George recounted that, in 1845, his father, whose interest was in real estate, acquired some 400 head of cattle that he did not want from a neighbor as payment of a $1,200 debt. Maverick left them to be managed by an African American family, who subsequently moved from the Gulf coast to the Conquista Ranch on the San Antonio River, where the cattle were left to multiply, graze, and wander away. Over a decade later, enough had wandered off, or been taken by others, that the number of head ostensibly belonging to Maverick remained the same. Whether rounded up without an identifying mark or taken because they lacked one, many such so-called "mavericks" ended up branded by other ranchers and claimed as their own.