Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo
Where the Deer and the Antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the sky is not cloudy all day.
A home! A home!
Where the Deer and the Antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the sky is not cloudy all day.
“My Western Home” — poem by Dr. Brewster M. Higley, 1876
The poem “My Western Home” is a prime example of how information changes over time. If you were to read the text of the original poem, the words would sound similar to the song that children sing in Fourth of July programs. However, most people probably don’t know much more than the first verse and the chorus. The poem has six verses, and when Dr. Higley’s friend Daniel Kelley wrote a tune to accompany the poem, he changed the words for the first time. Now there are at least three versions, and the rest of the poem-turned-song is lost to excuses like “I didn’t know there was more to the song” or “It’s too long to read the whole thing” or “I don’t understand words that are used in the poem.” (Or, if you want to get crazy, you can use the excuse I got from a high school sophomore once: “I didn’t do my homework last night because my parents told me they were getting a divorce.” Except I found out later it was a lie. Seriously? Just write your paper.)
The reality of what a cowboy did and who he was is another story that has been lost. As I was reading about cowboys, I was truly surprised at all the facts about them that I just didn’t know. I even felt a little sheepish when I compared the cowboy picture I had in my head with some of the facts of the American cowboy. I can't say that I ever pictured a cowboy actually working. Any cowboy action that happened in my head took place in the saloon, in Dodge City, or in the company of outlaws. No cows to be seen. Hopefully, you will learn as much as I did. (Unless you're my dad, who I guarantee already knows all the things I'm about to share because he's a cowboy expert.)
The rise of the cowboy was due in part to the Civil War. During the war, merchants sold beef to the armies of the North and South because most of the city-dwellers at that time were pork eaters. However, when the war was over and the soldiers still blessed to be alive returned home, many had grown to like the taste of beef. It was simple economics – demand increased, so production increased. By 1865, there were approximately 5 million cows wandering on the Plains. Big businessmen pounced on the opportunity to make a buck and started hiring cowboys to wrangle those wild cows and herd them to rail stations so they could be sold. This herding process was known as “the long drive.” Cattle owners supplied everything for the long drive – a chuck wagon (i.e. the food cart), a team of mules to pull the chuck wagon, fifty riding horses, food, a trail boss (the lead cowboy), a cook (known as “Cookie”, also served as the doctor), a horse wrangler (in charge of the extra horses), and ten to twelve cowboys. Not only were these cowboys responsible for getting the cattle up north, but they also had to fatten the cattle along the way. This meant that they couldn’t travel at top speeds because the cattle would lose weight if they were being driven too fast.
There was plenty of work for men who wanted to try their hand at working with cattle, and some ex-soldiers and young men craving adventure signed on the dotted line. This fits right in with the picture that most people have of cowboys: they were young white men. However, I learned that somewhere in the ballpark of 1 in 7 (I read one source that said 1 in 3) cowboys were African American, Mexican, or Native American. The language of the average cowboy was Spanish, not English tinged with a Southern or Western accent, as the movies portray. The term “cowboy” isn’t even of American origin; it’s an Irish term that was used to refer to hired riders who looked after cattle. (The term “buckaroo” – a word I use as a term of endearment – also has a more roundabout origin. Mexican cowboys were called “vaqueros” and the Texas
Cowboy gear and get-up is a little more accurately portrayed. The long-sleeved shirt, the boots, the hat, the bandanna, the chaps, the spurs, the saddle – all of these items were common to cowboys of the Old West and each piece of attire or equipment had a specific use in their daily lives. A good pair of boots cost one or two weeks’ wages, and they didn’t usually last a cowboy more than a couple of long drives. Hats could be used for many things: a fan, a water bucket, a fly-swatter, a face covering while sleeping. Their usefulness has more to do with why cowboys wore them; it wasn’t simply an image they were attempting to put forward. A good saddle cost an entire year’s wage, but it also lasted a cowboy his whole career.
