Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, whether it's John Wayne or Little Nez, the cowboy holds a sacred place and the pantheon of American heroes. But the cowboy that we know didn't spring fully formed from the dust and tumbleweeds of the wild West. The original cowboy, in fact, had
nothing to do with the wild West. Historically speaking, the whole cowboy image, the trusty horse, the open range, get along, little doggie, camp fires under starry nights, old town road, beans from a chuckwagon, yeehaw, cattle drives, branding, chaps, and spurs grew from roots a long way from the American West. It all began in Europe with three central elements man, cow, and horse. In Spain, for centuries, the horse was king.
Richard W. Slatta writes in the introduction of his book Cowboys of the amir Beca's social history of cowboys in the Western Hemisphere. Quote the Spanish culture endowed horsemanship with high status. Official portraits of Spanish kings depicted them astride, pawing,
rearing horses. The Spanish used their horses in a burgeoning livestock economy, which included cattle and sheep to complement farming in the fourteen hundreds, and when the Spanish made their voyages to the so called New World in the late fourteen hundreds, they took with them horses and cattle. Eventually, from Espaniola, the island that today houses the Dominican Republic, and Haiti, the men, the horses, and the cattle made their way to Florida and parts of what's now Mexico.
The cattle multiplied, and the need for horsemen to track them down and keep them in line grew. Cows were needed then, more for their hides than their meat, So ranchers trained Native Americans who came up with all sorts of new cow handling techniques, and the vaccaro was born. The word comes from the Spanish word for cow, vacca, and the volcaro, sometimes pronounced baccarro, is the direct predecessor
of the American cowboy. In Russell Friedman's book In the Days of the Vacaro, America's first true Cowboys, he explains that Vacarro's were herding cattle on the Mexican planes some five hundred years ago. They were poor laborers and not given much credit by the Spanish colonizers who employed them, but they invented the cowboy as we know it. Other cowboys proliferated through Central and South America. In Mexico there
was also the chatto, usually the Vaciro's horsemen landowners. There was the Naro in Venezuela, the Waso in Chile, the gaut Show in Argentina and Uruguay. They can all trace their ancestors to the Va Caro, and America too, would soon have its own version of a horseman and cattle herder. As the Vicarro's learned to rope and ride and through lariats, as they modified their saddles to include a horn to anchor rope too, and as they introduced sun blocking hats
and leg protecting chaps. They moved into what is now Texas, and their influence was felt even farther west. In eighteen thirty two, King Kamama the Third sent for some Vicarios to help with wild cattle in Hawaii. The Hawaiian cowboy became known as the Paniolo. Eventually, an American counterpart formed and spread throughout the West. Cowboys had other names cowhands, cow punchers, cow pokes, cattlemen, buckaroos, and drovers. We officially those who moved cattle from one place to another on
a cattle drive. But the work was the same, long days, nights on the plains, a lot of dust, some danger, and when they weren't working the herds, they were branding cattle, fixing fences, caring for their horses, and performing other hard labor around ranches. They weren't necessarily gamblers and gunfighters like say wild Bill Hickock, or gun slinging law men like White Earth or his showy buddy Dot Holiday, or did I sharpshooters like Anti Oakley, or all out showmen like
Buffalo Bill Cody. Though all of these legends have legit claims to a spot in the Wild West Hall of Fame, and in a way, all of those types have become known as cowboys. Slaughter wrote in the Cowboy Encyclopedia, the cowboy of the American West, a dashing figure in popular novels and films, was in reality a poorly paid laborer engaged in difficult, dirty, often monotonous work. The cowboys work year centered on two big events, the roundup and the
long drive. Roundups were held in the spring, and often also in the fall. After cowboys had herded cattle to a central location, they branded newborn calves, castrated and de horned older animals, and in the spring chose the cattle to be taken to market. At one time, tens of thousands of cowboys worked ranches throughout the West. By the end of the American Civil War, an estimated quarter of those were black cowboys, many of them formerly enslaved. But
the cowboys heydaid didn't last long. The invention of barbed wire in the late eighteen hundreds helped pen cattle in and the expansion of railroads made long cattle drives less necessary. So the white, well kempt gunslinger cowboy of Hollywood westerns isn't a particularly accurate image, but like the cowboy himself or herself, it is an enduring one. Today's episode was
written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics that are wanted dead or alive, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,