Читать книгу The Power of the Herd - Linda Kohanov - Страница 14
ОглавлениеGeorge Washington’s mother was an enigma: a true maverick, a pistol, a tough cookie, an inconvenient woman. Though well schooled in the genteel social graces demanded of a wealthy officer’s daughter, she also knew how to shoot a gun, manage a boat, and, most exceptional for a woman of her era, train a horse.
An accomplished rider in her teens, Mary Ball dodged marriage until the ripe old age of twenty-three, when she became the second wife of a successful Virginia tobacco planter, sheriff, and politician. During Augustine Washington’s frequent business trips, she proved capable of running one of his extensive properties, a seven-hundred-acre operation near Fredericksburg later known as Ferry Farm. Unlike most plantation wives, she refused to hire an overseer to help her. So when Augustine died in 1743, he left his wife in charge — until their eleven-year-old son, George, came of age to claim his inheritance or Mary found a new husband, whichever came first. Augustine’s will specified that his widow would remain custodian of the farm until she remarried; at that point the man of the house would take over, as was customary in the 1700s. Many biographers believe she rebuffed all subsequent suitors to maintain her position.
By her midthirties, Mary Ball Washington cut a proud and imposing figure — backed by an unspoken power that people found unnerving. “She awed me in the midst of her kindness, for she was, indeed, truly kind,” George’s cousin Lawrence Washington marveled later in life, noting that he had been “ten times more afraid” of his aunt than of his own parents. “I could not behold that majestic woman without feelings impossible to describe. . . . Whoever has seen that awe-inspiring air and manner so characteristic of the Father of his Country, will remember the matron as she appeared when the presiding genius of her well-ordered household, commanding and being obeyed.”
Mary’s ability to protect her interests, voice her opinions, and run the plantation as she saw fit led to her subsequent reputation as a difficult woman. Modern historians, however, are more likely to see her as a strong, independent matriarch intelligent and assertive enough to nurture the untapped potential of a future war hero, entrepreneur, and statesman. Her enthusiasm for riding was pivotal, not only in exercising her son’s nonverbal leadership abilities but also in exposing him to a rare yet influential phenomenon: a responsible, highly effective feminine approach to power. Long after George officially claimed his inheritance, she maintained an active role at the farm until she moved to a nearby townhouse at age sixty-four. (Augustine’s son by a previous marriage, also named Lawrence, inherited the now-more-famous Mount Vernon, which became George’s preferred home base after his beloved half-brother and role model succumbed to tuberculosis at age thirty-four.)
Reports of Mary’s willfulness and short temper, especially later in life, reveal the ongoing frustration of a woman who knew that, no matter how accomplished and successful she became, she would always be a second-class citizen. Like the status of the slaves she oversaw at Ferry Farm, Mary’s status was not changed by a Declaration of Independence declaring all men created equal. Her legendary crankiness, sometimes directed at her increasingly influential son, stemmed from an unsettling combination of pride in George’s accomplishments and jealousy of the opportunities afforded him, especially when she had to ask him for money. The farm she so diligently managed for decades, after all, was never hers.
Still, Mary was truly revolutionary for her time. Historically, men rode, trained, and cared for horses. Women were more likely to travel in carriages. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that a modest but growing number of women began to exhibit some equestrian talent, at first mostly among the upper classes and usually riding sidesaddle. Joan of Arc, Katherine the Great, and Elizabeth I were rare exceptions. So was Mary Ball Washington, a fine rider who some historians believe taught her son how to train horses with a gentler touch. Though reliable documentation is sketchy, we do know that by the age of eighteen she owned three fine mounts, and she raised a number of feisty horses at Ferry Farm, including a sorrel colt that met an unfortunate end at the hands of her ambitious teenage son.
As the story goes, George was hell-bent on emulating Alexander the Great in his legendary horse-taming abilities. Knowing his mother would disapprove of rash and dangerous “training” techniques, he led the spirited, unschooled colt to an undisclosed location and attempted to ride the bucks out of him, cowboy-style. According to Marion Harland’s 1893 book The Story of Mary Washington, “The experiment ended with the death of the fiery horse, who broke a blood-vessel in a futile attempt to dislodge the lad from his back.”
It was Mary Ball Washington, not a farmhand or one of her son’s older half-brothers, who subsequently noticed that the horse was missing. And, in a decidedly tragic, equestrian take on the old cherry tree story, George could not tell a lie. Harland reports that he admitted the facts “promptly and squarely. The widow struggled for a second with the temper she had not lost in passing it down to her child, then replied to the effect that she was sorry the horse was dead, but glad that her boy had spoken the truth.”
