural selection took its course, and the horse underwent an almost miraculously change as genetic reversion transformed it into an ancient, yet wholly new form. Later, as their populations expanded, horses originating from Northern Europe – including draft horses from England, Germany and the Netherlands – escaped from the Atlantic colonies and contributed to the gene pool. The moniker “mustang,” from the Spanish “mustengo,” meaning feral, came to apply to the heterogeneous free-ranging herds that roamed the West in masses of thousands.

Remnants of the original Spanish stock, however, are believed to have continued to the present in isolated populations of so-called Kiger mustangs. They have been the subject of extensive DNA research in an attempt to shed more light on the genetic journey of these incredible animals.

In similar fashion, island populations of colonial horses still exist in remote locations, where many of their characteristic traits have been preserved. (Example: The “wild” Spanish Barbs of Abaco in the Bahamas, and the Chincoteague ponies of the Chesapeake.)

Interestingly, North America does not lay claim to the only – or even the earliest – birthplace of the New World mustang. A century and a half before the Pueblo Revolt saw the release of America’s mustang ancestors into the wild, the Spanish founders of Buenos Aires imported 100 of Spain’s hardiest Andalusian stallions from Cadiz. Dozens of these were loosed into the wild during an Indian revolt in 1540 that left the city desolate for years. The rugged descendants of these animals are the “criollo horses” prized by gauchos for centuries for their unique agility and stamina in the rugged, arid terrain.

Like their North American counterparts, many of these horses bear an uncanny resemblance to their ancient wild ancestors; among mustang lineages, the distinction between the ancient and the modern become almost imperceptible.

Their bodies became smaller and stockier, their profiles more convex, their coats developed a dazzling diversity of patterns and colors combined with strange markings that harked back to their most primitive ancestors. The effects of man’s hand had combined with natural selection to ensure the survival of possibly the most resilient horse type ever seen.

Links:

Horse Show Central – Mustang facts & links to related horse breeds

EquiWorld.com – huge index of horse breeds and types with history and pictures; includes Kiger mustangs, the Sorraia horse, the Andalusian and Akhal Teke breeds mentioned above

PART 1: The Horse Emerges

The horse – second only to the dog – is possibly the most magical animal to capture the human imagination. It has enthralled artists ever since its first appearances in Paleolithic cave paintings. In its domesticated forms, as a laborer, a warrior, and a brother, it has had no parallel.

But its mystique is universal and goes far beyond its functional roles. As the mustang, or feral horse, it is a symbol of wild beauty and indomitable freedom – because in this persona it transcends the divide between the wild and the domesticated. In this state, the horse carries the heritage of both worlds, and a great deal more besides.

The American mustang conjures up a web of various symbols and emotions; for many it personifies the rugged spirit of the West, or the proud legacy of the Plains Indian. It’s an incredible irony of nature that the horses reintroduced into the Americas by the Spanish explorers were part of a diaspora returning to their original homeland after an absence of over 10,000 years.

The small hoofed mammals that gave rise to the first horses originated in prehistoric America. Small horses similar to the today’s true wild horses of the Asian steppes populated the North American grasslands up until late in the last Ice Age – an era that also witnessed the extinction of the mammoth, the sabre-toothed cats, and many other species.

The reason that horses disappeared from the Americas and not from the other continents to which it had spread is debated. There is strong evidence to suggest a massive comet that exploded over the Great Lakes region about that time was the culprit. The disaster devastated the continent and its aftermath created a bottleneck of plant, animal, and human populations, with the American horse likely being one of its casualties. The drastic climatic changes of a planet just leaving an ice age drastically reduced horse numbers across the board, but was not enough to extinguish the species completely.

In any case, it was to be millennia before the horse returned to the Americas – greatly changed in appearance, but still bearing deep within its DNA the genes of those early horse ancestors who first roamed American Plains.

In the words of the Native Americans – whose cultural memories preserved a remnant of the horse’s presence, and whose destinies became so closely intertwined – “The grass remembered them.”

For those who are interested, Texas A & M’s Center for the Study of the First Americans issues a quarterly publication called Mammoth Trumpet. The January 2008 edition covers the Clovis Impact theory in fascinating detail. (View the PDF)

See also:
The Talk Origins website’s “Horse history 101″ – a technical paper on the horse’s development and spread

BBC News: Origins of the domestic horse

The American Museum of Natural History has an excellent website for their exhibition on horses. It covers the development of the horse from prehistoric times & follows its involvement with humans through history. Lots of great reading, photos, videos, and interactives.

American Museum of Natural History: The Horse

3 Ironies about the Horse in the Americas

1. Although horses originated in the New World, they were non-existent here until they were reintroduced by the Spanish explorers in the 16th century, during the conquest of the Americas.

2. The ancestors of the first mustangs are believed to be the horses driven from Spanish colonial settlements and scattered across the Southwest during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. When the Pueblo revolutionaries turned loose livestock – including horses – corralled in the Spanish settlements, they unwittingly unleashed a new era in Native American history, and a new chapter in the genetic history of the horse.

3. The Plains Indian nations so closely associated with the horse, such as the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Comanche, never laid eyes on it until a few centuries ago. Their world-renowned horse cultures developed during the 1700s, when they first began to utilize horsepower to adopt a nomadic lifestyle on the Great Plains.

NEXT: Part 2 – New World, New Horse

National Geographic.

Courtesy of National Geographic.

Courtesy of National Geographic.