Old West: The Cowboy

I should've been a cowboy,

I should have learned to rope and ride.

Wearing my six-shooter riding my pony on a cattle drive.

Stealing the young girl's hearts,  Just like Gene and Roy.

Singing those campfire songs - Oh, I should've been a cowboy

I might have had a sidekick with a funny name, Running wild through the hills chasing Jesse James.

Ending up on the brink of danger, Riding shotgun for the Texas Rangers.

Go west young man, haven't you been told, California's full of whiskey, women and gold. Sleeping out all night beneath the desert stars With a dream in my eye and a prayer … In my heart … Oh, I should've been a cowboy.

Lyric from Toby Keith (Covel) song – Should Have Been a Cowboy

The American cowboy has stood for many things and even had an unwritten code they followed, and although the original cowboy's life is long gone, the culture remains in legends and fact.

While there were famous horse women of the old “Wild West” and it was not uncommon for daughters of ranchers to be great horse riders; the cowgirl culture is relatively new. The American Cowboy magazine aptly wrote in its June/July 2012 issue, the word “cowboy” is representative of both genders:

Any good woman who can ride or rope – or at least stand up for what's right – is a cowboy in our book.

Last year, 2011, the US Senate passed a resolution marking July 28^th, 2012 as the National Day of the American Cowboy, to encourage the people of the United States …

...to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

To start the history of the American cowboy it is appropriate to begin with the history of the horse on the American continent; for without the horse, there would be no cowboy.

HISTORY OF THE HORSE

Cattle Drive

The modern horse, zebras and asses belong to the genus Equus and is the surviving genus of the prehistoric family, Equidae. Based upon fossil records, the original genus of horses originated in
North America approximately 4 million years ago and they spread to Eurasia, most agree via the Bering Sea land bridge that existed about 2 or 3 million years ago. This is the surprising part of history, because after the prehistoric horse died out between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago (end of Pleistocene Era), the horse that had spread to Asia, Europe and Africa had developed and when humans began to use them for chariots and riding, it had grown larger in size. It would later return to America as a “new and improved” species.

The prehistoric species of horse grazed upon the plains of North America and the small horses (Pliohippus) were preyed upon by an extinct hyena-type dog that hunted them, as well as humans that had migrated to the region. Because of their small size, humans didn't think of using them as transportation or as “beasts of burden” - they just ate their meat and used their hides for clothing, et cetera. When the prehistoric horse disappeared on the American continent – both North and South America, the Bering land bridge had disappeared so there was no chance for migration of horses from the Old World to the New World.

Six million years later, in the Old World, horses returned when Spanish explorers and Conquistadors arrived in North, South and Central America. These early horsemen that came from Spain brought Spanish and Moorish traditions with them and rode on jineta-style saddles and used a three-pronged blunt lance to drive cattle. The lariat had not been invented yet.

The Spanish and the Moors loved their horses and bred beautiful breeds that were suited for various purposes. The Arabian was brought from the Middle East with the Moors when they occupied Spain and other horses, like the Barbary can be traced to Arabian ancestry. These are the horses they brought with them to the Americas. These were the first ancestry of horses that returned to the American continent since the prehistoric horse had died out. Horses lost by the Spaniards ran wild across the Mexican plains and migrating to Texas. Eventually horsemanship extended in a northerly direction reaching the Sioux and Cheyenne. Meanwhile, in Mexico, generations would continue to produce fine horse stock from the Spanish original horses that came with the Conquistadors, as well as mules and burros that the friars and monks frequently used.

In Canada, Frederic Remington wrote in Horse of the Plains:

King of the Plains, Remington

As we go very far into the Canadian Northwest we find that the interminable cold of the winters has had its effect, and the pony is small and scraggy, with a disposition to run to hair that would be the envy of a goat. These little fellows seem to be sadly out of their reckoning,
as the great northern wastes were surely not made for horses; however, the reverse of the proposition is true, for the horses thrive after a fashion and demonstrate the toughness of the race. Unless he be tied up to a post, no one ever knew an Indian pony to
die of the cold. With his front feet he will paw away the snow to an astonishing depth in order to get at the dry herbage, and by hook or
by crook he will manage to come through the winter despite the wildest prophecies on the part of the uninitiated that he cannot live
ten days in such a storm.

