There have been a lot of cowboys of color, their stories don’t get told

April 27, 2024 12:58 AM

Wallace was Black. The men who helped him were white. One might imagine that such a scene would have been jaw-dropping in Depression-era Texas, where white hostility toward people of color was common. But the West Texas cowboy culture of the time was distinctive. Men of different races often supported and respected one another. And no cowboy was more respected than Wallace. In fact he was one of the most remarkable figures in our history. from The Former Slave Who Became a Cowboy, a Rancher, and a Texas Legend [Texas Monthly; ungated]
posted by chavenet (8 comments total)

Why the first US cowboys were black - YouTube, The Guardian (length: 7:34)
posted by pracowity at 1:48 AM on April 27 [1 favorite]

... and, at the time you'd probably been punched in the nose if you called a "hand" a "boy", whether a cow-boy or sheep-boy or other kind of worker. "cowboy" was a term invented by an author in Connecticut who had never been west of NYC.
posted by sammyo at 2:28 AM on April 27 [3 favorites]

Dom Flemons, once of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, made a whole album of songs celebrating the history of Black cowboys in America. It's really good.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:27 AM on April 27 [6 favorites]

A lot of ranch hands weren't white, and at the time, black and hispanic men were called "boy", hence "cowboy".

The white wealthy herd/land owners were "cattlemen"
posted by MengerSponge at 8:01 AM on April 27 [1 favorite]

There’s a lot of related material in the podcast Black Cowboys. Here’s the thread about it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:27 PM on April 27 [1 favorite]

I love Texas Monthly for it's surprisingly progressive long reads. That is all.
posted by A Blue Moon at 1:28 PM on April 27 [4 favorites]

I immediately thought of John Ware, who is celebrated in my part of the world.
posted by angiep at 1:35 PM on April 27 [1 favorite]

Thanks for sharing this man's story. I liked right at the beginning when one of 80 John's descendants made sure to say there were a lot of Black cowboys that most people don't know about, not just her ancestor.
posted by Emmy Rae at 1:18 PM on April 28