Short Stuff: Black Cowboys

attempt at a sea. Yeah, because we all know the original black Cowboy was Sheriff Bart and Blazing Saddles. Oh yeah, yeah, I forgot about that movie. That's a that's is that a good one? I mean it's a classic. It couldn't be made today, sure, but uh, you know, written by mel Brooks and the great Richard Pryor and uh I think there was one other co writer. But yeah, they

played that for comedy in that movie. But as it turns out, there were a lot of black cowboys in the United States, and you just don't see a bunch of movies and TV shows where they're represented, shock, shock, But they were I mean, there are some statistics that say or more of al all cowboys, Um, after the Civil War in the wild West, were these black men out there like doing cowboy stuff, working hard rope and cattle, doing all the things that you see in the movies. Yeah,

like that. The idea from what I can tell from the research is that the popular conception of cowboys and cowboy life and what cowboys did is fairly accurate. But the the race of them is what was off that that the just the fact that black people were not at all represented among cowboys in the popularization of you know,

cowboy life back east. Um, it's just that's the historical misunderstanding and that um apparently, even before or the Civil War, most black cowboys, according to one historian of the American West, um, most of them, most of the cowboys were black, and that it was a job that was um open to enslaved people basically, and that if you were white you didn't want to be known as a cowboy, that that

job was potentially beneath you or whatever. Even though it was all all about bronco busting and you know, hurting cattle and lassoing and stuff like that, all the stuff we think of with with cowboys today. Um, but that the that transition between it being from something that me that was like beneath a white guy out west, to something that was a coveted title among white guys was when back East people started to hear about cowboys and

say that's that's cool, what a cool life. And then all of a sudden, white guys were like, oh, actually I'm a cowboy, now you can count me in. Yeah. I mean I think that that named uh, at least according to this historian, is racist in nature because the white workers wanted to be called cow punches or cow hands, and the black men were called cowboys. And like you said, once they once lor hit back East, they jumped on that cowboy train because I guess that word took and

it sounded cool. Yeah. The thing is, I went and tried to corroborate that elsewhere, because it makes sense if you take it from that standpoint that oh is that actually cowboy actually has um like a denigrading origin. But I did not see that anywhere else, and I couldn't find the difference between a cow hand and a cowboy. They are completely interchangeable from what I can tell, definition wise, but I don't know, maybe that just that etymology got

lost to history. You know. Well, Larry Kelly's runs the Black Cowboy Museum in Texas and Rosenberg and uh, we want to credit him with saying that since he's he's where we got it. Yeah, here, Larry, here's the limb.

Let's go out on it. So the idea of UM cowboys UM and cowboys in general really kind of came out of this migration of UM Southerners, especially uh Southern whites, moving out west to Texas for the chance for cheap land, wide open spaces, the promise of a new chance for a fortune because the South had had really become industrialized as far as a grarianism is concerned, and Texas had a lot of opportunity, especially if you were willing to

push UM Spanish settlers and indigenous people from Mexico off of their land. You could really make make a name for yourself in Texas. And a lot of those UM white settlers brought enslaved people with them, UM, and they were the earliest black cowboys out there. Yeah, because what happened was, you know, you're in Texas, you get roped into the Confederacy and then these uh white people who moved out west go back east to fight in the

Civil War. They left the people that they enslaved behind to you know, keep the ranch going basically, and those that was sort of the beginning of the black cowboy movement, it really was. What's interesting is that it was triggered by the Civil War, that that the Civil War created that kind of um niche and require and need sorry that need for um cowboys of all stripes, but that they that typically fell to African Americans, um, who who were doing this work while the whites were off fighting

the war. And then um, when the war was over, when the the white Confederates came back to Texas, they're like, hey, I don't know if you heard or not, but we're free now. So you have to pay us for this work. And because a lot of herds had been broken up and lost, there was a lot of work to be done getting these herds back in order and getting Texas

back up and running, um economy wise, especially with cattle herding. Yeah, so maybe let's take a break and we'll talk about some of the more famous of these black cowboys right after this. All right, So, if you look at the history books and TV shows and movies. You hear a lot about while Bill Hillcock and Annie Oakley and all these sort of legendary wild West figures, Uh, you don't hear as much about the black cowboys who were also legendary figures, just in the same way like they would.

