posted
The original cowboys in the USA were Gambian Fula in the land of the Gullah. They brought the ancient Fula techniques of cattle raising to these shores and African Americans have been cowboys ever since.
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Pickett's impae on a handbill advertising the movie "The Bull-Dogger," released in 1921 by The Norman Film Manufacturing Company. Pickett was billed as "the world's colored champion" in "death-defying feats of courage and skill."Pickett was born in the Jenks-Branch community of Travis County, Texas. He was the second of 13 children born to Thomas Jefferson Pickett, a former slave, and Mary "Janie" Gilbert. The family's ancestry was black, white and Cherokee Native American.
Pickett attended school through the fifth grade, after which he took up ranching work. He invented the technique of bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground. Pickett's method for bulldogging was biting a cow on the lip and then falling backwards. This method eventually lost popularity as the sport morphed into the steer wrestling that is practiced in rodeos today.
In 1890 Pickett married Maggie Turner, a former slave and daughter to a white southern plantation owner. The couple had nine children. Pickett and his brothers started their own company, the Pickett Brothers Broncho Busters and Rough Riders Association, to offer their services as cowboys. Pickett also made a living demonstrating his bulldogging skills and other stunts at county fairs. In 1905, Pickett joined the 101 Ranch Wild West Show that featured the likes of Buffalo Bill, Will Rogers, Tom Mix and Zach and Lucille Mulhall. Pickett was a popular performer who toured around the world and appeared in early motion pictures. Pickett was shown in a movie created by Richard E. Norman. Pickett's ethnicity resulted in him not being able to appear at many rodeos. He often was forced to claim that he was of Comanche heritage in order to perform.
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The most famous black cowboy of all, Nat Love Nate Love, also know as Deadwood Dick, was born a slave in Tennessee. He he had a love of the free and wild life on the range. Soon he was known as a good all around cowboy.
Nate found a Texas outfit that had delivered its herd and was preparing to go back down to Texas. There were several good black cowboys in the outfit. After sharing breakfast with the crew, Nate asked the trail boss for a job. The boss agreed if Nate could break a horse named Good Eye, the wildest horse in the outfit. Bronco Jim, another black cowboy gave Nate some pointers and Nate rode that horse. He said later that it was the toughest ride he had ever had.
The work was very hard. Nate rode through hailstorms so violent that only strong men could withstand them. The first time he met hostile Indians, he admitted he was too scared to run. After going through a number of such trials he adjusted to the ways of the cattle country and could handle any problem,
Nate had a forty-five and he took every chance he could to practice with it and he got very good with it. There came a time when he could shoot better than any of his friends.
Nate left the Texas Panhandle, and rode into Arizona where he got a job working for an outfit on the Gila River. He had ridden many of the trails of the southwest and he believed that he was a capable cowboy. While in Arizona working with Mexican vaqueros, he learned to speak Spanish like a native and he became very good at reading brands.
In the spring of 1876, Nate Love's outfit received orders to deliver three thousand steer to Deadwood City in the Dakota Territory. They arrived July 3rd. The town was getting ready for the 4th of July. The mining men and gamblers had gotten together and organized a contest with $200 prize money. Nate said that six of the dozen men in the contest were Black. Each black cowboy was to rope, throw, tie bridles, and saddle a mustang in the shortest possible time. The wildest horses were chosen for this event. Nate roped, threw, tied bridles, saddled, and mounted his mustang in exactly nine minutes. The next competitor took twelve minutes and thirty seconds. In the rifle and Colt events, shooting at 100 and 250 yards with 14 shots, Nate placed all of his shots in the bulls eye and 10 of the 12 pistol shots in the bulls eye.
Nate Love was the obvious winner and along with the prize money, the town gave Nate the title of "Deadwood Dick".
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*The birth of Jesse Stahl in 1879 is celebrated on this date. He was an African-American cowboy and rodeo star.