Probably the best source of what cowboys looked like and life on the Great Plains (and even 'cracker' cowboys of Florida) was Frederic Remington who retained, in art, imaging of cowboy history. He even depicted bull fights in Mexico. Mexican Vaqueros were the original American cowboys and they were included in the pictorial history of Remington. But his talents was not just in charcoal/pencil drawings and paintings, for he also sculptured to depict the detail and realism of what a cowboy, a cavalry trooper, and a plains Indian (native American) looked like. If one is writing about the Old West, cowboys or the history of the US Cavalry and the Native Americans, one must also include the biography and artwork of Frederic Remington.

He wrote about the American “bronco” as an intelligent and hardy breed:

In intelligence the bronco has no equal, unless it is the mule, though this comparison is inapt, as that hybrid has an extra  endowment of brains, as though in compensation for the beauty which he lacks. I think that the wild state may have sharpened the senses of the bronco, while in domestication he is remarkably docile. It would be quite unfair to his fellows to institute anything like a comparison without putting in evidence the peculiar method of defense to which he resorts when he struggles with man for the mastery. Everyone knows that he bucks, and familiarity with that characteristic never breeds contempt. Only those who have ridden a bronco the first time it was saddled, or have lived through a railroad accident, can form any conception of the solemnity of such experiences. Few Eastern people appreciate the sky-rocket bounds, and grunts, and stiff-legged striking, because the bucking process is entered into with great spirit by the pony but once, and that is when he is first under the
saddle-tree.

If that scrape is ridden out by his master his spirit is broken; and while he may afterwards plunge about, he has intelligence enough not to kick against the pricks.His greatest good quality is the ease with which he stands any amount of hard riding over the trail; and this is not because of any particular power which he has over the thoroughbred, for instance, but because of his "hard stomach." He eats no grain in the growing stages of his life, and his stomach has not been forced artificially to supply a system taxed beyond the power of the stomach to fill. The same general difference is noted between and Indian and a white man.
You may gallop the pony until your thoroughbred would "heave and thump," and "go wrong" in a dozen vital places, and the bronco will cool off and come through little worse for the experience.
… He has borne the Moor, the Spanish conqueror, the red Indian, the mountain-man, and the vaquero through all the glories of their careers; but they will soon be gone, with all their heritage of gallant deeds. The pony must meekly enter the new regime. He must wear the collar of the new civilization and earn his oats by the sweat of his flank. There are no more worlds for him to conquer; now he must till the ground.

 COWBOY TRADITIONS

The cowboy tradition did not begin in America, but comes from the traditions of Spain beginning with the hacienda system of medieval Spain. ⁱ The Vaquero, as previously introduced, from Spain trained Native Americans to work for the Spanish missions' herds. Don Juan de Ońate sent an expedition across the Rio Grande River into New Mexico with 7,000 head of cattle. From that beginning, vaqueros of mestizo heritage drove cattle from New Mexico and later Texas to Mexico City. Mexican traditions spread both in the South and North and also influenced traditions from Argentina to Canada. 

"Cracker" Cowboy - Florida

Original cowboys came from Florida, known as Cracker Cowboys, depicted by artist Remington. [See video at end of this post]

As English-speaking settlers and traders expanded westward during the pioneer era, Spanish traditions merged with it in terms of cowboy culture; especially after the Mexican-American War. When the railroads began to expand westward after the American Civil War, older cowboy traditions changed with the need to drive cattle for long distances to the nearest railheads in order to get their cattle sold for market. As cities grew, the demand for beef increased. By the 1880s, the cattle industry had expanded in which required additional open range; so ranchers expanded into the northwest territory where there were large tracts of unsettled grassland. Texas cattle were herded north into the Rocky Mountain area and the Dakota Territory/states. The cowboy had to adapt to the colder climate conditions as this migration transformed and once again traditions intermingled from California to Texas where the cowboy chose to use the most useful elements of the traditions that could be applied to conditions. Mustangs were gathered from the wild herds that roamed the Great Plains and the San Joaquin Valley in California; and later this would include the Great Basin from the 18^th century to the early 20^th century.

