No figure is as quintessentially American as the cowboy.
No figure is as quintessentially American as the cowboy.
He blossomed on the national consciousness about 150 years ago but did not achieve full status until the big cattle drives began after the Civil War. Then his persona became larger than life, almost mythic in the minds of his Eastern countrymen.
The cowboy’s antecedents could be traced to the Moor in Africa, the Spanish caballero and the Mexican vaquero for his skill in riding and roping. But into that amalgam was added a generous dash of humor and a penchant for fair play.
He was, in fact, a hard-working and long-suffering man who endured often-grueling work and long periods of monotony and loneliness for $30 a month and found. While tending a recalcitrant herd of cattle or moving them across hundreds of miles to a railroad town, he often encountered extremes of weather that ranged from Blue Northers to scorching heat, and sometimes had to ford rivers at flood stage. Stampedes, rustlers and Indian raids sometimes happened along the trail and there was always the danger of his galloping horse stepping into a prairie dog hole and rolling on him.
His endurance became his pride and if he suffered a broken leg in pursuing his duties, he often rode again before it was fully healed “to hold up my end.” Fractured fingers were an everyday risk, and the constant jolting in the saddle resulted in aches and an odd lope when he was afoot.
The cowboy admired the vaquero so much he inherited his love of good horses and even Anglicized many of his words. “Vaquero” became “buckaroo” and “la reata” became “lariat.” When he had a bit too much of tanglefoot or red-eye, he sometimes awoke to find himself in what the Spanish termed “juzgado” but that he had renamed “the hoosegow” or simply, “the jug.”
Cowboys did not encounter many women beyond the ranchers’ wives so their attitude toward them was chivalric and even worshipful. They insisted on respect for the women and woe betide the coarse-mouthed individual who did not temper his speech to a lady’s presence.
The cowboy was generous in spirit and was quick to share his last dollar with a comrade in need. His loyalty was legend because men facing daily danger has to know they could depend on each other. Many a burial along the trail saw the dead man’s best friend making a silent promise to get the word to the folks at home, then later doing it.
During the spring round-up and branding of cattle, the cowboy often competed with riders from other ranches to see whose skill was better. Thus was the rodeo born, a tradition that is carried on even today when jet planes cover vast distance in hours, and when computers are a standard part of ranch life.
We have known the cowboy since the days of Ned Buntline’s dime novels and Owen Wister’s “The Virginian” (“When you call me that, smile”) and through thousands of Saturday morning popcorn matinees to today’s television programs and we still cannot get enough of him. That is why communities that still have rodeos are flooded by residents of communities that don’t when it’s rodeo time again.
He has come a long way since we first became aware of him, and no one is sure what will finally happen to him. In our mind’s eye the cowboy remains the same – a self-reliant man aware of his own worth who still knows of a private knoll where he can ride out and silently watch the cattle grazing as the wind gently moves the grass around them.