From Tennessee, Stahl, an inductee into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, was a major saddle bronco rider. Although exceptionally talented, Stahl who had a brother Ambrose seldom placed higher than third at the major rodeos mainly because he was Black. At one rodeo where he'd clearly bested his competitors, Stahl was awarded second place. Perhaps to mock the judges, he rode a second bronco while facing backward. A spectacular ride by black Stahl, on a previously un-ridden bucking horse called "Glass Eye" was one of the highlights of the show.
He repeated his triumph by riding another notorious bucker, "Tar Baby," backwards with a suitcase in his hand. Srahl retired in 1929 and was probably the most famous Black cowboy of all time. Another black cowboy, Ty Stokes, and Jesse Stahl rode a bucking horse seated back to back it was what was called "a suicide ride." The total attendance in 1912 was 4,000.
Some rodeo enthusiast consider Jesse Stahl the greatest of all bronco riders; neither is surprising when one considers that approximately five thousand black cowboys rode the cattle trails in the 19th century.
Reference: The Black West by William Loren Katz. A Touchtone Book, published by Simon & Shuster Inc. Copyright 1987, 1996 by Ethrac Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-684-81478-1
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John Ware was the best known black on the early Canadian Prairie. Born into a South Carolina slave family young John was often forced by the slave master to take part in organized fights between young black males. With the end of the Civil War came freedom, Ware left the Carolina’s bound for Texas. Finding work near Fort Worth he began his career as a cowboy and became skilled with horses and the lariat.
John came to Canada when he was offered an opportunity to be a part of a cattle drive. Upon arrival he vowed never to return to the United States.
More than 6 feet tall and weighing 230 lbs, this frontier strongman enjoyed sports that called for "one-on-one" skill and challenge. In 1892 he became the first man in Western Canada to earn the title "Steer Wrestler." He later performed publicly, winning objects like an expensive saddle for his talents. A born horseman and rider, Ware was probably the best throughout Alberta Cow country and was often called upon by other ranchers to break their wild horses.
Ware’s reputation grew further when, while courting Mildred Lewis (whom he later married), a sudden lighting storm struck the horses that were pulling the buggy. Always practical, Ware unhitched the animals and proceeded to pull the buggy and its passengers home by himself.
John Ware died when his horse stepped into a badger hole. This caused Ware and the horse to fall heavily to the ground. The horn of the saddle entered his chest killing him instantly.
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posted
I don't know too much about cowboys in general, but I do know that some of the most famous cowboys in American history who were depicted as white for so long were actually black!
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When did Fula herders ride around on horses with lassos? A Fula bull-dogging a beloved calf or twisting the neck of a venerable bull?
Ah ahn, no way, never, no.
Punching a donkey or mule in the face? Yepper, yessiree.
[But a nice thread on BA cowboys nonetheless!]
quote:Originally posted by MyRedCow: The original cowboys in the USA were Gambian Fula in the land of the Gullah. They brought the ancient Fula techniques of cattle raising to these shores and African Americans have been cowboys ever since.
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quote:Originally posted by MyRedCow: The original cowboys in the USA were Gambian Fula in the land of the Gullah. They brought the ancient Fula techniques of cattle raising to these shores and African Americans have been cowboys ever since.
I don't know too much about your Gambian Fula garbage, but the first cowboys in the USA were black people. I'm speaking of the "first" not when cowboy became a popular culture and lifestyle in the west and south amongst whites. When blacks were cowboys during the early 19th century, there wasn't no such thing as "outlaw" and prostitution as part of the culture. All that stuff been added later.
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Fula is the Mande/Mandinka word for Peul or Fulani. They have been cowboys for thousands of years in Africa. They are really the original cowboys.
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I have some trouble with your statement that the Fula/Fulani were cowboys in Africa! A stretch, dont you think? They were/are a nomadic people, and didn't ride horses in the jungle/desert. If anything, Taureg would be the original cowboys! Most of the 'black' American cowboys, were mulato, mixed ancestry who happened to be reared in states where colour was 'less' of a problem, and therfore, had leeway to control their lives. States like Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, where they were seen as other, since those area had a large Native American, mestizo, mexican, etc the phenotype of those black cowboys would be less of a problem when compared to a Northern city. I would say the first cowboys were Mexican meaning a mix of any of all of the following, African, Spanish and Indian! Since the 13 colonies were basically English, they would not know what cowboy was anyway!
