Ep. 117 - Rebranding the American Cow Boy
When it goes to the safest, go-to answer without offending someone else, when in reality we are just trying to speak to the real history of the American Cowboy.
“I didn’t get to really know diversity until I became a teacher,” explains co-host Katie Surritt. “Coming from rodeo and showing show horses, it’s really consistently one thing… I don’t think that a lot of paths in the pacific northwest gets crossed in the industry… I think that the understanding and the re-birth of really trying to understand rodeo history and western history, as well, is incredibly important to know where we are going.”
“There was a moment that happened that changed my entire life that Fred [Whitfield] did to change his life,” says other co-host Katie Schrock. “I had just quit college basketball… Fred had tweeted this thing and I was so lost, to be totally honest,… he tweeted ‘Imagine how happy you were doing what you thought God wanted you to do, imagine how happy you’ll be when you.”
Different moments where we became aware of diversity and the politics of professional rodeo, it was all things we wanted to talk about. In history, only Native Americans and Chinese nationalities are the only two nationalities noted in most of the educational history books.
“I am going to argue, which is what historians do, which is present our own ideas that we have based off of facts in archives to create a thesis on what the past was like, so I will argue that African American slaves were more fundamentally important to the development of the modern cowboy than any other race,” says Surritt.
To precursor all of this, this is what we have deduced from our own research which includes books, professors, peer-reviews articles, essays, and more. It’s a good variety, but under no circumstance do we consider ourselves experts or scratched the surface so that we can continue developing the true history. People have devoted their whole lives to this and we have devoted a very small time in reality. What we share today is what we know to be true. This is why we are arguing because we are interpreting historical facts.
We, for so long, have categorized cowboys and western men into the scenes of Yellowstone. “I really do believe that every generation has their cowboy-like hero that has entered the media, but Yellowstone is the big one,” says Surritt.
“We used to have Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke… she was a boss babe but she was always left high and dry without Marshall Dillon and now we have Beth Dutton… she has some underlying Miss Kitty currents but is not conventional ‘western,’” says Schrock.
This is to open you up to go into your podcast thinking to really think hard of how and what you think of a cowboy. “What we are missing is the fact that these cowboys, really, were not inspired or created from white cattlemen. Their roles, their jobs, and the way that they live, the way that they are training horses or getting on horses, really does come from African American slaves who were purchased specifically to work cattle,” says Surritt.
Cattle-experienced slaves were found in the Gambia River Valley which was known for raising cattle and had unique techniques in how to raise their herds. A couple of white ranchers had stumbled upon this knowledge after stumbling upon these slaves’ natural ability. Pretty soon that area of African became really highly prized for that skill.
“This was not a breeding barn of cattle with selected bulls, so a part of this were ‘cow-hunters.’ These were people that could go out and track cattle, find them, bring them back in, and bring them in to feed them…these were feral animals out in the wild,” says Schrock. In fact, only a few decades ago was when Louisiana became the last state to give up the parrish fencing laws. This is interesting because originally there were land grants given by the US Government to encourage people to move out to Louisiana but the requirements were over 100 head of cattle, unspecified number of horses and sheep, and TWO slaves.
This wasn’t to force a socio-economic standing, it was because it was understood and well known that slaves were needed to successfully care for cattle. We know that, really, all along the east coast through the south, that African American slaves were essential for establishing successful cattle ranches. The fact that those were put in as a requirement for ranchers to gain land, speaks to the testament of their skills and that they are valuing them in an underlying way that they know they won’t be successful without this incredibly valuable skillset.
It wasn’t until 1965 that the first book was released on African Americans in the west, but you can see it underwritten in ledgers and legislation. In fact, slaves that worked cattle were called “Cow Boys” - note TWO words, not as one word. “When we say ‘cow boys’ we are saying it as two words for the rest of this podcast,” says Surritt. “Because now, our modern cowboy we want to be him, but, in the past, it was two-words to reference African American slaves and to demean them.”