Young George learned a grievous lesson that day — namely, that flashy, quick-fix dominance tactics end in destruction as often as glory — and that his own mother might very well know more about horse training than he did. Dealing with this strong-willed, cultured, fair-minded woman, he developed a respect for women as worthy companions and confidants, a then-unique perspective that would inform his marriage and his morale-boosting strategies at Valley Forge decades later. Washington also honed an ever-more-sophisticated version of his mother’s awe-inspiring presence, most notably her ability to convey power, kindness, and integrity simultaneously. Developing that particular combination is common among expert riders. The proudest, most athletic horses seem to demand it.
When George accepted his first officer’s commission at age twenty-two, against his mother’s wishes, no less, Mary Ball Washington’s independent streak, idealism, lucid problem-solving skills, and uncompromising morals were also well entrenched in her son, qualities that would be continuously challenged, and ultimately strengthened, through the unexpected, perplexing, sometimes truly horrific battles to come.
Half King
No matter how seemingly just the cause, war unearths labyrinths of trauma. Unrelated conflicts and tragedies from the distant past can affect the trajectory of current events in unexpected ways as human behavior becomes a minefield of opportunistic reactions to ancient pain.
George Washington learned this the hard way during his first tour of duty. In April 1754, the successful land surveyor and frontiersman gained a position as lieutenant colonel in the Virginia Regiment. Charged with leading 160 troops to help protect settlers in the Ohio Country, he inadvertently found himself exchanging the first shots in what later became known as the French and Indian War.
What seemed a straightforward mission — securing a strategic location where the Ohio Company, a land speculation company, was constructing a fort — turned into an unexpected conundrum when Washington trekked over the Allegheny Mountains, only to discover that more than a thousand French soldiers had already seized the half-built complex, renaming it Fort Duquesne. Alliances between French forces and various Indian tribes were already forming, and Washington’s own closest Indian ally, Tanacharison, was frantically requesting support.
Known as the Half King to local settlers, the fierce warrior chief spoke fluent French. Still, he had good reason to mistrust the Duquesne contingent. As a boy, he’d been taken captive by the French, and while he was later adopted by the Seneca tribe, his early trials had become legendary in the region. Now in his midfifties, Tanacharison openly claimed that the Frenchmen who decimated his family had callously boiled and eaten his father during that tragic childhood encounter.
Washington was in a difficult position, fortless and vastly outnumbered to be sure. Still, what twenty-two-year-old officer could be expected to predict, let alone prevent, the additional havoc wreaked by an older, more experienced warrior’s toxic past? A thousand foreign troops turned out to be the least of his worries as Washington christened his nascent military career with a most dubious distinction: within weeks, he would be praised and vilified on both sides of the Atlantic for overseeing a massacre.
The young lieutenant colonel’s initial strategy seemed reasonable enough. He directed his men to build a makeshift fort near Tanacharison’s camp, rallying whatever Indian allies they could find while waiting for reinforcements. Things quickly got out of hand, however, when the Half King rode up to warn him of a French patrol in the vicinity. On the morning of May 28, a combined force of colonial troops under Washington and a group of Indian allies led by Tanacharison surrounded thirty-two French soldiers encamped in a nearby forest glen.
Shots were fired. Though eyewitness accounts vary regarding which side actually started the skirmish, the French eventually realized they were outgunned and tried to surrender. Wounded yet lucid, their commander, Joseph Coulon de Villiers, sieur de Jumonville, insisted he’d come on a diplomatic mission representing King Louis XV.
Jumonville’s motives were certainly suspect. After all, the French had just challenged English claims on the region by capturing Fort Prince George and renaming it Fort Duquesne. Even so, Washington was reportedly listening to the foreign officer’s words, trying to decipher his intent through translation, when Tanacharison, who fully grasped the Frenchman’s plea for peaceful resolution, walked over to where Jumonville lay. “Thou art not yet dead, my father,” the Half King declared in French. Then he raised his hatchet, split the man’s skull open, grabbed hold of his brain, and washed his hands in the blood-soaked carnage. Washington and his troops watched in horror as Tanacharison’s warriors proceeded to scalp the remaining members of Jumonville’s party, decapitating one and raising his head on a stake.
The Frenchmen who had slaughtered the Half King’s father a half century earlier were long since dead and buried. Though they may very well have been criminals — rogue settlers running amok through the American outback — Jumonville paid dearly for their cruel actions, and his men were tacked on as interest. From that day forward, Washington had to wonder what other hidden debts were accruing in the minds and hearts of people he might encounter. After all, it was only a matter of time before he counted the French among his allies as the British challenged a colonial bid for greater freedom and prosperity.