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I have some trouble with your statement that the Fula/Fulani were cowboys in Africa! A stretch, dont you think? They were/are a nomadic people, and didn't ride horses in the jungle/desert.
quote:Originally posted by Evergreen: Evergreen Writes:
We should also seek to understand the history of the Afro-Mexican Vaquero.
Estevanico (1503–1539) (also known as "Black Stephen", "Esteban the Moor") was a Berber originally from North Africa who was one of the early explorers of the Southwestern United States. Estevanico was especially gifted in languages, and became fluent in several Indian dialects. He carried a medicine rattle, a feathered, beaded gourd given to him by a chief, as his good luck symbol and trademark. The life of Estevanico is one of the most fascinating stories of American history. Estevanico was the first non-native person to visit the areas of Arizona and New Mexico.
The story of Estevanico, a young Moroccan who was kidnapped by Dutch slavers in the early 1500s. His subsequent exciting adventures led him to Spain, Portugal, and the New World. In 1527, with a Spanish exploration party of 400, he went ashore in what is now Florida. Seven years later, he and three companions, the only survivors, wandered out of the forest near Culiacan on the west coast of Mexico with a harrowing story to tell. Off again within a year, Estevanico escorted a Spanish expedition in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.
posted
Actually the cowboy heritage in the American Midwest is of Spanish Mexican heritage. However, this heritage itself traces to Spain and from there to North Africa. The Moors introduced many aspects of horse culture to Spain in Al Andalus. If you trace horse breeds you will see this, where the fabled "white" stallion goes back to the white stallions of the Moors and Muslims, with the most prestigious of these breeds in Spain being called the Andalusian.
quote: The Andalusian originated in and gained its name from the Spanish Province of Andalusia. Its ancestors are the Iberian (Spanish) horse and the Barb horse which was brought to Spain by invading Moors. It was bred principally by Carthusian Monks in the late Middle Ages. The famed William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, wrote: "...the Spanish horse is the noblest animal in the world..." Cortes brought Andalusians to America for his conquests.
This used to be called the Arabian breed or Arabian stallion in popular literature, but in more recent times this has been replaced by the more accurate term Andalusian. This breed is partly derived from the Barb horse breed which is so named because of the name of the Barbary states of North Africa. The Barb is actually a breed that was widespread across Northern Africa. Of this Breed there is one variety of Barb horse, the Dongola breed, that is particularly ancient and part of the Sudanese horse breeding tradition. The dongolan breed being named after the Dongola reach in Sudan, which was a horse breeding center going back AT LEAST to the times of Meroe and Kush.
quote:
Today the shaykh of Mushu rode out and followed after us. His whole costume consisted of a fine blue Nubian shirt and a white silk robe. He was accompanied by ten or twelve Barabra mounted on the most elegant Nubian horses [p. 233] and also by others riding dromedaries, along with fifty or sixty women who, according to their custom, cheered, shouted, and called Gua, Gua, Gua! Before him rode a man on a proud dromedary beating kettledrums.
He took accommodation in Baenne with that Barbarin who had honored us with the camel because we had given him medicine. We camped at this place also, and as soon as this Barbarin learned of our arrival, he sent us in the night two bowls of meat as a further sign of appreciation for our good deed in curing him.
Today along the way we met the small king or patron of all these villages. He rode elegantly on a fine Arabian horse, his tobacco-pipe in his mouth, and accompanied by four slaves on foot and four mounted soldiers. As for his clothing, he wore a Nubian linen shirt without sleeves, from which one could have boiled several quarters of fat. His loins were bound about with a blue and white striped cotton sash several ells long. In addition to this he had a pair of tattered Turkish trousers, and on his head a hat made of cotton with a silk facilet in place of a turban. He greeted us in a friendly manner, and brought us confirmation that Father Brevedent of the Society of Jesus, who had gone to Ethiopia two years ago with the three [Franciscan] Fathers Pasquale da Montella, Antonio della Terza and Benedetto da Tripalda, had died on the way.