You know, some of them were bad guys who would shoot up a saloon and have a gunfight in the middle of the street at high noon. Uh. Many of them, obviously were just regular cowboys who did hard work day and night, wrestling cattle. Some of them also chuck or even lawman too. There was a guy named um Bass Reeves who was the first African American Marshal Us Marshall

west of the Mississippi. And he had a thirty two year career and apparently was so um morally unimpeachable that some people insist he was them the model for the Lone Ranger. I know, and that crazy it is. And I have to tell you I grew up on the Lone Ranger of the two or three movie. Like the movie, okay, yeah, yeah, it informed my childhood. I also watched the TV show Tune. I had like a place that and everything, But I was a big time into The Lone Ranger. I watched

that movie within the last couple of months. It is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen in my life. I was like, my parents must have been like, what is wrong with this kid? This movie is just like watching paint dry. There's like five parts that are that are interesting and the rest is like just slowly stringing together those parts. It's really weird. And the chemistry

is like baking soda and more baking soda. Like nobody has any chemistry, and like it means that there's nothing happening, there's no reaction. I'll tell you what I love though about that movie is that that color blue of his uh outfit. It's the star of the movie. Basically the color of his hat too, because it was white, but it wasn't stark white. It was sort of this creamy white. Yeah, he had a tinge of badness to him, maybe when needing,

but I guess not. Another famous black coup away from back in the day was a man named Bow's I card Um. He is in the on the Hall of Fame at the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum and Hall of Fame. God bless the people who founded that, I know. And he was the right hand man to one Colonel Charles Goodnight. He was a big, super successful cattleman in Texas. Apparently, if you've ever read or seen Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry's um sort of classic Western, the character of Joshua Deats

was based on him. Played by it none other than Danny Glover, who was not too old for that? Dess who is what? He was not too old for? That? S getting too old for this? S oh man, that was a great joke. I'm sorry I had to repeat it. That's sight so um. There's another one named Bill Pickett who was a very famous rodeo guy. He he was one of the first African American rodeo uh man, I

guess um. And he invented the the sport of steer wrestling, which is where you ride up alongside a steer and grab him by the horns and drag him to the ground. It's really awful, especially when you when you understand what he came up with. It just called bulldogging, where it was a technique that he would overwhelm the steer with pain by biting its lip and he was inspired by watching dogs heard cattle, so he tried it himself. He's like, this really works. But he was a genuine trailblazer in

the rodeo world. And uh despite the fact that he was barred from competing in a lot of rodeos, even though he was among the best that um, the rodeos were segregated for a very long time, and if you were an African American rodeo cowboy, you had to compete either late at night or early in the morning before the actual rodeo started, or else you might have your own rodeo altogether. I mentioned outlaws. There was a man

named uh isom or dart Uh. He was an enslaved person who who went the other way, and he was a horse thief. Like so many other horse thieves. He would steal horses and cattle in Mexico, drive him across that big old rio Grand River, sell him off in Texas, and like so many outlaws he was he was shot down by a hired gun in this case Tom Horn

And I'm thinking of movies. I think there have been a couple of movies where they did represent these black cowboys, but it always seemed like these movies were sort of a not a trick, but just kind of like a like stunt casting, like, oh, we're gonna make a movie with black cowboys, how different? Instead of wealth, This is just a movie like any other Western, because this is how it was exactly. And I'm sure that they were all just left out of the history books because of

some oversight. But I'm glad we're here correcting it today. We're trying our best. There's also we would be very terribly remiss if we didn't mention the most famous black cowboy of all time, one Nate Love, also known as Deadwood. Dick's not no, it's not I. I specifically saw in a couple of places, and when I realified it, yeah, his name was. He was born Nathaniel um and I guess they just didn't feel like adding the e, which is significant because he was taught to read and write.

Despite being born enslaved, his father taught him to read and write, so he was educated enough that he actually wrote his own autobiography in nineteen seven, teen oh seven. I should have just kept at his nineteen seven. That sounded kind of old timing, but Chuck, I think you need to read everybody the title, and note that there is not a single colon found in it. Yeah, it's Life and Adventures of Nat Love, and it's spelled in a t in his the autobiography title where it's Nate. Well,

I'm looking at the book cover. I know I'm telling you it's pronounced Nate Okay, but there is no he. I just want to point out to people Life and Adventures of Blank Love, better known in the cattle country as Deadwood Dick by himself colon A true history of slavery days, life on the Great Cattle Ranges and on the planes of the wild and Wooly West, based on facts and personal experiences by the author. There is a colon. I thought that was a semi colon. There's always a colon,

isn't there, And it seems to be. But he was, like you were describing, like he would get and shootouts, and he was kind of known as an abandon er and outlaw in some circles. But from what I can tell, he was just a legitimate, bona fide cowboy and he led a cowboy life like any other cowboy would. Fantastic, It really is fantastic, very very big self promoter like so many of those cowboys back then. Yeah, for sure, they say that they're not entirely certain where in fact.

Uh it departs from fiction in in his autobiography. But it's apparently a heck of a read, So go check it out. Um and I guess I said check it out, which means that that short stuff is out. Huh, it's out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.