Throughout the American Revolution, Washington was consciously trying to minimize the impact of the war, not only through the humane treatment of enemy captives but also by guarding the rights and property of nearby civilians, regardless of their shifting loyalties and mercenary efforts to profit from the war. In this undertaking, his emotional heroism was arguably more impressive than all of his battle strategies and courageous acts combined.
Test of Will
Valley Forge, a name synonymous with triumph over suffering, initially appeared to be a good location for winter encampment. With British troops comfortably occupying Philadelphia in December 1777, this nearby Pennsylvania town provided a strategic location, plenty of wood for warmth and cabin construction, and (theoretically) ample food supplies for American soldiers. The problem was that local farmers found it much more lucrative to sell their goods to the king’s forces twenty miles away than to the shivering, shoeless, shirtless, blanketless troops under Washington’s command. Not only did the Continental Congress have trouble raising funds voluntarily from the states, but its currency was depreciating, no match for the well-funded British, who paid in solid pounds sterling.
Washington had to concede that patriotic fervor was a fair-weather phenomenon. Regardless of the odds, many colonials had expected a fast and furious victory. After two years of conflict — with no clear winner in sight — revolutionaries were transforming into political fence-sitters faster than anyone had anticipated, and a dense fog of cynical self-interest was settling over the countryside.
In Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow sums up Washington’s disappointment and outrage, illustrating that the general could, in fact, express himself effectively when the spirit moved him:
Seeing the decay of public virtue everywhere, he berated speculators, monopolists, and war profiteers. “Is the paltry consideration of a little dirty pelf to individuals to be placed in competition with the essential rights and liberties of the present generation and of millions yet unborn?” he asked James Warren. “. . . And shall we at last become the victims of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it heaven!” Washington himself could be a hard-driving businessman, yet he found the rapacity of many vendors unconscionable. As he told George Mason, he thought it the intent of “the speculators — various tribes of money makers — and stock jobbers of all denominations to continue the war for their own private emolument, without considering that their avarice and thirst for gain must plunge everything . . . in one common ruin.”
Washington’s strong words fell on deaf ears. Efforts to shame fiscal predators, no matter how eloquently those justifiable sentiments were conveyed, did not save the day as men continued to die from starvation, disease, and exposure to the cold. The dream of freedom was kept alive that winter by Washington’s own ability to endure one demoralizing scene after another. While letters reveal that he felt incredible anguish and despair at times, he continued to inspire those who were suffering for the cause.
Based on historical writings alone, Chernow finds it “astonishing” that the army didn’t “disintegrate or revolt en masse.” He remarks that he can only explain Washington’s success by emphasizing, once again, that the Revolutionary War hero
projected leadership in nonverbal ways that are hard for posterity to recreate. Even contemporaries found it difficult to convey the essence of his calm grandeur. “I cannot describe the impression that the first sight of that great man made upon me,” said one Frenchman. “I could not keep my eyes from that imposing countenance: grave yet not severe; affable without familiarity. Its predominant expression was calm dignity, through which you could trace the strong feelings of the patriot and discern the father as well as the commander of his soldiers.”
Fierce Sensitivity
As I pored over numerous books and colonial-era documents, looking for clues to Washington’s extraordinary presence in the patterns of his actions, it struck me that his unique combination of fierceness, fairness, and compassion kept the troops together at Valley Forge and beyond. The general didn’t coddle deserters or looters, ordering severe floggings of men caught stealing food. On rare occasions during his tenure, he executed soldiers planning widespread revolt. And finally, after months of tolerating profiteering by local farmers and merchants, hoping to resurrect their failing patriotic instincts, he allowed Nathanael Greene (considered one of the Continental army’s most gifted officers) to organize a regional confiscation of all cattle and sheep fit for slaughter. Washington found this option innately reprehensible, however. He gave the order to forcibly obtain food for his starving troops only after two thousand men had perished not in battle but through widespread neglect from Americans who had charged him with raising an army in the first place.
And yet Washington never sacrificed empathy for effectiveness. Letters to trusted allies, friends, and family members reveal that he felt the plight of soldiers and settlers he encountered. “I see their situation, know their danger, and participate in their sufferings without having it in my power to give them further relief than uncertain promises,” he had written earlier to British superiors, in 1756, asking for assistance during the French and Indian War. “The supplicating tears of the women and moving petitions from the men melt me into such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that it would contribute to the people’s ease.”
Martyring himself might have been an easier, seemingly courageous, though grossly less effective, option: the fear-management and emotional-resilience skills he mastered in hopeless situations ultimately gave him a razor-thin edge to win the most important battle of all, the War of Independence. Luckily for posterity’s sake, Washington’s talent for survival won out, allowing him to further develop the no doubt painful, eternally frustrating skill of appealing to the upper classes on both sides of the Atlantic for help through numerous conflicts to come.
