Posted on 09/30/2020 2:59:43 PM PDT by rktman
In his 1907 autobiography, cowboy Nat Love recounts stories from his life on the frontier so cliché, they read like scenes from a John Wayne film. He describes Dodge City, Kansas, a town smattered with the romanticized institutions of the frontier: “a great many saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses, and very little of anything else.” He moved massive herds of cattle from one grazing area to another, drank with Billy the Kid and participated in shootouts with Native peoples defending their land on the trails. And when not, as he put it, “engaged in fighting Indians,” he amused himself with activities like “dare-devil riding, shooting, roping and such sports.”
Though Love’s tales from the frontier seem typical for a 19th-century cowboy, they come from a source rarely associated with the Wild West. Love was African-American, born into slavery near Nashville, Tennessee.
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
Where I live, there are many black horse riders. I believe there is even an organization of them. When the ride around, they pull the reins back so the horse’s head is held high. So as, to give the impression the animal is immensely proud to strut with the rider being non-white. Many people comment about this and complain on how they are ruining the horse. They still do it though.
“Maybe the law ain’t perfect, but it’s the only one we got, and without it we got nuthin”
— Bass Reeves
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Sammy Davis Jr. played a cowboy sharpshooter on an episode of “The Rifleman”. So there’s that.
however I'm sure there were plenty of blacks everywhere doing well...making something of themselves, participating in America....
why do so many nowdays play the poor me race card....America has been open to go getters from day one...
I heard the 1 in 5 number years and years ago.
Way, way before all this modern stuff got started.
The reason you don’t hear about black cowboys much is that the Left wants us to think that rugged individualism and the cowboy way of life are Racist. Therefore, all cowboys are racist, and should be shunned.
After the Louisiana Purchase, Andrew Jackson committed the most notorious act of ethnic cleansing in American history, relocating these five tribes to the Indian Territories. The black slaves came with them.
So, Oklahoma has a history of a black population that does predate the war, even though Oklahoma was only a slave state in the sense that the tribes owned slaves. Can't be a slave state if it's not a state yet.
Anyway, guys have gotta work so there's always been a culture of working in the cattle industry, black or white. After the war many freed blacks moved from the south to Oklahoma to join the blacks who had been owned as slaves by the tribes, now freed as well, increasing the population of blacks in the Indian Territories. At that time the cattle industry was one of the main sources of employment, so that's what a lot of blacks did, and some continue to do to this day.
It's not unusual at all, if one visits a ranch or a feedlot to see black cowboys. Also, speaking of the definition of "cowboy", there is also a Black Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, (BPRCA), which sanctions rodeo events and supports blacks who compete in rodeos.
One of the "greatest", for lack of a better term, was a black cowboy named Bill Pickett. I'd let others who know more about the trade tell you what made Bill Pickett exceptional, but there are still Bill Pickett memorial rodeos and social events.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+pickett+statue&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS732US732&sxsrf=ALeKk0233dHZ_rICqS2CpGjPVEQuXOPxQA:1601508218965&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=TaxG8Ufq9766CM%252CDTIi59Hb3x8gEM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTtgZ4LhjyPoYBTwcfvtqeVW7ygww&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjj4_uDg5LsAhVHT6wKHYWpAlkQ9QF6BAgREDY&biw=1360&bih=625#imgrc=TaxG8Ufq9766CM
Oh, and btw, since you asked: Whatever became of all those blacks who were slaves at the end of the war? They were freed, and also by Federal Law granted full citizenship in whichever tribe had owned them. These people were known as freedmen, and their descendants live on today as citizens of the tribes.
Drive thru Oklahoma, and spot a car with a tribal tag, driven by a black person, that's a freedman.
Me too. There are census figures from the last half of the 19th century. I don’t see anything that agrees with such a high figure.
Bass was the real deal.
One in 4 African American cowboys were black?
what color were the other three
"I'll whip up a batch of sugar-tits"
bump
The time period being discussed might make some difference. The heyday of the cowboy era was the post-Civil War period, especially the brief interval when the first western railroads gave rise to the great cattle drives, which consisted of herding cattle to distant railheads before the railroad net had adequately penetrated the big empty spaces. The cowboy life was pretty rough. A lot of the cowboys were young men, unmarried and with no prospects at home, shaken loose by the war. There were a lot of young black men who didn't exactly want to make their new life in Alabama. A lot of young southerners went west as well. Ex-slaves and ex-rebels were overrepresented. The Germans, Irish and generic Yankees were underrepresented.
“The Lone Ranger was based on U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, the first black U.S. Marshal.”
He worked the notorious Indian Territory where the worst of the worst went to hide out.
Reeves captured about 3,000 felons during his 32 year career. He shot and killed 14 in self defense.
One of the felons Reeves captured was his son, Bennie Reeves, for the murder of his wife. Bass Reeves demanded the responsibility of capturing his son.
Bennie Reeves was captured, convicted and served his time Leavenworth. Once released Bennie Reeves lived the rest of his life as a model citizen.
It is not new at all. People who read real history knew this all along. But real history is sadly not only not read for fun but they usually were not taught about it in school.
“You know who dress most like Cowboys today, Mexicans.”
American cowboys got many of their ways and dress from the Spanish/Mexican caballeros who were herding cattle in the west when Americans first started ranching.
As soon as I saw the thread title I asked myself if any one would know this song. One of my favorite songs by a great group. Years ago I read Ken Kesey’s. “last Go Round” which told the story of a black rodeo performer in the 1911 Pendleton Roundup.
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