As part of the Spanish conquest, many spaniards or Moriscos, Spanish of mixed African Spanish heritage came to the U.S. Their influence was greatest in the Central and Southern portions of the Americas, like Mexico, where Moorish derived elements of Spanish culture had their greatest impact. The horse culture of Spain was influenced by North Africa in terms of the breeds, the dress and various customs. Horse shows, acrobatics, races and all other sorts of customs were widespread among African horse cultures both of Muslim and Non Muslim groups. An example of this is the "Fantasia" horse shows held by the Muslim states in Africa, also called Durbars in West Africa and by other names. These traditions from the Muslim periods influenced the Saddle making tradition, as there was a saddle called the Moorish saddle that was introduced to the Americas. The sombrero of the Mexican cowboys originated with the North Africans who had influenced Spanish culture. Likewise, the traditions of cattle herding and herding using horses and camels is ancient in Northern Africa as camel herding and cow herding were significant aspects of the economies of the Sahara and Sahelian states.
All of this led to Mexico being the TRUE home of the cowboy, as most western ranchers had to hire Mexican cowboys because of their experience in cattle ranching from Mexico. These Mexican cowboys were called charro in Mexico proper and Vaqueros in the parts of Mexico annexed to the U.S. Also Africans were also noted for their cowboy abilities as well and were often used as cattle hands and cowboys in the West. This comes from a reality show on PBS where a group of modern Americans tried to live as they did back in the old west, where the producers tried to keep things as realistic as possible. As part of this, they gave insights to the history of the cowboy tradition, including the real life Mexican member of the cowhands on the ranch they set up, who really was an experienced rancher. They also featured a travelling black cowboy who performed services like breaking in wild steeds, with insights into this aspect of the history of the west.
And let us not forget that cattle herding or animal herding was part of the Saharan African landscape and culture for at least 5,000 years. Cattle herding culture is just another name for a nomadic pastoralist. The key difference here, however,is the fact of the horsemanship riding skills that became part of the tradition in a later period as such animals were introduced into Africa. However, cattle herding is very old indeed and can be seen across many ancient pastoral groups in Africa. The Egyptians being one of the groups where such ancient traditions are most clearly seen, but they werent the first, as they got their traditions from peoples further South.
quote: The cosmos of the Herero. Preconditions and proliferation of cosmological traits in Herero culture It has been argued that certain traits among southwest African cultures (like Herero, Mbundu, Ambo) of the 18th and 19th centuries exist due to some ´high-cultural´ influence, be it Mediterranean or Mesopotamian. Röhreke shows that such ´high-cultural´ traits in Herero- or Ambo culture have not been triggered by extra-African sources but can be traced to certain conditions in the beginning and course of the North-African Neolithic. Röhreke opines that cultural conditions of cattle domestication in Africa led to combining cattle economy with a cosmological perspective. Specific conditions of cattle domestication in the Sahara, which may have focused on the sky and on single stars especially in a hunter-and-gatherer setting, may have been combined in a comprehensive vision - possibly necessary to find a time indicator for moving the herds to other places according to the different seasons. In the post-Saharan phase Upper Egypt, influenced by the Saharan herding culture, developed this cultural complex of microcosmic cattle utilization and macrocosmic cattle worship to represent a bovino-cosmological system the influence of which manifested in southern herders´ cultures. The author introduces the Herero ´mythical structure of time´ (stars, signs of the zodiac, cardinal directions, and related cultural concepts), then conditions for the emergence of old African cattle herders´ cultures, the prevalence of cosmological ideas in old African cultures, and the ethnogenesis of herero-speaking herders´ societies. An extensive appendix includes numerous data: chronology of Saharan rock paintings, missionaries and the Herero, birds of Herero mythology, genealogical charts, gods, cosmography, astronomical metaphors and metric aspects, several indices, and maps: spreading of North African cattle domestication, spreading of cosmological structures, Herero migration, peoples of Namibia (and Black Africa) in colonial times, and the geological, climatic, and cultural historical phaseology of the Quaternary.
