Black cowboys

Last updated January 10, 2025

Black cowboys in the American West accounted for up to an estimated 25% of cowboys "who went up the trail" from the 1860s to 1880s, estimated to be at least 5,000 individuals.^[1] They were also part of the rest of the ranching industry in the West.^[2]^[3]

Typically former slaves or born into the families of former slaves, many Black men had skills in cattle handling and headed West at the end of the Civil War.^[4] Though the industry generally treated Black men equally to White men in terms of pay and responsibilities, discrimination persisted, though to a lesser extent than in other industries of the time; historian Kenneth Porter describes the employment composition of trail parties as:

"...A trailherd outfit of about a dozen men would on the average consist of seven or eight Whites, including the trail boss, three Negroes—one of whom was probably the cook, while another might be the horse wrangler, and the third would simply be a trail hand—and one or two Mexicans; if a Negro was not the wrangler, then a Mexican often was. Needless to say, this is not the typical trail outfit of popular literature and drama...Negroes occupied all the positions among cattle-industry employees, from the usually lowly wrangler through ordinary hand to top hand and lofty cook. But they were almost never, except in the highly infrequent case of an all-Negro outfit, to be found as ranch or trail boss."^[2]

Background

Nat Love (1854-1921), an African-American cowboy and former slave Natlove2.jpg — Nat Love (1854–1921), an African-American cowboy and former slave

After the Reconstruction of the South after the American Civil War, freed slaves were still denied land ownership and other rights in many states, and about 20,000 Exodusters headed west to Kansas between 1879 and 1884, with smaller migrations to other Western states. Many trained under Mexican vaqueros, cattle-raising Native Americans, or their former masters. They then worked as ranch hands for wages equal to their White counterparts and offering more opportunities than existed for freemen in the South.^[4]

Black men, typically former slaves, children of slaves, or working in plantations, and farms would have been exposed to kitchen work and stables as well. As early as 1770, regulations in Louisiana required two slaves to manage 100 head of cattle.^[1] White ranchers could even win competitions based on the cow-handling skills of the Black slaves in their possession.^[5] In Antebellum Texas, White ranchers referred to White workers as "cow hands," with Black people in the same position referred to with the pejorative "cow boy."^[5] Prior to the abolition of slavery, the cattle trade was considered to offer a high degree of relative freedom to slaves, who would be issued guns, often left unaccompanied on horseback for long stretches, and trusted to return.^[6]

Free Black cattle drivers drove cattle from Kansas to areas including Atlanta, the Dakotas, and Canada, as well as New Mexico, Arizona, California and Oregon.^[2]^[7] Some freed slaves remained with their former masters as employees.^[6] As these areas became more settled and established more practical transportation networks, the era of migrant cattle ranching came to an end.^[3]

Work

Black cowhands were typically assigned to handle horses with poor temperaments and wild behaviors, a career known as horsebreaking.^[2] Other people in the cattle trade were trail cooks, which could earn extra money over other cowhands, regardless of race.^[2] Trail menus from Black chefs included biscuits, sowbelly, beef, molasses, and coffee. Black chefs hunted deer and wild turkey between washing and kitchen cleaning duties.^[2]

Black cowhands were expected to perform on the trail, and expected to sing or to pack a musical instrument.^[2] Others served as bodyguards or money transporters, which has been attributed to the unlikelihood of thieves searching a Black man for large sums of money.^[2]

Bose Ikard served as Charles Goodnight's banker for many years. Bill Pickett was credited with inventing bulldogging.

