beef and liberty
The study of humanity across the millennia often takes the mind into a visual portrait of time, rather than the recognition of actual historical facts. The belief that cavemen existed can be debated across timelines for eternity. Yet it is not their existence that captures the imagination, but the visual portrait of strong, masculine Neanderthals, hunting wild animals and cooking over an open fire, near a cave likely captures the mind. Similarly, the vision of vast herds of Bison stampeding across the plains, ahead of natives hot on their trail for not just meat supply, but a youthful rite of passage that conjures the feeling of vitality, and freedom. To this day, the sense of strength that meat and freedom provide continues to drive humans into the wild to do what they have done for millions of years. Truly, the sweetness of nature, the thrill of the hunt, and the instinct to survive are burned deep into the soul of man. There is something about the combination of bloodshed and freedom that is liberating, tangible, and no doubt created to be this way – God-Given.
Fast forward to a more developed time when tribes of man fought for boundaries of landmasses and started exploration into the unknown. The eighteenth century brought on one of the greatest rivalries in world history between England and France. With the threat of a French invasion, “Beef and Liberty” became the rallying cry for the English and secured their national identity through their consumption of beef compared to the French. The rivalry between the two highlighted the differentiation between liberty and nationalism brought through the robust diets of the English beefeaters and the artificiality that defined the French. So much so, that in Theodosius Forrest’s 1735 war ballad, The Song of the Day, he expressed “Their people slaves of power and pride, fat beef and freedom are denied. What realm, what state can happy be, when wanting beef and liberty.”
In the 1500s, the Spanish introduced cattle into what is now known as the American southwest, and those cattle spread into present-day Louisiana and Florida. By 1880, Bos indices influenced bovine had crossed with the Bos taurus brought by the colonists to Jamestown in the early 1600s. The American Civil War proved a turning point in the need for beef for consumption. The end of the Civil War sent settlers into the American West in search of new life and liberty, bringing with them beef as a source of nutrients and sustenance. Due to expanding beef markets along the Mississippi River and the lack of refrigeration, the first “beef trail” was to New Orleans in one direction and to the California gold fields in the other. Then in 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act to connect the east to the west and spread freedom in between. The railroad not only brought freedom seekers west to settle and build towns, but it enabled enhanced preservation methods of beef, therefore creating new markets across the nation. With these new markets, Texas trail drivers sent millions of beeves north to railheads in Abilene, Denver and Cheyenne while supplying vast ranches in the northern plains. Before baseball and apple pie, freedom and beef have been uniquely American.
Today, across America old glory waves in the wind and cattle graze on a thousand hills. Where there is beef, there is freedom. Where there is beef, there is liberty.
Copyright © Shad Sullivan