Though he was able to renew himself in Mount Vernon’s pastoral embrace after the French and Indian War, rest and success did not make him complacent. As Washington repeatedly reentered public life, supporting one desperate cause after another, the turmoil he endured voluntarily is truly staggering. Rather than shield his heart against the disappointment, anguish, and sheer horror he witnessed, Washington remained steady and thoughtful in the midst of feelings that would have short-circuited the average person’s nervous system. His was not the coolness of the sociopath who felt no fear, but the authentic, hard-won calmness of a man whose emotional stamina was so great that he was willing to accompany people into the depths of despair, and stay with them, offering hope through sheer presence because he had been there before and had come out the other side. After all, by the time the Revolutionary War erupted, Washington was living proof that personal and professional tragedy could be accompanied by loyalty, love, and prosperity, that a brave, openhearted man could ride life’s roller coaster with gusto — and even find a mate willing to share the journey.
In the dismal winter of 1777–78, he stayed, once again, with a group of brave though impoverished, weary souls at Valley Forge, doing what little he could to ease the pain of an impossible situation. The British were comfortably settled in Philadelphia with their servants and mistresses, their warm fires, soft beds, and silver place settings, waiting until spring to take up arms and finally quash that troublesome little colonial rebellion once and for all.
Washington was fronting his own money for war expenses and struggling to keep his plantation financially viable from a distance during a dangerous economic climate. His wife, Martha, was grieving the recent loss of her sister and one of her closest friends as the couple’s second grandchild arrived on New Year’s Eve. For a woman who’d already lost three of her own four children — one at age three, another at four, and most recently, a seventeen-year-old daughter who died from a violent epileptic seizure — birth was not a light and carefree occasion but a cause for continued hypervigilance. Washington could have delegated authority during the break in combat and gone home for a few weeks. Still, the general must have known that he possessed an extra “something” crucial to keeping the army together at Valley Forge. He deferred a much-needed, thoroughly justified trip to Mount Vernon and sent for his wife.
True Grit
Here’s what you need to know about Martha Washington: she was one of the Revolution’s secret weapons. The general hadn’t called for his spouse exclusively because he was worried about her. He was enlisting the support of his most trusted confidant at a time when his considerable physical and psychological resources were taxed to the limit. And, as numerous historians have emphasized, he just plain missed her, terribly. As Chernow reports, “He pined for her presence” when family obligations delayed her trip to Valley Forge that winter.
If the long carriage ride on bumpy, frozen roads didn’t exhaust her completely, what Martha saw upon arrival at this legendary encampment must have chilled her to the bone. Though she had visited her husband at previous military installations, she was visibly taken aback by his humble quarters. What’s more, the general had lost his baggage a few months earlier, including his kitchen utensils, managing to hang on to a single spoon. But it was his haggard face and deeply troubled demeanor that unnerved her the most. “I never knew him to be so anxious as now,” she confided to a friend.
Long after the war, the historic image of Martha as a dowdy, genteel grandmother comforted populations craving a benevolent and benign parental figure, but to the Revolutionary War general, she was a vital source of quiet power, empathy, practical wisdom, and stamina. “Not enough historians have recognized the importance of this portly, affable woman in George Washington’s life,” notes Thomas Fleming in Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge. Her stalwart dedication to the cause in general — and to his well-being in particular — provided a crucial boost to the entire army’s morale. As one admiring Frenchman put it, “She well deserved to be the companion and friend of the greatest man of the age.”
These days it’s common, and considered understandable, for couples to divorce under the pressure of losing a child or going off to war. What allowed George and Martha to face a relentless series of tragedies and continually jump back into the fray, together, literally betting the farm and their very lives on the slimmest possible chance for success — even when the vast majority of people around them were complacently standing by or unabashedly profiting from human misery?
We’ll never really know enough about their relationship to answer that question definitively. Honoring her husband’s request, Martha destroyed the vast majority of George’s letters to her after his death, suggesting their correspondence revealed some painful, potentially embarrassing material, perhaps some rants and moments of indecision that could be taken out of context. But oh how valuable that information would have been in understanding the interpersonal difficulties they faced, the mistakes they made, and the complex emotional challenges they surmounted. For the eighteenth century, George’s reliance on his wife as a confidant was unusual. Equally noteworthy was Martha’s own leadership experience.