There were Black women cowboys, though their numbers are unknown, as income was provided to a common household rather than to individual women. Women were unlikely to inherit a homestead or continue to work in ranching, as freemen and White ranchers were unlikely to work for a Black woman.^[8] A few Black women cowboys are known by name, including Henrietta Williams Foster, a "legendary" cowhand.^[9] Johanna July tamed horses and raised cattle.^[10] There were also other Black women in notable roles in the American West, including Mary Fields, a star route postwoman,^[10] and Jane Manning James, who had a farm with her husband.^[11]

Discrimination

Social life on the trail could be egalitarian, with White and Black cowhands sharing sleeping quarters and even blankets. Though White and Black cowhands were social equals on the trail, racist roles were resumed in the presence of White women.^[2]

Traveling trail hands leading a migration of cattle were typically low-paid at the time, though better paid in the northern states. Pay was typically negotiated per run, with large discrepancies between runs and among hires on the same run. Though Mexican ranchers often received less than a third of White hires, little evidence suggests Black hires were paid less for this work than their White counterparts.^[2] However, Black employees may have been worked harder and expected to work longer hours.^[2]

Evidence suggests that many Black cowhands took on additional labor, such as laundry, testing stream water, taking late night guard shifts, and being the first expected to take on rough horses.^[2] Despite the existence of many all-Black trail outfits, Black cowboys rarely attained a rank higher than trail cook or chuckwagon. Regardless of ability, Black men were constrained by having to negotiate with White men who might refuse to respect the authority of a Black trail leader.^[2] Denied opportunities to become a foreman or range manager, many Black cowhands trained White counterparts, with others settling land with their own cattle.^[2]

Traveling posed its own challenges to integration. Whereas saloons were typically segregated, Whites and Blacks could meet in the middle, but restaurants were socially regulated. Traveling Black men would not be seated in town restaurants where Black-only establishments had not been established, requiring Black men to order food from the back door. Most Black cowhands would purchase food and prepare it for themselves on the trail.^[2] Black men were banned outright from brothels, but welcome in gambling halls.^[2]

Rodeos

Popularized across the United States in 1873 by Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild West shows showcased skills and characters of the Western United States in the form of a traveling performance including rodeo roping, Native American dances, and other acts.^[5] Among these traveling shows, African-American cowboy Jesse Stahl was famous for his saddle riding, a defining aspect of rodeos.^[5] Racism was common in rodeo competitions, and terms such as "harder to cover" could be used to mask racism in rodeo competitions under the guise that White riders had more difficult horses.^[5]

Black rodeo riders would be compared to animals, given nicknames reflecting African animals and using animal metaphors not found in descriptions of White rodeo performers.^[5] In response to their treatment and Jim Crow laws, Black cowboys formed "soul circuits," later organized as the Southwestern Colored Cowboys' Association, with the largest number of African-American cowboys participating in rural communities along the coast of Texas up to the 1940s.^[5]

Media portrayals

Film and television

In the 1930s, there were a handful of Western race films with Black actors that played in segregated movie theaters for Black audiences, including Harlem on the Prairie (1937) and The Bronze Buckaroo (1939).^[12]

A few mainstream Western movies and television shows in the 1960s included Black characters, including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) with Woody Strode, and two episodes of The Rifleman (1962) with Sammy Davis Jr. ^[12] In 1972 the documentary Black Rodeo , narrated by Woody Strode, told stories of Black cowboys.^[12] In Blazing Saddles (1974), a Western comedy film, Cleavon Little plays Bart, a Black sheriff.^[12]

A character based on Bose Ikard was played by Danny Glover in Lonesome Dove (1989).^[13] Glover also played a Black cowboy in Silverado (1985).^[14] The 1993 Western film Posse includes Black cowboys, and Black Fox (1995) features a character based on a historical Black cowboy, Britt Johnson.^[14] The television movie The Cherokee Kid (1996) includes a character based on Nat Love.^[15]

The short film They Die by Dawn (2013), directed by Jeymes Samuel, has characters based on Nat Love and Mary Fields.^[16] The Western film Hell on the Border (2019) features a character based on Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River.^[14] The Harder They Fall (2021), also directed by Jeymes Samuel, is a Western with characters based on historical Black people in the West, including Nat Love, Bill Pickett, and Mary Fields.^[17] The 2022 neo-western science fiction film Nope is about two Black horse-wranglers dealing with an unidentified flying object in Agua Dulce, California.^[18]

