The practice of branding cattle is ancient. It is, in fact, older that Jesus Christ himself. What we know of the earliest livestock brands comes from paintings in Egyptian tombs, which depict a cattle roundup and branding from as early as 2700 BC. There are also references to the practice of branding cattle in Roman literature and in the Bible, namely with Jacob the herdsman.
Fast forward to the early 16th century as cattle are introduced to the New World by Spanish explorers, and the tradition of cattle branding came with them. The first recorded cattle brand is of three Latin crosses, which represented the brand of Hernán Cortés, one of the greatest of the conquistador in southern Mexico in the 1500s. As cattle raising grew, the crown ordered the establishment of a stockmen’s organization called Mesta throughout what was then referred to as New Spain in modern-day Mexico, and included several U.S. states, notably California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado and Oklahoma.
Spaniards bring their branding practices to New Spain
In New Spain, each cattle owner was required to have a different brand, and each brand was required to be registered in what was undoubtedly the original brand book of the Americas. Kept first in Mexico City, it was later moved…