Even by modern standards, the couple exhibited an unusually high level of mutual respect and teamwork. Certain commonalities in personality and background suggest this was no accident: Neither George nor Martha went to college, yet both continually educated themselves. Both also possessed a strong work ethic as they managed the intricacies of several plantations together. An affluent, attractive widow at twenty-seven, Martha Dandridge Custis had clearly been a catch for ambitious young Colonel Washington when they’d married in 1759, but she was no dilettante. Her first husband had died two years earlier, leaving her in charge of a large working agricultural estate. A biographical sketch of her by the National First Ladies’ Library reveals that “evidence of her business acumen in the lucrative tobacco trade is found in letters she wrote to the London merchants who handled the exporting of the large Custis crop output.” Though Martha had been trained at home in music, sewing, and household management, the knowledge she later acquired in plantation management, homeopathic medicine, and animal husbandry “suggests a wider education than previously thought.”
When she joined forces with her second husband, Washington, the responsibilities grew, exponentially. “With her extremely large inheritance of land from the Custis estate and the vast farming enterprise at Mount Vernon, Martha Washington spent considerable time directing the large staff of slaves and servants. While George Washington oversaw all financial transactions related to the plantation, Martha Washington was responsible for the not insubstantial process of harvesting, preparing, and preserving herbs, vegetables, fruits, meats, and dairy for medicines, household products and foods needed for those who lived at Mount Vernon, relatives, slaves and servants — as well as long-staying visitors.”
So while Valley Forge was certainly no vacation, Martha’s own sense of responsibility, her tenacity, and her problem-solving skills were already well established. “I never in my life knew a woman so busy from early morning until late at night as was Lady Washington,” one wartime observer wrote, noting that she organized “the wives of the officers in camp, and sometimes other women” in offering various forms of assistance. (The extreme conditions at Valley Forge were endured that winter by more than five hundred women, mostly wives and sisters of the soldiers. Prostitutes were less common than most people suspect — an army lacking funds for food and clothing deferred salaries as well; hence no discretionary funds for extracurricular activities.)
A coddled, dominated woman could never have provided the fearless companionship and flexible, good-natured, activism on demand that Martha showed at Valley Forge. A spicy mistress could have relieved a bit of tension, but a man in Washington’s increasingly tenuous position needed his own advanced emotional support system, someone with the nerve to face the truth of a situation while remaining centered enough to help him explore all the options, someone who was more concerned with the long-term, greater good of a project than with revenge, comfort, or obsessive social climbing. Martha’s significant wealth and business experience were also balanced by humility and devotion. As the marquis de Lafayette revealed, she was a “modest and respectable” woman, who loved her husband “madly.” That combination ensured she would travel to the ends of the earth for her heroic mate — as an asset, not a clingy, fawning fan.
Authentic Power
Historians often marvel that, despite ultimate victory in the American Revolution, Washington actually lost more battles than he won. In His Excellency, Ellis contends that “especially in the early stages of the war” the general’s “defeats were frequently a function of his overconfident and aggressive personality.” Close associates reported that they could feel him wrestling with strong emotions, a battle he sometimes lost in private displays of anger and frustration, suggesting that his legendary composure and patience were hard won.
Experts also agree that Washington had a rare talent for learning from his mistakes. When something went wrong, he didn’t waste a lot of time and energy defending himself. According to Chernow, he “never walled himself off from contrary opinion or tried to force his views on his generals.” He analyzed the situation, researched new options, and revised his approach, sometimes modifying his own beliefs, even altering long-entrenched personal habits that had been clearly beneficial in previous contexts. In this respect, his horse-training experience gave him a palpable edge. Throughout his life, Washington continued to refine his own potent instincts as deftly and methodically as he schooled the most volatile of stallions.
In Dressage in the Fourth Dimension, horse trainer Sherry Ackerman emphasizes that when both horse and rider exhibit self-mastery and responsiveness, their combined genius becomes fluid and adaptable. Even standing still, an expertly trained mount radiates power and suppleness as “the halt, in immobility, contains the energy of every movement. The horse is catlike, ready to spring from soft-jointed hindquarters through his coiled loins. As long as we do not disturb the collection, he remains prepared — powerfully positioned — for instantaneous movement in any direction, at any gait.”
Collection is an important term in the equestrian arts. Technically, it means the horse is channeling his strength in an optimal way, not splaying his energy outward in a compulsive, uncoordinated fashion. When his neck is arched and his rear legs are positioned well under his body, his center of gravity moves toward the hindquarters, rounding and releasing his spine, allowing him to collect his power: to compress it like a metal spring, hold it, gather it, focus it, and release it purposefully. From this position, he can just as easily rear, move sideways, leap forward into a vigorous gallop, or quietly, artfully step backward.
