The Delay

I apologize for the delay in posting. I just haven’t had as much time as I would really like to. The next part of the Who were the real cowboys? series is well underway, I have just not had the time needed to finish it quite yet.

Currently, I am working on an essay for a literature course I am taking and I promise I will be more diligent in posting after I am finished with it.

— Alex

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Who were the real cowboys? (Part 4)

In the late 19th century, the combination of high demand for beef in the eastern United States and the lack of railroads or really any kind of infrastructure in the west was the cause for a unique phenomenon west. The western ranchers in states such as Texas and Wyoming needed to find a way to bring their cattle to the eastern markets. The best way was the cattle drive.

The first large cattle drive took place in 1866. A rancher in Texas and a group of hired cowhands attempted to drive a large herd of cattle with several thousand head from the ranch in Texas to the nearest railroad point in Sedalia, Missouri. The goal was to then ship the cattle by railroad to meat packing plants in Chicago and other eastern cities, however, because Missouri was already “settled” state, the Missourians objected to the large herd being driven through their farms and towns. The drive was not successful. The rancher was forced to sell his cattle at a loss and return to Texas.

The next year saw a new railroad head open in Abilene, Kansas. Texas ranchers took the first drive as an example and chose to drive their cattle to Abilene instead. This time they were successful. A total of about 36,000 head of cattle were driven to Abilene in 1867 and the trail they took from Texas to Abilene would eventually come to be known as the Chisholm Trail. In following years the trail was expanded to reach another new railroad head in Dodge City, Kansas to accommodate the escalating number of cattle making their way to Abilene and Dodge City. In 1877, 500,000 head of cattle were driven to Abilene and Dodge City.

For cowboys, life on the cattle trail was often brutal. They had no shelter other than what their hats could provide and the food they had to eat was often marginal at best. A quote from James H. Cook sums up the cowboys’ life on the trail:

On the trail we were each allowed to take a pair of bed blankets and a sack containing a little extra clothing…We had no tents or shelter of any sort other than our blankets.

On a drive, cowboys would spend everyday for two months in the saddle and would often drive a herd of about 3,000 head of cattle as far as 15 to 20 miles a day. A drive team would generally consist of ten cowboys — one of which was usually the rancher and in charge, a cook with a chuckwagon and a horse wrangler, who looked after the remuda, or spare horses. Each cowboy would need at least three horses. The younger and less experienced cowboys were generally made to ride behind the herd where the most dust would be kicked up.

While on the trail, the cook was considered king. While he may not have been necessarily in charge, only the dumbest of cowboys would do anything to irritate him. As the title implies, the cook was in charge of the food and cooking, however, he generally also had a basic knowledge of medicine and was in charge of the chuckwagon. The chuckwagon hauled supplies for the cowboys such as food, an extra change of clothes, bedrolls, tools that could not be carried on the horse such as shovels, and anything else needed by the team. Chuckwagons were usually pulled by a team of oxen contradictory to how most are depicted today.

Life on the trail was often boring, but there were times it could also be quite exciting and even dangerous. Cowboys were constantly faced with many dangers on the trail that several didn’t survive.

Part 5

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Who were the real cowboys? (Part 3)

The image of the American cowboy as we perceive it today was created in the 19th century, particularly in the postbellum period, or the period after the Civil War. After the war, many soldiers from both the Union and the Confederate sides had difficulties finding jobs in the east despite the South’s infrastructure laying in ruins and the process of Reconstruction just beginning. Freed slaves were also seeking opportunities to take advantage of their newly won freedom and many of them found it in the west.

Large herds of cattle and the promise of a new start away from the memories of the war drove many people west. Jobs were easy to come across as large cattle ranches were founded in Texas, among other places, and cowhands were needed to keep the cattle in line before the invention of barbed wire fencing. The easiest way to perform this task over the arid span of the vast ranches was the tried and true method of the horse-mounted Mexican vaqueros.

