American Indian horse culture is one of the most evocative motifs of the American west, but the genesis of that culture did not occur in the US, but in New Spain in what is now New Mexico.

One rebellion against the Spanish in 1680 reverberated across US history for centuries.

Spanish colonists barred Indians from mounting or riding horses under colonial law, among other horrific brutalities.
In 1680 against all odds, the Pueblo peoples across New Spain executed an organized rebellion against Spanish occupiers - largely organized at Taos Pueblo.

The rebellion was the most succesful indigenous action against European colonists anywhere in the Americas. It was a brutally violent 100 days, and with support from Apache, Ute, and other tribes - it expelled 2,000 Spanish colonists for 12 years and birthed a new West.

The agrarian Pueblos had little interest in the herds of horses the Spanish had left behind, preferring the herds of sheep.
Their Apache allies saw an opportunity, and within years the horse had radically transformed Apache life - and had disseminated throughout the region.

Horses became synonymous with images of Western Natives - and the impact this had can't be over-stated.
Within a decade, the Western tribes had developed unparalleled skill at fighting on horseback - turning them into formidable adversaries both for the Spanish and the Pueblo.

It's believed by some historians that Apaches, Navajo, Ute, and Comanche became so lethal at raiding on horseback that some Pueblo people welcomed the Spanish back.
American forces reckoned with horse-mounted warriors who were described as the most fearsome fighters in the world.

What might have been a quick expansion across the continent to California had the nomadic tribes remained on foot instead became a bloody, interminable battle lasting centuries, ending only with Geronimo's surrender in 1886.

It's hard to over-state the centrality of horses in our present culture - and its the embodiment of how absurd the discourse around cultural appropriation has become.
All cultures are a product of strategic appropriation. Ours became stronger for it.