In nature, a stallion wooing a mare will collect his energy to engage in dancelike movements that would be impossible to perform if he let his passion run wild. A well-educated saddle horse further develops this ability, combining increasing control of his own body and emotions with a finely tuned awareness of the rider’s intentions, interpreting subtle weight shifts as meaningful communication. Serious equestrians uphold their end of the bargain by developing an “independent seat,” meaning they’re able to balance on a moving horse no matter what he does, directing that force toward a specific goal while continually adjusting to unexpected movements — without pulling on the reins, gripping with their legs, or hanging on to the saddle for support. Under the tutelage of a great trainer, each horse is carefully conditioned to increase the impulsion needed to realize his full athletic potential — while continuing to remain sound over time. (Rushing the process can cause injury.)
“Impulsion is a power surge that doesn’t have anything to do with speed,” trainer Ron Meredith reveals. “It means the horse is pushing more powerfully with his muscles, not moving them faster so he gives you more strides.” The president of Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre insists that “impulsion does not have anything to do with excitement, either. You don’t use louder, more exciting aids to create excitement in the horse in hopes of getting impulsion. If you raise the horse’s excitement level, then what you get is a horse that feels excited rather than one that feels the shape his rider is asking him to take.”
Modulating power, centering and socializing it, is the equestrian’s art, one requiring equal parts courage and thoughtfulness. The most talented colt is often the most explosive in the initial stages of training and can easily be mishandled as a result. When he rears or bolts out of fear, it’s counterproductive to punish him, let alone try to shame him for misbehavior. The trainer simply shows her four-legged student a more effective alternative, a way to balance and focus his magnificent vitality, sensitivity, and energy. A mature, perceptive rider can tell the difference between her mount’s confusion, apprehension, and aggression. In the latter case, correction is swift and appropriate. For instance, if the horse tries to bite his trainer, she might hold up her elbow so that his use of force meets a more pointed, unpleasant force in response. If he tries to bite again, she will up the ante, showing that she’s fully capable of setting boundaries and protecting herself. The key, however, lies in her ability to move forward without resentment. When a defiant horse shows the slightest inclination toward cooperation, she calmly proceeds with the lesson, unruffled by the momentary interruption.
Inexperienced equestrians often mistake a stress response for an attack, needlessly escalating the situation. Violently punishing a frightened or frustrated horse raises his blood pressure, accentuating the flight-or-fight response, causing him to act out more dramatically. Immature trainers also tend to hold grudges, treating the horse as innately stupid or arrogant. This hopelessly critical attitude, reinforced by defensive, mistrustful posturing, virtually guarantees that the rider will continue to misinterpret the horse’s behavior and overreact to perceived threats, resulting in greater confusion, fear, anger, and resentment — increasing the possibility of panic and injury in both “partners.”
A seasoned trainer, on the other hand, demonstrates physical, mental, and emotional agility. This highly aware, inquisitive, centered form of human collection is simultaneously instructive, contagious, and comforting to the horse.
Calming a frantic youngster becomes an important way to bond with him and establish leadership, to earn his trust and cooperation. Disorganized, overstimulated horses sense that they’re a danger to themselves and others. Even in the wild, they tend to seek out thoughtful, less-reactive individuals for guidance and support.
Survival of the Fittest
When someone feels the need to dominate, especially through force and intimidation, chances are he’s inexperienced in the nuances of more mature forms of leadership. Dominance is a basic, albeit adolescent, claim for power, one that twentieth-century science interpreted as a law of evolution for all species. In the twenty-first century, however, researchers have come to realize that it’s not the only law, nor even the most desirable law, of natural social behavior.
In a breakthrough article, “The Secret Life of Stallions,” Kip Mistral interviewed Mary Ann Simonds, a wildlife and range ecologist who studied mustangs for thirty years. “Young dominator stallions — the type that most people associate with ‘wild stallions’ — might be able to break into and manipulate herds,” she concedes, “but the mares try to escape. Mares want friendly stallions that can provide a sustainable herd environment. No one likes the dominator stallion types. Other stallions don’t get along with them, which can be important, since sometimes stallions work together to attack or drive off a stallion they can’t live with or that can’t live within the larger community. Dominance doesn’t go well in nature.”
If this sounds overidealistic, check out the DVD Such Is the Real Nature of Horses by respected equine photographer Robert Vavra. He actually filmed an incident where several feral stallions broke up a fight between two feuding stallions, driving the perceived bully away from the bachelor herd until he agreed to calm down.
In the wild, stud colts rarely, if ever, oust their own fathers. Neither do they immediately find their own mares when they’re encouraged to leave the original herd, somewhere between ages two and three. The vast majority of mustang stallions are in their teens before they’re capable of attracting and maintaining a band of mares. In the horse world, as in the human world, leadership requires seasoning and experience. The initial urge to challenge authority is the first step in a long journey toward self-control, self-esteem, and self-mastery.