Music

Beyoncé's song "Daddy Lessons", on her album Lemonade (2016), helped create the "Yeehaw Agenda", a trend of reclaiming Black cowboy culture through music and fashion.^[19] In 2018, musician Dom Flemons released an album of Western songs, Black Cowboys, that was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.^[20]^[21] "Old Town Road" (2018), a hit single by Lil Nas X, references Black cowboy culture.^[20]^[21] Black cowboys are prominently featured in Solange Knowles' musical short film When I Get Home (2019), where she sought to highlight their historical influence on Black Texan culture.^[22] On her album Cowboy Carter (2024), Beyoncé also draws from Black cowboy history and culture.^[23]

Books

The 1998 children's picture book Black Cowboy, Wild Horses tells a story about Bob Lemmons.^[24]

Legacy

Museums

The Black American West Museum and Heritage Center, in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 1971 to tell the stories of Black cowboys with artifacts and exhibits.^[25] The National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, formerly known as the National Cowboys of Color Museum and Hall of Fame, was founded in 2001.^[9] The Black Cowboy Museum in Rosenberg, Texas, opened in 2017.^[15]^[26]

Contemporary cowboys

Inspired by the Denver museum, Lu Vason founded the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo in 1984.^[27] It has continued as a traveling rodeo that celebrates Black cowboys.^[28]

Present-day riding clubs in major cities include the Oakland Black Cowboy Association (since the 1970s), Compton Cowboys in the Los Angeles area (started in the 1990s), New York City Federation of Black Cowboys (since the 1990s), and Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club in Philadelphia (organized in the 2000s). Other riding clubs include Circle L 5 in Fort Worth, Texas, founded in the early 1950s, and Cowgirls of Color.^[13]^[29] In Louisiana and Texas, African-American trail rides celebrate and preserve the history of Black cowboys.^[30]

Present-day Black women cowboys include Caitlin Gooch, who maintains a horse stable and works to teach Black children about Black horse culture while inspiring them to improve their reading skills.^[31] Black women in the present-day rodeo industry include Nicole Scott, founder of the Midwest Invitational Rodeo, along with rodeo athletes Staci Russell, Savannah Roberts, and Aleeyah Roberts.^[32]^[33]

Media about contemporary cowboys

The novel Ghetto Cowboy (2011), by Greg Neri, and film Concrete Cowboy (2020) were inspired by the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club in Philadelphia. The documentary Fire on the Hill (2020) and nonfiction book The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland (2020) are about Black horseback riders in Los Angeles.^[21]^[34]

Photojournalist Ron Tarver documented contemporary Black cowboys in The Long Ride Home: The Black Cowboy Experience in America, which was exhibited at the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center (2013)^[35] and the Studio Museum in Harlem (2016–2017) and has been published in a book (2024).^[36] Photojournalist Rory Doyle photographed many Mississippi Delta-area riders in his "Delta Hill Riders" project (2018).^[37] Photographer Gabriela Hasbun published a book of photos of the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, The New Black West: Photographs From America's Only Touring Black Rodeo (2022).^[38]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodeo</span> Competitive sport

Rodeo is a competitive equestrian sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States, western Canada, and northern Mexico. Today, it is a sporting event that involves horses and other livestock, designed to test the skill and speed of the cowboys and cowgirls. American-style professional rodeos generally comprise the following events: tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, bull riding, breakaway roping, and barrel racing. The events are divided into two basic categories: the timed events and rough stock events. Depending on sanctioning organization and region, other events such as goat tying and pole bending may also be a part of some rodeos. The "world's first public cowboy contest" was held on July 4, 1883, in Pecos southwest of Midland, Texas between cattle driver Trav Windham and roper Morg Livingston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cowboy</span> Traditional ranch worker in North America

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of special significance and legend. A subtype, called a wrangler, specifically tends the horses used to work cattle. In addition to ranch work, some cowboys work for or participate in rodeos. Cowgirls, first defined as such in the late 19th century, had a less-well documented historical role, but in the modern world work at identical tasks and have obtained considerable respect for their achievements. Cattle handlers in many other parts of the world, particularly South America and Australia, perform work similar to the cowboy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaquero</span> Horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that originated on the Iberian Peninsula

The vaquero is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a method brought to the Americas from Spain. The vaquero became the foundation for the North American cowboy, in Northern Mexico, Southwestern United States, and Western Canada.

