Dog's History of America How Our Best Friend Explored, Conquered, and Settled a Continent

Excerpt fromA Dog's History of America: How Our Best Friend Explored, Conquered, and Settled a Continentby Mark Derr. Copyright 2004 by Mark Derr. Published in September, 2004 by North Point Press, a division or Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. Preface TOURING THE OZARKS in 1818, the young mineralogist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft noticed that every hunter-meaning every settler in that rugged country-had six to twelve dogs. "A very high value is set upon a good dog," he said, "and they are sought with the greatest avidity." Schoolcraft thought the hunters he met a lazy lot for ignoring agriculture and their livestock, allowing whatever they might have in the way of horses, cows, and hogs to forage unattended in the forest, while seeking meat for themselves and their hounds. But at the same time, he had stumbled upon a signal truth: the long hunter could not have blazed the trails that opened the frontier or survived in his isolated cabin without his dogs. Schoolcraft had learned firsthand the futility of trying to hunt a black bear without a dog to tree it. He understood as well that a dog was needed to roust a bear from its den, to track it or other game when wounded, it fled, or to hold it at bay so the hunter, fresh out of shot, could kill it with his knife or a spear. That same dog served as a sentry around the camp and house. It was no wonder people remembered their favorite dogs and frequently told stories late into the night about their courage, the tone of their cry when striking a trail, their talent and sagacity, as if they were valued members of the family.1 At one time or another during the past 15,000 to 20,000 years, virtually all of America was a frontier for someone, and the dog played an essential role in its settlement, one that standard histories have overlooked or mentioned only in passing. Often dogs do not even appear in the indexes of early histories, although they occasionally leap from the text. They were ubiquitous, and invisible, taken for granted like beer and rotgut whiskey, cooking pots, the labor of women and children, the diseases that regularly ravished people and animals, even the lives of slaves and indentured servants. Truth be told, it has also along been considered more important for historians to focus on the grand sweep of events--the wars, famines, revolutions, political machinations, social and economic structures--that affect the lives of people. But times change, and over the past thirty to forty years historians have focused increasing attention on the daily lives of people as a way to gain clearer understanding of the past. It seems appropriate, then, to give dogs their book, one that recognizes their contributions to the settlement of America by successive waves of immigrants. Yet because dogs do not exist independently of human society, their story is finally our story as well. * * * IF DOGS DID NOT COME with the first people to enter North America from Siberia, they were not far behind, and by all appearances they have accompanied every explorer and settler since, except Columbus on his first voyage. For 10,000 years or more, dogs were the only domesticated animals in much of the Americas, and they were invaluable, their primary duties shifting according to the needs of their people. They were guards, hunters, fishers, food, pets, and commonly beasts of burden, sharing the weight of moving the camp and hauling firewood and meat with the women. At least one tribe raised them as foot warmers for arthritics, and another kept them, like sheep, to provide hair for weaving. Some Native American women valued their dogs more highly than their children; indeed, a tribe's survival sometimes depended on dogs. Not surprisingly, the dog figures in the creation myths of a number of tribes and frequently serves as a guide to the spirit world. Bringing dogs on his second trip to the Americas, Columbus loosedDerr, Mark is the author of 'Dog's History of America How Our Best Friend Explored, Conquered, and Settled a Continent', published 2004 under ISBN 9780865476318 and ISBN 0865476314.