Karen Sussman, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, has witnessed bachelor bands temporarily protecting and sometimes cooperatively raising orphan colts and fillies. “We even have foals here that go back and forth between herds, and they are welcome everywhere,” she notes. Apparently, the “survival of the fittest” impulse isn’t set in stone among these horse communities. Or perhaps more accurately, their human observers are finally noticing that horses who are fit to thrive grow beyond the need for genetic and social dominance.
Equine Aikido
Over the past five thousand years or so, people have been striving to extricate themselves from a long list of oppressive religious, political, and economic systems. One of the most troubling misconceptions in moving toward greater personal empowerment is the idea that previously hidden feelings, opinions, or impulses are suddenly fair game for unbridled expression. Extremists by nature, humans tend to grab hold of the proverbial pendulum when introduced to a more open, candid form of social interaction. But the initial high of mutual freedom can quickly plunge into hurtful exchanges that damage relationships and discourage collaboration, inhibiting the lucid debate of challenging ideas that leads to innovation. A healthy dose of patience and equanimity helps create a fertile middle ground between suppression and expression, where honest, thoughtful communication thrives.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition, supplies this definition of patient: “bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint” and “manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain.” Patient people remain “steadfast despite opposition, difficulty or adversity,” the word steadfast referring to an ability to stay “firm in belief, determination, or adherence.” This skill is an essential element of equanimity, defined as “evenness of mind, esp[ecially] under stress.” In horses and humans alike, equanimity is the sign of a mature, well-balanced individual, one who stays centered when others become reactive, who sets reasonable boundaries without ordering everyone else around, whose clarity, composure, and poise are downright contagious.
We often assume that only humans are capable of developing these qualities — and only by transcending their basest animal instincts with great difficulty or self-righteousness. But this same highly evolved behavior exists, sometimes effortlessly, in nature. My horse Shadowfax, named for the wizard’s magical mount in Lord of the Rings, was one such gifted individual. In 2004, he exhibited an uncannily supernatural level of emotional intelligence in socializing a couple of unruly stud colts.
I met Shadowfax at a breeding and training facility in Michigan. As a guest clinician at TN Farms, I was leading a variety of activities under a massive grove of oaks and maples when my attention was drawn to a nearby pasture. There an agile, well-muscled Appaloosa stallion was grazing and cavorting with his own weanling sons, something that few domesticated horses are allowed to do. (Most intact males are kept isolated for fear they might hurt their children.) Though only five years old, Shadowfax knew how to gently set boundaries with his feisty boys, playfully herd them around the pasture, and affectionately groom them. I was so impressed with his natural combination of power and gentleness that I bought one of his sons, a striking red-and-white yearling named Sage.
Several months later, when Shadowfax was up for sale, I brought him to Arizona. Sage remembered his father, calling out to him as soon as he got off the trailer. The first night, I was moved to see Shadowfax nuzzling his long-lost son over the fence. The next day, however, the younger horse attempted a brutal leadership coup. At that time, Sage and my two-year-old Arabian stud colt, Spirit, were going through the most fretful, inherently dangerous period of male adolescence, challenging their four-legged and two-legged elders. Hell-bent on intimidating Shadowfax the first time they were turned out with him, they pulled out all the stops — kicking, striking, rushing in to bite.
The wise old man of six years didn’t even panic, thoughtfully assessing the situation while staying out of harm’s way. Then, as each colt reared over him, he lifted his front legs off the ground just high enough to lean into the youngster’s shoulder, effectively knocking the aggressor off balance. Sage and Spirit ended up on the ground several times before they realized the move was intentional. Shadowfax seemed to be performing a kind of equine aikido, using the challenger’s flamboyant yet unstable energy against him. Then he’d stand over the dazed and astonished colt, staring him down, pawing the earth right next to his head, clearly demonstrating his superior power, ingenuity — and restraint. By the end of the day, he was softly licking the face of his son and quietly milling around the corral with Spirit.
Trainer Mark Rashid might say that Shadowfax exhibited the traits of a “passive leader.” Here the word passive refers not to inaction but to the fact that such a horse doesn’t actively fight his way to dominance or obsessively try to control everyone else’s behavior. Instead, as Rashid writes in Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership, he or she “leads by example, not force.” This horse is “extremely dependable and confident, one that the vast majority of horses will not only willingly choose to follow, but actually seek out.”