Nat Love was an American cowboy and writer active in the period following the Civil War. His reported exploits have made him one of the more famous heroes of the Old West.

Chaps are sturdy coverings for the legs consisting of leggings and a belt. They are buckled on over pants with the chaps' integrated belt, but unlike trousers, they have no seat and are not joined at the crotch. They are designed to provide protection for the legs and are usually made of leather or a leather-like material. Their name is a shortened version of the Spanish word chaparajos. Chaparajos were named after the chaparral, from which they were designed to protect the legs while riding on horseback. Like much of western American horse culture, the origin of chaparajos was in the south of Spain, from which it then passed on to the part of New Spain that later became Mexico, and has been assimilated into cowboy culture of the American West. They are a protective garment to be used when riding a horse through brushy terrain. In the modern world, they are worn for both practical work purposes and for exhibition or show use. Chaps have also been adopted for use on motorcycles, particularly by cruiser-style motorcycle riders.

Willie M. Pickett was an African American cowboy, rodeo performer, and actor. In 1989, Pickett was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) is the largest rodeo organization in the world. It sanctions events in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with members from said countries, as well as others. Its championship event is the National Finals Rodeo (NFR). The PRCA is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cowboy culture</span> Subculture on the American cowboy

Cowboy culture is the set of behaviors, preferences, and appearances associated with the attitudes, ethics, and history of the American cowboy. The term can describe the content or stylistic appearance of an artistic representation, often built on romanticized impressions of the wild west, or certain aspects of people's lifestyle, such as their choices in recreation, apparel, and western or southwestern cuisine.

Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in St. Louis and points east, and direct to Chicago. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier.

The Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, is a western, historical museum in Fort Worth, Texas, United States that "honors those men and women who have shown excellence in the business and support of rodeo and the western lifestyle in Texas."

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John Van "Tex" Austin was an American rodeo promoter, known as the "King of the Rodeo" or "Daddy of the Rodeo" because of his efforts to popularize the rodeo outside of its core American West demographic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo</span> Agricultural show and rodeo held in Fort Worth, US

The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo is the oldest continuously running livestock show and rodeo. It has been held annually in Fort Worth, Texas, since 1896, traditionally in mid-January through early February. A non-profit organization, the Stock Show has provided millions of dollars in grants and scholarships in its tenure and continues to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to assist the future leaders of agriculture and livestock management.

African American Texans or Black Texans are residents of the state of Texas who are of African ancestry and people that have origins as African-American slaves. African Americans formed a unique ethnic identity in Texas while facing the problems of societal and institutional discrimination as well as colorism for many years. The first person of African heritage to arrive in Texas was Estevanico, who came to Texas in 1528.

Fred Whitfield is an American former professional rodeo cowboy who specialized in tie-down roping. He won eight Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) world championships and three National Finals Rodeo (NFR) aggregate titles. Seven of those titles were tie-down roping world championships and one was the all-around world championship. He is one of a few African-American professional rodeo cowboys and by far the most successful. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2004.

Mollie Taylor Stevenson Scott, a former model, is the daughter of Benjamin Franklin "Big Ben" Stevenson and Mollie Stevenson (1911-2003). Mollie Jr. and her mother were the first living African-American women inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. She and her husband, Elicious Scott Jr., taught and connected children and adults with Western culture and agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tad Lucas</span> American trick rider

Tad Lucas is a ProRodeo Hall of Fame cowgirl inductee.

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References

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