"The Unexpected Cowboy"

[markie]

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2022/06/the-unexpected-cowboy/


Contrary to what we learned watching Westerns, a substantial number of cattlemen on the frontier were Black.

".....Historians and Hollywood have erased Black cowboys from their rightful place among the sunset and sagebrush and the Western vistas of our minds. Prejudice to this day has continued to finish the job, painting all-white portraits of the American frontier. In fact, one in four cowboys on the frontier were Black, according to data and historical accounts from the pioneer era, which began in 1865 after the Civil War and ended in about 1895. Yet their legacy has been whitewashed from Western iconography and American lore by John Wayne and Sergio Leone and written in invisible ink in the pages of the Lone Ranger comic books.

Until he was an adult, Callies didn’t know what role people who looked like him played in the country’s story, no conception of the Black cowboys’ rich legacy. Then on a rainy afternoon nearly 20 years ago, he was clearing out a cluttered tack room at a guest ranch where he was employed as a cowboy, when he came across a photo on its way to the trash. It was from the 1880s and showed eight cowboys and eight horses.

Seven of the cowboys were Black....."

[stopdiggin]

2. that's a different thread.

black cowboys are kinda interesting. Think it needs to be pointed out how deeply and fundamentally racist 'the west' (along with the rest of the country) really was. Check out CA, OR, TX, et.al. The true miracle was that the black person found any place for surcease and shelter (tenuous and transitory as that may be). And the second thing - being a cowboy (of the hired hand variety) - was a miserable, lonely, harsh, cruel, transitory and low paying job. With apologies to Zane Gray and Larry McMurtry - it was basically the job that nobody else in their right mind wanted. And as a result found itself as a place for people in the margins. (sound a little bit familiar?)

[Phoenix61]

4. Yes it was and yes they are.

It’m so thankful my parents were curious and well read. I grew up knowing about a lot of things my southern classmates didn’t get to hear about.

[Martin68]

3. A lot of cowboys were escaping difficulties back East, whether they were newly freed enslaved people

or ex-Confederate soldiers. There was a certain freedom and equality among these outcasts.