Studies of both wild and domesticated herds show that even though aggressive alpha-style leaders win the right to eat and drink first, these horses mostly succeed in alienating others. Their antics may be impressive to thrill-seeking humans, but if you sit down and really watch the rest of the herd, you’ll notice most horses following more settled individuals around. Rashid once watched an alpha horse named Scooter “single-handedly keep no less than ten horses away from a water tank,” launching full-blown attacks on a couple of horses and holding the rest at bay with menacing glances. The author saw a completely different dynamic unfold with satellite bands that approached the tank after Scooter finished. “In almost every case,” he writes, “the passive leader would begin to drink while the others stood quietly nearby. Once the leader had taken several swallows from the tank, the others would slowly move in and they would all drink together. There were no threats, no attacks, and no fearful reactions. When the leader left the tank, the others willingly followed.”
Watching one such mare effortlessly lead a herd of ten happy devotees, Rashid noted that she was “unfazed by her popularity and appeared to accept the others as if they had been buddies all their lives. The little band that followed her never seemed to get into arguments, living in relative peace whenever they were all together.” In situations that would easily drive less experienced herd members into flight-or-fight mode, this mare truly knew how to “hold her horses.”
Through my own experiences watching the intricacies of herd behavior, I’ve come to realize that “survival of the fittest” demands more than physical prowess. It involves the ability to conserve energy for true emergencies — or at least recognize and follow those who do. Most horses, Rashid insists, seek out a leader “that they know won’t cause them unnecessary stress or aggravation,” someone with “quiet confidence, dependability, consistency, and a willingness not to use force.”
While Rashid calls this quieter style of herd management passive leadership, the term doesn’t quite fit a horse like Shadowfax. Though he was eventually gelded as a form of birth control, the still-spirited yet poised Appaloosa continued to insist on a certain level of respect and deference: He didn’t hesitate to up the ante when someone challenged his authority. Over time, I began referring to him as a mature alpha, a horse with the natural energy and inclination to assert dominance while also demonstrating restraint and concern for the well-being of others, one who balanced individual needs and group needs, using the least possible amount of friction or violence. After all, stallions who spend a good part of the afternoon beating each other up at the water tank are that much slower, and lamer, when running from a predator who’s been lounging in the sun all day.
Conserving energy in this way may not seem like a vital survival issue for domesticated horses and civilized humans, but it’s actually an important element in any successful endeavor. Businesses with significant internal strife have trouble doing business. Temperamental film directors go over budget and fall behind schedule. Bands of moody rock musicians break up at the height of their popularity. Politicians who inflame and manipulate public sentiments have trouble passing effective legislation. And horses who spook at every little thing lose in the show arena.
War and Peace
The good news is that while dominance and aggression may be hard-to-break habits, they’re not necessarily hardwired. Primatologists have found that a lesser-known species of ape, the bonobo, can claim just as much kinship to humans as the chimp. Yet the bonobo prefers cooperative, conciliatory behavior; the females generally step forward to greet potential rivals with affectionate, peacemaking gestures and will often interpose themselves between males escalating toward a fight. Zoologist Frans de Waal calls it “survival of the kindest.”
Even baboons, known for intensely aggressive behavior, seem to have less of a gene for dominance than a persistent custom of it. When the notoriously hostile alphas of a Kenya-based troop claimed, as usual, first dibs on the food, in this case a pile of garbage, they promptly died off from a nasty dose of tainted meat. The surviving low-ranking males, females, and children subsequently underwent what New York Times science writer Natalie Angier characterized as “a cultural swing toward pacifism, a relaxing of the unusually parlous baboon hierarchy, and a willingness to use affection and mutual grooming rather than threats, swipes and bites.” The shift has persisted for two decades now. Even new males entering the group adhere to the unspoken guidelines of this gentler baboon subculture.
In his book Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, Marc Ian Barasch joins scientists like de Waal in speculating that “if bonobos instead of chimps had been taken as the prehuman model, the killer-ape crowd would never have gotten such traction. The scientific premise about our primate inheritance — and hence our modern assumptions about our basic nature — might have stressed equality of the sexes, familial bonds, and peacemaking rather than male dominance hierarchies and naked aggression.”
Yet science itself may have been going through its own fretful adolescence when it latched onto examples in nature to justify our culture’s penchant for conquest, competition, and dominion over all the earth’s creatures. Since the equestrian arts were originally perfected for the ultimate dominance tactic — namely, war — horsemanship has also, at times, suffered from the same prejudicial perspective. In war, no one is exempt from being treated as a means to an end. Every soldier, and the horse he rode in on, must override fear, horror, grief, and compassion to serve a staunch hierarchy of masters who may — or more likely may not — have everyone’s best interests in mind.
And yet, after centuries of rampant destruction, profiteering, slavery, and genocide, here comes George Washington, a man who kept his sensitivity intact on the battlefield, tempering great passion, power, ambition, and fierceness with personal restraint, adaptability, equanimity, and empathy. “Let your heart feel for the affliction, and distresses of every one,” he advised.
That is true courage. That is mature leadership.
That is evolution.
