had far more black cowboys than ever depicted in Hollywood movies......I got into a hell of a fight on FR with some Yahoo that never heard of the fact most cowboys shortly after the CW were blacks escaping from slavery and trying to make a living. They also trapped, built trading post and farmed where they could in the Rocky Mountains.
One of the interesting things about the movie Blazing Saddles is that it actually get a lot of details right, more than other westerns. The Trans-Continental railroad was built shortly after the Civil War, with both Union and Confederate former soldiers, Irish immigrants, former slaves, and Chinese workers.