Vaquero, 1800s

Cattle herds, especially large ones on large ranches lived practically wild on the open range to graze, untended for most of the year. Ranchers began to form associations where they would graze their cattle together on the same range, but they had to develop a system in order to identify their cattle and discourage cattle thieves, so branding was developed. A distinct design that stood for the name of the particular cattle ranch was applied with a hot iron to cattle when they were young calves. This annual system of gathering the cattle for branding is called the roundup. The primary cattle seen on the open range of the western United States were the Longhorn breed, which were descended from the original Spanish Longhorns imported in the 16^th century. They came to be known as Texas Longhorns whose history has followed the history of that state and former Republic of Texas.
During this period of roundup, mature animals were sorted out for preparations for sale, which usually took place in the spring season of the year and required a high level of skills on the part of the cowboy who had horses trained for cutting cattle by following the movements of cattle and then stopping and turning at a fast speed. Once the cattle was sorted out, the cowboys roped the young calves and restrained them with rope to be branded and selected bull calves were castrated.

Cattle Roundup, Cimarron

During a roundup, a large number of horses were required, so each cowboy would need three to four fresh horses during the course of a day's work because of the tiring task for horses in cutting and roping cattle. Therefore, part of the cattle roundup included was rounding up horses for this important ranching task. In the 19^th century, it was common for young foals to be born to tame mares, but were allowed to grow and mature wild on the open range. Horses were also branded like the cattle to prevent theft and identifying their
herds from neighboring ranches. Wild herds of horses are called Mustangs. Once the horses were rounded up, the mature horses went through a process of taming called horse breaking or bronco-busting. This was usually performed by experienced cowboys who specialized in training horses. Some cowboys and ranchers tamed their horses using brutal methods, but they found that such animals could not be reliable; therefore a more humane fashion of horse breaking was developed, some methods being learned from the native Americans who had developed methods in which not only was the horse trained, but bonded with their rider; a method that was supposed to have been passed on by the vaqueros of California and learned by native Americans and some ranchers. Horses trained in a gentler fashion were more reliable and willing to learn more tasks than those broken harshly.

As time went on, cowboys being the competitive type, would compete against each other with their cattle and horse-handling skills against each other on the ranch and thus the sport of rodeo was born.

Cowboy, 1888

CODE OF THE WEST

While the career of being a cowboy had not originated in the United States, the American cowboy developed certain skills, traits, codes, and personalities that would make them unique and by the time the 1880s came around with the help of dime novels of the adventure of cowboys and the stories (often tall tales) of their counterpart – the outlaws; the American cowboy legend was born and expanded.

Cattle drives prior to the middle of the 1800s was primarily used for selling surplus meat and hides locally, with a limited market for hides, horns, hooves, and tallow being sold to manufacturers in the middle and eastern part of the United States. In Texas herds were so large that they became strays or free-ranging cattle, that had not been branded and were available to anyone who would round them up. This helped those who, after the American Civil War, were looking to leave the war torn southern states and carpetbaggers to venture westward to find new beginnings and take advantage of the bigger demand for beef as cities in the North and East began to grow and the meat packing industry expanded. By 1866, cattle sold to northern and eastern markets were going for as much as $40 a head and this increased as the meat packing industry grew larger because of more demand for beef. This higher price made it more profitable for Texan ranchers who had to herd cattle long distances to get to market. The major packing plant at the time was founded by Phillip Danforth Armour, who opened a meat packing plant in Chicago, which became known as the Amour and Company.

Former Slave - post Civil War Cowboy

During the period after the Civil War and the freeing of slaves by Lincoln's proclamation and and the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution, former slaves ventured westward to look for work and new trades and opportunities. Some obtained employment with the expanding railroad who needed workers to lay track across America to provide rail lines from California to New
York and all points in between. Opportunity was also available to freed slaves in the US Army to tame the frontier from hostile native Americans and still others joined the ranks of the cowboys where large and growing cattle ranches needed their skills and service.

Caballeros: Mexican-American Cowboys in Festival

Mexicans who had stayed in New Mexico and Texas after the Mexican-American War, some who were veterans who fought for Texas independence, became cowboys as well – using the skills that had been passed down from the days of the vaquero. It was a hard life, but they had come to love it and would, if the could, do nothing else. Some cowboys ended up with ranches of their own or became a foreman for a large ranch and thereby increased their income and opportunity to settle down with chosen wives and raise children.
Although some cowboys had wives, most were “free roaming” men who found love whenever they could but never settled down long enough to marry and raise children.