Two other “must-haves” for any good cowboy costume include a horse and a gun. Here we find some differences between myth and reality. I was amazed to learn that the “cowboy and his trusty horse” concept is a total sham. Cowboys rarely owned their own horses, due to the expense, so the horses on the long drive were supplied by the financier-businessman. Cowboys would sometimes switch horses up to six times a day (!!) and they didn’t ride full-size horses, but instead rode small ponies that were better suited for long days on the trail. Likewise, the cowboy’s gun was not the huge revolver, pulled from the holster at a second’s notice to shoot a nemesis between the eyes, but instead was usually a small Colt .45. (This gun should not be confused with the cheap malt liquor, Colt 45, often found duct-taped to fraternity boys’ hands so they can be “Edward 40 Hands.”) The Colt .45 was good for dealing with attacking rattlesnakes or for shooting sick cows that wouldn’t finish the drive, but the picture of the cowboy hitting a moving target or being able to use one hand to shoot a human being on a galloping horse is inaccurate. Colt .45s were only accurate over a few feet, and a cowboy was far more likely to shoot a cow than another person. Cowboys weren’t gunfighters, despite their bad boy image of today.
The actual job of a cowboy was never-ending hard work. Ranchers had cowboys living at their ranches and these men would be responsible for the cattle on a daily basis. Cowboys were a little like “cattle shepherds” in the fact that they would take the cattle out to the range to graze and get fat and would protect the cattle from anything that might harm them. In the spring (usually May), the cattle that had been chosen to go to market would be readied for the long drive. Cowboys would first have to round up a herd of three and four-year-old cattle – often up to 5000 at a time. These cattle had already been branded with each owner’s unique brand while they were still calves, so once the herd was put together, the long drive began. (On the trail, the lead cowboy would keep a book of each owner’s brand so that there was no confusion about individual heads of cattle should more than one group of cattle be on the trail simultaneously.) The goal was to get the cattle to a major city, and thus, to the railroad. Cowboys worked in groups, with each man having a different role in the herding process. Herds and herders usually covered about fifteen miles a day. However, the entire trail from ranch to railroad could be up to 750 miles long and 1300 feet wide. (So, if you do your quick mental math, that works out to about fifty days, but that also assumes no slow-downs, no problems, no set-backs. The long drive could last up to four months.) Cowboys worked ten to fourteen hour days on the ranch, but days were even longer on the trail. I read that some cowboys would rub tobacco juice in their eyes to help themselves stay awake. Cities like Abilene , Kansas and Dodge City , Kansas
Many different factors contributed to the decline of the cowboy. By the 1870s, railroad development was in full swing, and this both helped and hurt the cowboy’s work. The cattle boom was prodded on partially due to the railroad since cattle were taken to market this way. However, the length of the cattle trail was reduced each time more track was laid throughout the West. Oversaturation in the market drove the price of beef way down by the end of the 1880s. Simple economics had launched the need for cowboys, but in the end it reduced their work, as well. In 1881, Gustavus Swift invented the refrigerated meat wagon, which eliminated the need to transport live animals. As homesteaders began to claim the open spaces of the West, they took exception to cowboys herding cattle through their land. These homesteaders put up fences to keep cowboys and their herds out, and much of the prime grazing land was gone, making the long drive harder. The final nail in the cowboy coffin was “Texas fever” – a disease that killed many heads of cattle but also prompted Kansas Cattle Kingdom
Perhaps you’re asking yourself how a job like this one grew to mythic proportions. I think it’s easy to see how doctors and lawyers and politicians end up with larger-than-life depictions. When breakthroughs in medicine occur, doctors are held up as preservers of humanity. The legal system (supposedly) protects our rights as human beings and punishes those who desire to ruin that order. Politicians (supposedly) help to steer society through ups and downs, (theoretically) holding fast to the ideals and beliefs on which our nation was founded. The work these people do affects society as a whole. However, the cowboy was a simple man, and his job was exhausting and dirty. Furthermore, he did that work for one employer, not for the whole of society. He was not a public servant. I recognize that food is a rather important staple of human life, but herding cattle doesn’t seem (on the surface) to be something that would inspire so much folklore. So where does it all come from? And how does this all connect with the working lives of truckers?
Keep reading!
While you’re waiting for the next post, check out these two autobiographies of “real” cowboys:
Nat Love, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love