“Cow” was in reference to what they worked and “boy” to derive gender in a demeaning way. In making the distinction between the “cattlemen” or the “drovers” in reference to the white, cattle-owning ranchers, versus “cow boy.” In example, “house girl” could be a 60 year-old woman working in the house. The Vaqueros and Caballos from the south were a big influencer of the western culture and rodeo, especially in the southwest, but not the sole derivation of the term “cowboy.” Even today we still use “cattleman” and “drover” separate from a rodeo “cowboy,” we still have that differentiation today.
African American slaves would work very closely with their owners, the cattlemen and ranchers, and also closely with white ranch hands as well. Usually, they had several white employees, and, for the most part, worked very well together. “We aren’t going to say it was ‘rainbows and butterflies,’” but in comparison to the cash crops, they were treated better. We can cite directly the Works Progress Administration during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to understand what slavery was like and there was a lot of sentiment. When you’re under Native American attack and the tenacity of Mother Nature on these cattle drives, there was a more positive outlook on their life as a cow boy.
“Every single one of them said, ‘We ate good!’ because they ate the same [as the white hands,” says Schrock. “You don’t know how skewed the questions were - how were they asked? Who asked them?” You didn’t necessarily hear “the bad,” but there was still bull whips that whipped the cow boy slaves. However, the African American cow boys carried pistols and firearms to protect the herd and defend themselves. Usually Masters would still carry a bull whip for punishment, it was just significantly less.
Why was it less? Because the slaves finally became humanized. “You don’t have to like each other, but you have to love each other because that’s the only reason you are going to survive because it’s us against the world,” says Schrock in reference to her sports culture in college. “Imagine going though the months of a cattle drive, eating side-by-side, you’re saving each other, fording rivers, problem solving, EVERYTHING. Then you show up in a town and they say ‘You can’t eat in here’ to one person in your group. It’s not going to fly.”
There is a story of a cow boy that became his own rancher and crossed paths on a train ride as a porter in the black train car with white ranchers he had done cattle drives with. The white ranchers realized he was there and went to the black train car to catch up and were asked to leave. They said, “No.” Cattle and horses are a great equalizer not only in competition (even today), but it’s almost the same as in history. Together they had a shared lifestyle and, during a certain time, race didn’t matter.
CIVIL WAR
A lot of the white ranchers went off to fight for slavery during the Civil War. “We ahve enough records for me to feel comfortable saying this,” says Surritt. “Wives generally didn’t know much about the business, because they were usually in charge of running the household. They knew enough to know their husbands owned cattle, and who their employees were. But simply women could not be trusted to run business and so while the white man went off to fight for the south in the Civil War, cow boys were left in charge of the herds.” Records did say that some herds were scattered and less were branded, but those ranches that were successful are related directly to those enslaved African American cow boys.
These cow boys were left out in the wilderness, watching cattle, had firearms, and had horses - why didn’t they ride north? Some did ride west, but none on record went north. “They had a gratification for what they were doing and, to a point, they felt safe, especially when comparing to what their life could have been in the fields. Again, I’m not saying that abuse and torture didn’t happen to cow boys but their life was better. Food was better. Trust was better,” hypotheses Surritt. They knew that what they were doing was long-lasting. Cattle prices continued to raise consistently and it provided a sense of security for them, especially post-emancipation.
Preparing for EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION era
The history shown in the post Emancipation Proclamation, cash-crop plantations were really struggling. The only options were to continue slavery in the form of indentured servants or hire people. They used to have keep people healthy enough to work, but now they just had to pay but there was no minimum requirement. There wasn’t enough money to allow the slaves to leave and their skillset was just to the field work of that plantation for that environment and soil. If you worked as a cow boy, you had a real skill that could be transferred outside of slavery. It was valuable to the entire commodity at the time.
“What we see is a lot of cow boys actually earning a real wage, very comparable to white cattleman were earning at that time, and they would save enough to purchase their cattle or trade part of their salary for cattle so that they could start their own ranch and move west,” says Surritt.