The first large, long-range cattle drive was from Texas to the nearest railhead that would ship the cattle to Chicago, where the Union Stockyards there became the largest in the nation. This first drive was formed by several Texas ranchers who banded together to drive their cattle to the closest railroad tracks, which was Sedalia, Missouri. Farmers in eastern Kansas were against this cattle drive venture because they were afraid that Longhorns would transmit cattle fever to their animals as well as trample crops and so formed groups to threaten, fight, or shoot cattlemen found on their lands. So, the very first cattle drive in 1866 failed to reach the railroad and the cattle herds ended up being sold for low prices. Someone saw opportunity in this failure, and in 1867, a cattle shipping facility was built west of eastern Kansas farm country around a railhead at Abilene, Kansas, and it became the center of cattle shipping that loaded 36,000 cattle on railcars in that year. The route developed from Texas to Abilene became known as the Chisholm Trail, named after Jesse Chisholm, who marked the route for others to follow. It went through the Indian

Joe Beaver - Native American Rodeo Star

Territory, now known as Oklahoma. Despite the Hollywood portrayal, there were few conflicts with the Native Americans, who usually allowed the cattle herds to pass through their lands for ten cents per head or cutting a couple of head of cattle for their tribe's use. However, there were other dangers the cowboy faced, mainly weather, like storms that would stampede the cattle.

Later, other trails were developed that forked off to different railheads that included Dodge City and Wichita, Kansas – famous cattle towns of the Old West. Dodge City, Kansas became the largest cattle town that by 1877 was shipping out 500,000 head of cattle in that year.

Cattle could be driven as far as 25 miles per day, but they lost too much weight when driven hard, which meant less money at the end of the trail; so most cattle were herded at a slower pace, allowing them to rest and graze at midday and at night. Cattle could maintain their proper weight if they were moved 15 miles per day. That meant that it would take two months to travel from a home ranch to a railhead. Cowboys were paid by the month. If the cattle drive showed good productivity because of their skills and ability to keep weight on the driven cattle, ranchers would often provide a bonus at the end of the trail drive, which not only rewarded the cowboys, but gave them incentive to ensure that cattle were well taken care of. The Chisholm Trail was 1,000 miles, and one can see the hardship and tiring days that cowboys endured to ply their trade.

Annie Oakley - Cowgirl Icon

The cattle drive herd usually consisted of about 3,000 head. To herd this large amount of cattle required at least ten cowboys with three horses per cowboy. Cowboys worked in shifts to watch the cattle 24 hours per day, herding them in the proper direction in the daytime and watching them at night to prevent stampedes and prevent theft.
The cowboys had to eat and didn't have time to prepare their own meals, so a cook was included on the cattle drive who drove the chuck wagon, usually pulled by oxen, as well as a horse wrangler to take charge of the spare horses (remuda) required for the job. The wrangler on a cattle drive was often a young cowboy or one of lower social status, but the cook was well-respected and he was not only in charge of the food, but he was also in charge of medical supplies as well as having a practical knowledge of first aid and practical medicine. A good cook who knew his stuff was invaluable to cowboys. 

END OF A GOLDEN ERA

20-Mule Team, Death Valley

The end of the traditional days of cowboys and long cattle drives began with the advent of an innovation called barbed wire in the 1880s and expansion of the rail system. It was not the sole reason, but the beginning of the end for the “Wild West” days of cowboys. The barbed wire allowed cattle to be confined in designated areas, no more free-ranging and also prevented overgrazing the range. In Texas and other places, increased population required ranchers to fence off their lands to prevent trespassing. 

Large ranches were developed by eastern investors who founded cattle companies, and they favored the barbed wire fencing. Cowboys then added another chore to the list of duties – building and maintaining barbed wire fencing. During the harsh winter of 1886 to 1887, hundreds of thousands of cattle died across the Northwest because of insufficient winter forage and this led to the collapse of the cattle industry. By the 1890s, barbed wire fencing was the standard in the northern plains and railroads had expanded their reach across the nation, while meat packing plants were built closer to major ranching areas, which made long cattle drives obsolete, which meant less cowboys were needed and soon cowboys were roaming from ranch to ranch looking for work. Some left the trade, but most knew nothing else. Still others, in desperation, turned to crime and became outlaws, stealing cattle or robbing banks, stagecoaches, and trains earn a living – which living didn't last long in that business. Smaller cattle drives continued right up to the 1940s, prior to the development of the cattle truck, and still needed cowboys to herd cattle to local railheads for transport to stockyards and packing plants. Ranches multiplied, despite these changes, and that helped maintain employment of cowboys, but still low-paid. The cowboy became more settled and domesticated.