The vaqueros, and subsequently the American cowboys, used practical tools and clothing for their jobs. Examples that we are all familiar with today include the wide-brimmed cowboy hat, which was used to block the sun, rain and other elements, the bandana, which was used to cover their mouths and to avoid inhaling the huge amounts dust kicked up by cattle, and leather chaps, which were used to protect the cowboys’ legs when spending long hours in the saddle. The typical leather boots worn by the cowboys had a pointed tip, a tall top and high heel. They had a pointed tip to allow for easy entry into the stirrup, the tall top was to protect the lower leg where the chaps were their weakest and the high heel was the prevent the foot from slipping through the stirrup when standing. Other tools such as the lariat, spurs and the branding iron were also common. The lariat was used to rope cattle while mounted on a horse, the spurs were used for better control of the horse while the cowboys’ hands were busy with the lariat and the branding iron was used to burn an identifying mark on the cattle so others knew they belonged to a specific ranch and/or rancher.

Cowboys were also needed in the west to bring the cattle to market. Ranchers in the west tried their best to meet the high demand for beef in the eastern states, however, the infrastructure in the west was almost non-existent in the 19th century, which meant the cattle had to be driven on foot to the nearest railroad head. The cattle drive was born and the legend of the heroic cowboy was soon to follow.

Part 4

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Who were the real cowboys? (Part 2)

The history of the cowboy is a story that begins long ago. What we now think of as a uniquely American tradition is not solely American at all. Cowboy tradition first originated in mediæval Spain with the hacienda, or estate. The haciendas belonged to wealthy landowners and were generally, but not always, located on vast cattle ranches. Because of the dry climate on the Iberian Peninsula (and subsequently the dry climate of Mexico and the American southwest), a huge amount of land was required to sustain a herd of cattle due to lack of water and of sufficient forage. The need to traverse these large cattle ranches gave birth to the tradition of cattle herding on horseback. Thus the vaquero (literally, cow-man) was born.

When the Spanish conquistadores, or conquerors, arrived on the North American continent in the fifteenth century and later colonized what is now Mexico and the southwestern United States, they brought with them this tradition as well as cattle and horses. Horses had disappeared in North America long before the arrival of the Spanish at the end of the prehistoric ice age. The cattle they brought with them would eventually evolve into today’s Texas Longhorn cattle (see the picture on the right).

The vaqueros evolved further in North America bringing into it traditions from the natives as well as adaptations to the new climate of the new continent. One such difference is that in North America, the vaqueros tended to be of native origin while the hacendados (owners of the haciendas) tended to be of Spanish origin. The Mexican vaqueros were hired by the hacendados to drive cattle between New Mexico and Mexico city and later between Texas and Mexico City.

In the eighteenth century, the first English-speaking traders and settlers began trickling westward from what would become the United States. The beginning of trade between Mexico and the United States also brought with it a trade in culture and language. In 1821, the first group of American settlers arrived in Texas under the leadership of Stephen F. Austin. The group wanted to take advantage of the cattle free for the taking in Texas. By that time, the Texas Longhorn had become a feral group and had multiplied until its numbers swelled. The new arrivals turned to the Mexican tradition of the vaquero to help them in their undertaking.

By the 1840’s, the Santa Fe trail leading from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico was a well-established and well-used route for traders and settlers alike. The route would later be used by the American Army of the West during the Mexican-American War in their quest to capture New Mexico for the United States. All along the trail, the Americans encountered the Mexican vaqueros and soon began to adopt the vaquero tradition in their own manner. Thus, the American cowboy was born.

Part 3

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The Forums are Open!

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I decided to open a forums page for general history-related discussion. They are now open!

You can find them here: http://historyrhymes.alexseifert.com/forum

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Who were the real cowboys? (Part 1)

“Always drink upstream from the herd.”