Matthew “Bones” Hook was basically banned from starting counterfeit colts, so they would put a young white hand on a renegade colt to get it under saddle because Bones was too valuable to be hurt. A lot of times, we will also see white ranchers trade cattle for slaves, which sounds bad, but cattle was the most valuable commodity, so it shows the value of these cow boys monetarily. “I think it speaks to their skills and then we see their skills provide a life for them out of slavery,” says Surritt. A lot of newly freed cow boys moved to Texas or moved west with former bosses as an employee.
Think of Yellowstone’s 1883 series with their black Oregon Trail guide. There is a Native Indian that teaches Tim McGraw’s character how to break a horse by taking it into water. This is actually a reference to Johanna July who would break horses this way and it’s fascinating that they wove this story into it. Johanna would also make the people in the community in the neighborhood uneasy because she would also wash her clothes simultaneously. Her father had started this technique and had contracts with the Army so she had a lot to upkeep. She’s consistently the main woman in all of the records, as well as Mary Fields.
AFTER EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
The white cattleman came back from the Civil War to a mess; fencing was down, cattle were scattered. There were African Americans that were fighting in the war, but it wasn’t as common (check out Glory for a movie starring Denzel Washington about this). Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19th, is the day of the Emancipation Proclamation and the ending of slavery. In African American rodeo culture, Juneteenth is “Cowboy Christmas” for these black rodeo associations. The culture is very unique and we love the influence of Zydeco dancing, which, if you’re a fan of the new hyphy-meets-country-traveling-two-step style of dancing, you’ll love it a lot! It’s interesting that Juneteenth has only recently become a national holiday.
Oregon is at fault for being one of the worst states in the history of inclusion of African American, even as “recently” as 1910. One hundred years is just a small “blip” in history as a whole - there are people that are 100 years old, who were alive during this and maybe could have fought to not have black Americans in our territories and home towns.
“I actually sent a pitch in to Disney for a story is,” says Schrock, is a logging town that was split half black and half white. They each had a baseball team that would play each other to keep the white team ready for their league. It wasn’t quite the 1920’s but a bunch of players were sick and they didn’t have enough people to field a team so they brought in the black loggers to play in this league that was the equivalent of the Columbia River Circuit in Professional Rodeo. They decimated every team and had a lot of success, but it brought persecution because it was illegal for black people to be in the state. When the government came, the white people of the community came together to literally protect their black community members. Shortly after, the rules were changed.
“As a Washingtonian, I think of Oregon as ‘if Washington doesn’t work out, I’m going to move to Oregon’ but it has a really dark history,” says Surritt.
These freed slaves, cow boys, had usually kept employment through their masters rather than going off to find other work, they would travel along with the cattle drives and bargain their salaries for a time period in exchange for a number of cattle by a certain location. They used their experience to build their future - it was great foresight. “I am willing to help you now, but you are going to have to give up some of that resource.” It was a strong bargaining chip because they knew that they couldn’t purchase more cow boy slaves.
“Post emancipation, I think everyone was just so shooketh that … the segregation issues, while still bad, they weren’t ‘that bad,’ because everyone was just trying to figure out where they belong and where they were going to settle,” says Schrock. Blacks had their own streets, bars, etc. but the segregation on color didn’t kick in as intense for quite a while. A lot of ranchers also had cash crops as a form of income, but that tanked post emancipation so, in a lot of ways, they were trying to figure out a way to get by which meant they relied even more on their cow boys.
“When I say they are essential pieces of our western ranching history, I am not kidding. I really don’t know how the west would have had a cattle industry without them,” says Surritt.
HISTORY NUGGET ON CATTLE DRIVES
“When I thought of cattle drives, I thought of this amazing space in history of big cattle drives,” says Schrock. “When you talk to Texans, I never realized, that the cattle herds were paid for by British investors and were not American owned.” This is where the Angus and the Hereford came over, specifically with Herefords and Senator Henry Clay in the 1830’s and 40’s. These British investors brought in hundreds of thousands of cattle, owning the herds in Texas, Oklahoma, etc. They were not American-owned herds, they were British-owned.
