Here is something that won't be taught in Florida schools:
Ancient DNA Reveals African Roots of American Cattle
But researchers have reason to suspect the version of events gleaned from historical records was incomplete. In 1518, Emperor Charles V passed an edict making it legal to transport enslaved people directly from their homelands to the Americas, a practice which commenced less than three years later. In the ensuing decades, enslaved Africans would play a vital — and often unrecognized — role in the development of cattle ranching.
“The earliest ranchers in Mexico were nearly all of African ancestry,” Delsol said. “We know that people like the Fulani in West Africa formed herder societies, in which they lived in what could be described as a symbiosis with cattle. Both these lines of evidence made us think there was a strong possibility that the Spanish brought cattle from the same region as the people they enslaved.”