That was the advice of just one of hundreds of anonymous cowboys of the 19th century. While many of us are familiar with romanticized cowboys such as those played by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in western films, many of us do not know much about the real cowboys, what their lives were like on and off the cattle drive tails or what they even did. This series aims to enlighten those who do not know much about the real cowboys.

The cowboy image as we have come to know and love today has by and large been romanticized by legend and fiction. Movies, books and other forms of fiction pertaining to the cowboy theme became so popular so quickly around the turn of the last century that they gave birth to a genre of story-telling known as the western genre. The first western films were created as early as 1903 (The Great Train Robbery), but they were not produced en masse until much later. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Hollywood began producing what we tend to think of as stereotypical westerns with such stars as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The films and television series produced led to several more genres branched out from the original western genre. An example of one such genre is the “spaghetti western,” which are westerns based in the 19th century American west, but produced in Italy.

These films tended to make the lone and nameless cowboy an unsung hero willing to do whatever it takes for good to triumph over evil. Other common western themes revolved around settlers’ struggles against the native Indian population, land controversies, the hunt for gold and hunting down outlaws, to name only a few. Somehow the heroic cowboy is involved in all of these problems.

But is this how cowboys actually lived? While it might make an entertaining story, it bears little to no resemblance to how the real cowboys lived and worked.

Part 2

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Catching Up

I apologize I haven’t posted anything in the past several days. I had a presentation on Thursday that consumed practically all of my time this week. The presentation, however, was on American cowboys and therefore I am going to use my research to post a new series about real cowboys, trail drives, etc.

Look forward to them coming soon!

Also, I should mention that I have been debating creating a History Rhymes forum for history-related discussion. I think I will go ahead and create one and see if there is any interest in such a thing. It won’t be restricted to just American history, of course, as I feel it would be a useful tool in general for any sort of history-related discussion. Let me know what you think!

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Death and the Navajos

The Navajos struck fear into every person living in the American southwest since the first Spanish settlements until the American conquest of the southwest in the mid-nineteenth century. Their raids on the small villages and towns of present day New Mexico and Arizona were constant and were always devastating. The devastation, however, was generally not in human life, but rather in terms of lost property. Villagers lost most of their flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and horses to the Navajo raids, but rarely were human lives the target of the Navajos’ ambitions.

Though they were feared, the Navajos did not generally have a reputation for being a great warrior tribe. The reason for this is that they traditionally had a cultural phobia of death, which is quite detrimental to a warrior-based society. When a person died inside one of their dwellings — generally a hogan made of mud and wood — the body had to be removed by bashing a hole in the wall at the point that it faced north and then by dragging the body out of the hole. The hogan then had to be destroyed otherwise its inhabitants would be plagued by the spirit of the deceased and by other evil spirits. Such spirits were believed to upset the delicate balance of nature and wreck havoc upon the living. The Navajos also believed that the presence of death led to witchcraft and other such unwanted entities.

One type of witch that the Navajos feared were called the “Yeenaaldlooshii”, or “skinwalkers.” According to Hampton Sides in his book Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West,

The Navajos believed in a class of witches called “skinwalkers” who were said to put on wolf pelts and dig up graves. The skinwalkers could be seen prowling around at night on all fours — they had pallid white faces and red glowing eyes and chanted holy prayers backward to invoke evil deities. They desecrated graves and stole funerary trinkets and jewelry. They removed the dead person’s flesh and ground it up to make a lethal poison called “corpse powder,” which the skinwalkers blew into people’s faces, giving them the “ghost sickness.” Even a fingernail paring or a strand of hair from a dead person could be used by a skinwalker to perform diabolical things.

According the Navajo legend, skinwalkers also have the ability to make any animal or human sounds they choose, they can read human thoughts and they can imitate the voice of a friend or relatives to lure innocent victims into their traps. It is also believed that skinwalkers have the ability to take over another person’s body if the unfortunate victim is careless enough to look at the skinwalker directly in the eyes.

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