Nat Love, Deadwood - African American Cowboy

The American cowboy not only represents an industry in the form of cattle ranches, but also represented a “melting pot” of people who became cowboys – African American freedmen, as previously described, Mexicans, and native Americans. After 1890, when native Americans were being “assimilated” into “civilized” ways of life, Indian boarding schools were also teaching ranching skills.

Nez Pierce Cowboys - late 1800s

Today, Native Americans own cattle and small ranches in the western United States, and many are still employed as cowboys (as they were in late 1800s), a trade passed down generations; especially on ranches located near Indian Reservations. The “Indian Cowboy” has become a common sight on the rodeo circuit.

Texas Rangers

As far as demographics, it is estimated that 15% of all cowboys were of African American ancestry, where 25% could be found on trail drives out of Texas with few in the northeast. That is because it was Texas where freed slaves ended up after the American Civil War. Also, the Mexican descent cowboy is about 15% of the cowboy population, most commonly found in Texas and in the southwest states. These are all estimates of the population in the late 19^th century that also suggests that one of every three cowboys were Mexican vaquero, and 20% were African Americans.

Regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, the cowboy came from lower social classes and the pay was poor, most being uneducated. The average cowboy made about one dollar per day, and, when working near the home ranch, was provided a bed in a bunkhouse in a barracks-like building with a single room with a footlocker at the end of his bunk for storing his personal belongings.

In the social world, the cowboy of the American West developed their own culture that blended frontier wisdom, Victorian values, and remnants of the old world chivalry.
The hard work required and the isolated conditions also bred a breed of men that were self-dependent and individualists, who held great value upon honesty, which have been exemplified in songs and poetry. In the frontier west, men often outnumbered women, and cowboys worked in an all-male environment, especially on cattle drives.

The traditions of the working cowboy became more familiar to the general public and those who had never seen one when the Wild West Shows began in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which also romanticized life in the Old West as well as fantasized views of Native Americans.

Tom Mix - Film Cowboy

Then silent films were invented, which took the place of Wild West Shows, and so the positive and negative stereotype was developed out of Hollywood. Fred Thomson was a famous silent film cowboy, but Tom Mix (1880-1940) became the most popular megastar western portrayal actor. He made 336 films between 1910 and 1935. He learned to ride horses while working on a local farm owned by a lumber businessman and had dreams of being in the circus. In April of 1898 he was enlisted in the Army and sent overseas during the Spanish-American War, and during an extended furlough married Grace Allin in 1902. The marriage only lasted one year. In 1905, he married again, to Kitty Perinne, but this ended in one year. He married Olive Stokes in 1909 in Medora, North Dakota and that marriage lasted longer. He found employment at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch that covered 101,000 acres. He was a skilled horseman and expert shot, winning the 1909 Riding and Rodeo Championship. Mix became a cowboy film star with Fox Film and after divorcing Olive Stokes in 1917 he married his co-star in several films, Victoria Forde in 1918 and had a daughter, Thomasina Mix.
In 1922. Tom Mix was “King of the Cowboys” when Ronald Reagan and John Wayne were youths. In fact, Tom Mix helped John Wayne when he first entered his acting career. Wyatt Earp
was an unpaid film consultant for several silent cowboy movies including Tom Mix films. As a side note, Wyatt Earp also provided tips to Marion Morrison, the famous John Wayne, as Morrison served Earp coffee on the sets, and later advised Hugh O-Brian, another western star and John Ford, who later directed a film about the OK Corral shootout received much input from Wyatt Earp. Tom Mix attended the funeral of Tom Mix and helped William S. Hart write an obituary.

Later “talky” movies would be made that come from more realism, like the novels written by Louis L' Amour.

Hollywood made cowboys famous with stars like Red Ryder (a character from a comic book and a BB gun), Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, (“Man of the Frontier”)and Roy Rogers/Dale
Evans. Roy And Dale are legends in themselves, bringing into the American culture the concept of a cowgirl through Dale Evans, representing the spirited horse women of the Old West and the modern cowboy/cowgirl culture. Boys dreamed of being like Roy Rogers and girls dreamed of being like Dale Evans, who had a popular television show. Both were singers, but Dale was the talented songwriter as well as seasoned actress. The show featured Bullet, the wonder dog and Roy's famous horse, Trigger. The setting was not in the Old West, although the cowboy theme was, the side kick running around in a Jeep. “Happy Trails to You” was a popular song in the early 1950s.

Final scene of Silverado ...