The British investors would just go to the big cities, to our understanding, is that when they get to the point to sell the cattle the British investors were not known for being trustworthy. Hereford x Angus cross we call a “black baldy” because they are black with a white face. The term a “bald-faced lie” is a phrase that we think refers to the term “Baldy” which was a term used for the “shady Hereford owning British investors.” The Mirriam-Webster dictionary doesn’t explicitly say this, but we can deduce that it lines perfectly time era wise.
The reason that the British investors pulled out of the American cattle industry was when there were two years of back-to-back winter blizzards that wiped out most of the cattle herds. Then followed with a biting lice that caused the ranchers to have to contain their livestock, selectively breed, and improve genetics. This is when the British investors stepped out and though it was a terrible time, it was a blessing in disguise for the American Cattle industry.
TRAVELING WEST - THE ULTIMATE EQUALIZER
“How many associations were mixed race outside of the cattle organizations?” Asks Schrock. The late 1800’s showed that nearly all of the original cattle organizations were mixed race, which is fascinating, as they might be one of the only industries that shows this foresight. Matthew “Bones” Hook was a founding member of many of these organizations during a time that the KKK was huge and a disgusting period of lynching and worse. He was a founding member of the Western Cowpunchers Association of Amarillo and the Western Cowboys Association in Montana - a part of his ability to be a founding member was his longstanding history with his white employer.
(PS - Check out the CowpunchersAssociation.com for our new fanwear gear - eventually!)
“We use the word ‘cowpuncher’ or the word ‘punchy’ very offhanded and this is really the intention,” says Surritt. Cowpunchers came from an actual job/role because “cow punching” were the cow boys that would shoot through ridiculous terrain to keep up with these feral, rangy cattle, and were sent out to punch them out of the brush and trees. It was a whole different world of brush work and cattle functioning and there is a special kind of horse that can handle that as well.
Bones became a staple during this time in founding associations and growth of the industry thanks, in part, to his record keeping and scrapbooking. He also used his funds to fund an entire town. “Someday, someone is going to look back and say, ‘What was 2020 like for the average person?’ Bones didn’t know he wasn’t ‘average’ back then, but he kept the artifacts and the history,” says Schrock. “I would rather know what my grandma and grandpa thought of World War II rather than read it in a history book.”
IN CONCLUSION
African American slaves were freed but they used their skills as a cow boy to help settle the west that we know today. They really did use those skills to create a life of their own and to set up the next generation of African American’s of the West which becomes our wild west shows.
We knew that we needed to bring this information and research forward. The best part of this is that this is the tipping of the iceberg. We hope you can listen to this at home, talk to your family and friends, and follow along with people on social media to learn more. To reiterate, we are not experts. We have done what we can to bring some of these topics to light and bring them some justice. If you have questions or resources that you would like to share with us, we want you to send them our way. Our goal was to try to get you thinking of “what does a cowboy mean to me” and “how was I maybe misinformed on it in my life?”
When you look at rodeo, how do you have peripheral vision? How do you see the things on the outside that are working that make the things in front of us happen?
Resources:
"Black Cowboys in the American West: On the Range, On the Stage, Behind the Badge," Edited by Bruce A. Glarud and Michael N. Searles, Foreward by Albert S. Broussard
"The Black West," William Loren Katz
"Guts: Legendary Black Rodeo Cowboy Bill Pickett." Cecil Johnson (I did use this to create a foundation, I don't know if we specifically spoke about him though)
"Black Frontier: A History of African American Heroes in the Old West," Lillian Schlissel
"Black Women of the Old West," William Loren Katz
"Lesser Known History of African-American Cowboys," Katie Nodjimbadem: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/
"Black Cowboys in Oregon," Stan Fonseca: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/black_cowboys_in_oregon/#.Y_KGU3bMJPZ
" Spanish Louisiana Land Policy: Antecedent to the Anglo-American Colonization of East Texas, 1769-1821 Light T. Cummins," https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2166&context=ethj
Library of Congress Collection: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project 1936-1938, https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/