Many aren't aware of this, but the Yucatán not far from Belize was the original epicenter of cattle ranching in the New World, and from the Yucatán it spread south to Argentina and north to what would become the United States.

It is a tragic story.

Starting around 1527, a Spanish government functionary named Beltran Nuño de Guzmán was governor of the province of Pánuco on the Gulf Coast of New Spain, south of what is now Veracruz, Mexico. His job, at least as he saw it, was to enslave the indigenous population and make money for the government of Spain and for himself. The Yucatán had few natural resources and no gold, so de Guzmán rounded up the Maya, branded them on the face to mark them as slaves, and deported many of them to the West Indies.

de Guzmán then imported semi-wild cattle from Spain, along with Spanish ranchers and cowboys from Andalusia near Seville. The cow is not a native of the New World, but the cattle brought from Spain, hybrids of wild cattle and a local strain of domesticated cattle that dated back to Roman times, thrived in the scrub and wet lowlands of the Yucatán. Before long, de Guzmán had the largest herd of cattle in the New World. By around 1620, after de Guzmán's fortunes had turned and he had died in prison in Spain, the province of Pánuco had 176,000 head of cattle.

Over the next 200 years, cattle ranching spread throughout the Americas, reaching its height on the pampas of Argentina and in the Southwestern U.S.

--Lan Sluder

And since these forums' objectives are to inform people about Belize, please expand to demonstrate the relevance to Belize.

I thought it was interesting and consider my neighbors some what relevant to me! I did not have a bowl of "Narrow Minded" cereal today.

Dave

Well ...

For one thing, Belize is geographically a part of the Yucatán peninsula.

For another, before the coming of the Spanish the same Maya groups occupied both what is now Belize and the Mexican Yucatán.

And ... the importation of cattle by the Spanish and the enslavement of the Maya, and the exportation of some of the Maya as slaves, greatly changed this part of the New World.

Finally ... it's possible that some of the Brahma cattle in Belize today were at some point crossed with the semi-wild hybrid cattle brought to the Yucatán by the Spanish.

Other than that, not too much.

--Lan Sluder

Your references?

Beef, The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World, by Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser, published in 2008 by William Morrow/HarperCollins.

No references on the possibility that Brahma cattle in the region were crossed with semi-wild hybrid cattle brought to the Yucatán by the Spanish -- that's just speculation and has really nothing to do with the main thesis.

--Lan Sluder

Thanks

Thanks Lan, Its always nice to learn something new. And Quite a few of us travel to Belize through Mexico, So I found it very informative. Thanks Again.

"And since these forums' objectives are to inform people about Belize, please expand to demonstrate the relevance to Belize."

Full moon on your nerves, Bunky?

Why, you want to be licensed to murder that, too?