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Here's something that surprised me, in the early history of San Antonio by the late Eighteenth Century, longhorns which had by then established widespread feral populations, were not held in high regarded as table fare, tho surely all were grass-fed.

Their market value lay in their hides and tallow, one wonders just how much tallow (fat) was on them. In the early years cattle ranching was an iffy proposition in Spanish Texas mostly due to the mortality rate among isolated vaqueros to Indians. For the most part relations with the Indians were cordial, but all it needed per vaquero could be a single uncordial Indian at some point and the vaquero wasn't coming home. OTOH slaughtering the longhorns in place and then collecting the hides and tallow could be a group proposition, therefore less risky. The hides and tallow then being shipped by oxcarts, big two-wheeled carretas drawn by pairs of oxen (which carts could haul around 500 pounds). So many feral longhorns were slaughtered this way by groups of men acting on their own that San Antonio authorities attempted to regulate the process without much success.

Alternatively, groups of Tejanos would band together and organize annual drives to deliver the hides and tallow on the hoof. Mexico was a major market via Monterrey, 250 miles distant though drives in that direction were dependent upon whatever the annual rainfall happened to be that year. What has been mostly forgotten in popular history are the annual 500 to 600 mile cattle drives to New Orleans beginning in the year 1779, from the San Antonio area and especially further south around Goliad which became the center of the Spanish Texas cattle industry.

http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/opelousa.htm

A pity these original Texas cattle drives ain't better recorded, those old-time vaqueros might have boasted a few flintlock smoothbores, and prob'ly more'n a few bows and arrows, but that was it. Must have been some epic drives. When the Americans arrived in numbers beginning in the 1820's they took up the practice and also drove cattle east, the first big Texas cattle drives.

Anyways, closer to the topic, in the winter of 1835/1836 about 500 American were waiting in the Goliad area (weren't nobody supposed to be at the Alamo) to repel an anticipated invasion by the Mexican army, a period of waiting spanning about three months. This was the Texian Army, at that time officially fighting to restore the Mexican Constitution of 1824 rather than for Texas Independence. During that time these men were armed and fed by the cabal of New Orleans merchants and Southern State governments that were financing the war. One of the supply ships sent by the merchants ran aground over by present-day Houston leaving these men critically short of supplies.

One of the biggest subsequent complaints of the Texian army around Goliad was that they were reduced to feeding on longhorns.

Meanwhile, throughout this period until at least the 1830's, buffalo robes and meat were an essential component of the annual economy of a typical Tejano household, 100 plus mile expeditions to the north and west being organized in the late fall and winter for this purpose, these expeditions centering around the ox carts used to transport the collect meat and hides home.

Birdwatcher

My ranch neighbors all have a standing saying, "neighbors beef eats best".

Sam, thanks. So a baldy is a no horned cow.

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Our neighbor has some of those, pretty cool. He said they are slow gainers though...we have a baldie heifer , grass fed, in the freezer. Very good!