In 1781, George Washington led the Continental Army to victory at the Battle of Yorktown, effectively ending the Revolutionary War. With the hard work of actually building a new country now beginning, good old George said screw off to helping and retired from public life to pursue his true passion, breeding mules. Now a mule is of course the offspring of a male donkey and female horse, a hybrid prized for being as large as a horse, but tougher and needing less food and water. However, though mules have been a thing since as early as ancient Egypt times, there were very few of them in the new United States at the end of the eighteenth century, and the ones that were there sucked balls due to the poor quality of the donkeys available. This was something good old George wanted to rectify, both because he believed mules would be a great boon to the new country’s farmers and miners, and because he hoped it would make him a butt load of money.
Now at the time, the majority of donkey aficionados agreed that the best jackasses were in Spain. However, being the miserly sort, the king of Spain had made a law where donkeys could only be exported with his express permission. However, this didn’t stop George from using the entirety of his notoriety to not only get a Spanish donkey, but also get one for free. It’s worth noting that George was nearly broke at the time. After several years of finagling, the king of Spain decided that helping George out would be good for diplomatic relations, and so dispatched an envoy with two of the country’s best donkeys across the Atlantic to the United States. One of course died during the crossing because things just tended to die no matter what you did back then, but the survivor arrived at George’s plantation, Mount Vernon, in 1785.
Not being the most creative man, George named his new prized donkey Royal Gift, though considering he named his dogs Sweet Lips, Drunkard, and Madame Moose, this might have been the best option. Excited to get his new donkey started making mules, George put Royal Gift right to work. However, unfortunately Royal Gift did not seem all that interested in the American mares, which you can probably imagine was a bit of a problem. George tried all sorts of different methods to get Royal Gift horned up enough to put his donkey bits just about anywhere, most of which it would probably be better not to describe given that many were undoubtedly fairly hands on approaches. However, none of these worked until by some miracle it was discovered that what really got Royal Gift’s motor running was the sight of two female donkeys mounting each other. Unfortunately, how this particular fetish was discovered has been lost to history. Either way, Royal Gift did what he was supposed to do, and George started breeding him with every mare he had and the mare of any neighbor willing to pay for the service.
The following year, not wanting to be outdone on the diplomatic front, France sent George a jackass from the island of Malta, which apparently had the second best donkeys. George named his new donkey Knight of Malta. The French also sent him two fine female donkeys so that he could keep his donkey bloodlines as high quality as possible, because of course mules are sterile. George also imported a jackass from South America, but apparently it was only average as far as donkeys go because it didn’t get a name. Anyways, George’s plan worked like a charm, and growing demand for his high quality mules soon had him rolling in big piles of cash. However, the fun came to an end in 1789 when he re-entered public life as the first president of the United States. He served until 1797, and then died two years later. As for Royal Gift, George eventually lent him to a cousin in South Carolina who mistreated him on the journey south, leading to the donkey’s early death in 1796.
Thanks to the efforts of George and Royal Gift, mules became much more popular in the United States. Though people in the northern states continued to prefer horses and oxen, mules soon became the draft animal of choice across the southern half of the country, with wealthy landowners importing the best quality donkeys they could get their hands on from Europe. By 1810, nearly a million mules were in the United States and by the end of the nineteenth century mules had almost completely replaced horses and oxen for farm work, remaining the primary source of horsepower in farming, mining, and construction until being replaced by the internal combustion engine in the twentieth century.