Virtually all of the pictures you see of old time cowboys are white men giving the false impression that African Americans were not among the men and women who settled the West. In fact, by the time the huge cattle drives of cowboy legend ended, at least 5,000 black men had worked as cowboys. One historian estimates that an average crew would have included two or three black cowboys. Today black men are found in every top level western activity from ranch work to team roping and bull riding.
The Civil War in Texas had the unexpected effect of creating the African American cowboy. Within sixteen years of annexation to the United States, Texas joined the Confederacy. Successful ranchers formed regiments and went off to war, leaving behind their wives, children, and African American slaves to maintain and preserve the welfare of the ranches. Most of the outdoor work became the responsibility of the African Americans. Some African Americans took this opportunity to escape to the western frontier of Texas. Others used the opportunity to acquire the skills of cowhands.
From the Africa online website:
“African Americans came to cattle country most often as slaves, brought by white landowners who hoped to take advantage of the fertile Texas soil to grow cotton. Once there, many whites began ranching, often selling or trading their slaves for livestock. By the start of the American Civil War in 1861, Texas had over 180,000 black inhabitants and close to four million head of cattle. When the war ended four years later, ranching, with its dependence on cowboys, became the dominant industry.
“Although black cowboys seldom became trail chiefs or owned their own stock—although some did, usually those who had been free men before the war—they encountered less discrimination along the cattle trail than in most other occupations at the time. While riding herd, black and white cowboys depended upon each other. They lived, ate, and slept together.”
There were, and are, many famous black cowboys including Bill Pickett . He was born on Dec. 5, 1870 in Taylor Texas. He discovered that he could subdue cattle by bitting. He would leap from his horse Spradley, seized the steer by the horns, and pulled the head back to the point where he could bite the upper lip. Pickett faced steers between 800 to 1,100 pounds. Not bad for a man 5-feet seven inches and 145 pounds. In March of 1932 a horse kicked Pickett in the head, after a fourteen day coma, he died on April 2, 1932. On December 9, 1971, he was the twentieth person and the first black inducted into the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Will Rogers and Tom Mix served as his assistants.
From Kenneth Wiggins Porter’s book Negro on the American Frontier: “After Emancipation and the Civil War, thousands of Blacks went to work on the ranches throughout south and west Texas, and subsequently rode the cattle trails northward. To name a few and one of the most famous was Bose Ikard. Born a slave in Mississippi in 1847, Bose was brought to Texas when he was five years old by the Ikard family. Growing up on the frontier, he learned to ride, rope and fight. These skills made him a valuable cowhand later. He rode with such cattlemen as Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving, John Chisum and John Slaughter as they went north from Texas with thousands of cattle over deserts, through Apache, Sioux and Comanche Indian territory, army posts into the Wyoming ranges.”
Bose Ikard was born a slave, but after he gained his freedom, he rode for many years with the Texas cattle barons, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. Their adventures served as the basis for Larry McMurty’s novel, Lonesome Dove, which became a television miniseries in 1989.
Here is an interesting website about Black Cowboys on the Internet.
and more HERE.
If you have problems seeing the video below click HERE.
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