In contrast, it is crucial to get a clear representation of not only the demographics, but the factual history of the western range-cattle industry between 1865 and 1900. There were African American cowboys participating in this industry and “there were Mexican and Indian cowboys as well. We know this because photographs occasionally reveal their presence” (Savage 6). The cowboy, who worked, owned, and sometimes managed the cows created the cattle industry in south and southwest Texas after the Civil War. Some of the conditions which led to the cattle industry were “a supply of cattle, skilled cowboy labor, and established procedures of trade, but capital and free ranges accessible by railroad were the new ingredients that determined the rise of the industry” (Weston 3). Charles Siringo, an expert cowboy who emerged from Texas wrote a book-length account of cowboy life and said there were three stages of cowboys: “the “trail cowboys,” mostly Texans, but many from other Southern states, the cowboys of the new cattle ranges on the northern Plains who were taught by Texas trail cowboys who stayed north, and the cowboys of the Wild West shows and the movies” (Weston 7). Even though these distinctions were made, cowboys were united by their Texas origin. They were unique among frontier workers in being almost completely native-born including Anglo, African American, and Mexican. Finally, cattle ranchers always provided their own bed, saddle blanket, saddle, bridle, and spurs.
Cowboys had a distinct way of dressing, working, and handling themselves as well. Accounts of activities show their activities to be more suited for farmers than what we think of as cowboys. For example, they would “listen to the music of fiddle, mouth organ, or banjo (seldom guitar, which was Mexican), music played by one of their number or the cook” (Weston 13). Cowboys had particularly painful work, especially in the early days of cow hunts: “In the broadest view, an open-range cowboy worked with slaughter or stocker cows, ideally one man for every 700 to 1,000 head on the range, two or three for that many on the trail” (Weston 41). They had a great deal of skill for the extremely hazardous and arduous work that they put in showing how they were practically exploited, however historians argue that “they endured their exploitation…because they were proud of their skills, their craft, their tough and manly reputation, and their buddies in the outfit” (Weston 42). Despite their pride, cowboys had to endure many hardships. For example, during the cowboy era on the Great Plains, cowboys were all unmarried and lived alone in a line camp or together around chuck wagons in small groups of other unmarried men. Also cowboys had to “control drifting herds of cattle during a dust storm, sometimes for so long that they would temporarily go blind from inflamed eyes” (Weston 44). The weather conditions that cowboys endured didn’t help their situation either: “With relatively light rainfall, high summer temperatures, violent winters, and fine-grained soils, the Great Plains constitute a region in which a few inches of rainfall can make the difference between a demiparadise and a dustbowl” (Fishwick 79-80). All these factors demonstrate the solitary and dangerous lives of these workers that compares to the romanticized version of the cowboy that has been broadcasted throughout history.
Unlike the “guitar-strumming, holier-than-thou movie set outdoorsman” or the “pale imitation of the cowboy who was once content to ride the range” that America envisioned as it romanticized the image of the cowboy, their lives were much more violent. (Fishwick 81). Violence often resulted from competition between livestock raisers in two principal categories: “conflicts between cattle raisers and sheepherders and conflicts between large and small ranchers” (White 344). These conflicts often had racial, religious, and ethnic overtones. For example, in New Mexico, cattlemen “attacked all shepherds who threatened their range, most sheep owners were Mexican Americans, whereas most cattlemen were Anglo Americans” (White 345). Another important issue that was a source of conflict for the cattlemen was the fence-cutting. Large ranchers could fence off large sections of the public domain while small ranchers “cut the fences to provide their cattle with access to the public lands” (White 345). In central Texas, the result was the Fence-Cutters’ War of 1883-84 which resulted in much violence and an eventual passage of a state law making fence cutting a felony in 1884 finally ending the fighting. Although cowboys indeed were wild and violent, there is plenty of evidence that, contrary to their reputation, “they were quite socially respectable in their protectiveness of women, or family distress, and in their touching yearning to be loved, honored, or at least remembered” (Weston 26). They were not essentially different in social virtues from the other main groups of frontier workers.
Historian Carl Becker noted that Americans are prone to cling to what he called “useful myths” (Rainey 6). These are stories and characters that, no matter how untrue, people hold onto in order to justify their patriotism. These myths give people a glimpse into their collective history. The cowboy is one such character. While historians stress the harsh lifestyle of cattle ranchers in the West, American images of the cowboy have been a noticeably romanticized part of pop-culture from the early 1800’s onwards. During times in history when the general consensus is that there are no real heroes to look to for guidance, “audiences sustained many of their ‘faiths’ by identifying with such admirable and powerful symbols of straight-forward righteous” (Rainey 6). To this day, many Americans continue to look towards cowboys as such a symbol.
Bibliography
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Rainey, Buck. The Real Cowboy: Essays on the Myth in Movies and Literature. Jefferson:
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