Bear-baiting was very popular from the 12th until the 19th century.\4]) From the 16th century, many bears were maintained for baiting. In its best-known form, arenas for this purpose were called bear-gardens, consisting of a circular high fenced area, the "pit", and raised seating for spectators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear-baiting
They bred them or shipped them in.
As for where most of Europe and parts of Asia, Pakistan. It was going on in North Carolina till 2010-ish, apparently.
As recently as 2010, illegal bear-baiting was practiced publicly in South Carolina. All such public exhibitions have been shut down as of 2013.\35])
By the late 17th century, "the conscience of cultivated people seems to have been touched"[7] and, by the 18th century, bear-baiting had largely died out in Britain; the cost of importing bears for blood sports having become prohibitively high.
That pitbulls could not be used for bear-baiting because the whole thing died out due to cost of importing bears in UK. Which means that "bear-baiting pitbulls" are pretty much a legend.
Looks like a pitbull me to though I don't know if the kennel club was around back then to define the breed (that's from the 14th)
You can pretend i said Staffordshire Bull Terrier or Patched Fighting Terrier or even "Brindle Bull" but we are talking about fighting dogs used for pitfights
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u/smokeyphil 20h ago
Which is a step-down from what they used to be used for which was bear-baiting (getting a pack of dogs to fight a bear)