This aspect of African pastoralist culture made it easy for Africans to adopt to new forms of animal herding as situation, need or opportunity arose. Once horses were introduced into Egypt from the Levant, they were quickly adopted and spread across parts of Africa, including along the Nile and across the sahara. The dongola reach in Kush or Sudan is a good example of this: http:// links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2968%28199704%2956%3A2%3C105%3ATHOK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
Many of these traditions, as well as many other traditions were incorporated into the cultures of the early African Berber speakers and other Saharan African nomadic/pastoral groups, which were incorporated into Muslim culture that marched across Northern Africa. From there these traditions entered Europe.
quote: The saga of the Old West is filled with tales of adventure with pioneers roving the plains seeking the unknown in the vast territorial lands west of the Mississippi River. Among those pioneers were identifiable contingents of African Americans who also roamed the western plains and helped to establish what we know of as the Old West. History books do trace and document the development of the United States and its territorial expansion Westward, but very little covers the inclusive part of African Americans as early pioneer dwellers of the Old West. Records are now surfacing taken from facts printed in primary resources, books, state and county documents, including verbal ancestral accounts of the many places, and faces of the early black settlers living in towns all across the Old West. How and why these African Americans took off on this new Westward migration into unknown American territories encompasses the spirit of a people seeking a less hostile environment and a peaceful place for themselves and their families.
Note many of these styles of horseriding are part of the tradition that was part of the Moorish invasions and these skills of horseriding, costume, leatherwork were influenced from the Nile valley in places like Egypt and Kush, where you can see the images of horses in the wall paintings. However, many of these traditions in costume and dress are distinct as well, notably the quilted dress of some ancient African calvary as well as the heavily brocaded and embroidered designs seen in Kano, many of which are locally produced.
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posted
Though they were by no means "cowboys" by any stretch of the imagination, in addition to the fine images of imperial West African cavalry posted by DougM, may I suggest for you:
Malik Watts The 100,000 Horsemen of West Africa Washington, D.C.: Afro-Vision, Inc., 1992
Abiola Félix Iroko The horse and iron are important components in the origins of the Sudan-Nigerian states. Afrique Histoire U.S. Vol. 4 number 2, 1988
Robin Law The horse in West African history: the role of the horse in the societies of pre-colonial West Africa New York: Oxford, 1980
BTW - one of the biggest fantasies about Africa is the jungle/desert thing. As if the two border each other. There are a variety of ecological zones separating the tropical and equitorial rain forests from Sahara or the Kalahari.
quote:Originally posted by yazid904: ... nomadic people, [] didn't ride horses in the jungle/desert.
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M D McLeod Horses in West African sculpture: some factors influencing their depiction in Gigi Pezzoli (ed) Cavalieri dell'Africa: storia, iconografia, simbolismo Milan: Centro Studi Archeologia Africana, 1995
quote:Originally posted by MyRedCow: The Mande rode horses too.
What's in those Mali tumuli? horses.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote: Most of the 'black' American cowboys, were mulato, mixed ancestry who happened to be reared in states where colour was 'less' of a problem, and therfore, had leeway to control their lives. States like Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, where they were seen as other, since those area had a large Native American, mestizo, mexican, etc the phenotype of those black cowboys would be less of a problem when compared to a Northern city.
On what do you base this on? Your own personal fantasies? How do you know these people are mixed or whatever else race myth delusions you can dream up. This sounds like the ravings of the freaks that hang around the race myth sites. Apparently you aren't smart enough to avoid them.
With quotes like the above you need to go ahead and place clown regalia on whenever you walk out of your house.
Race myth freaks would be amusing if they weren't a half gallon short of a gallon.
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quote:Originally posted by One_and_Done: Yazid fantasizes
quote: Most of the 'black' American cowboys, were mulato, mixed ancestry who happened to be reared in states where colour was 'less' of a problem, and therfore, had leeway to control their lives. States like Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, where they were seen as other, since those area had a large Native American, mestizo, mexican, etc the phenotype of those black cowboys would be less of a problem when compared to a Northern city.
On what do you base this on? Your own personal fantasies? How do you know these people are mixed or whatever else race myth delusions you can dream up. This sounds like the ravings of the freaks that hang around the race myth sites. Apparently you aren't smart enough to avoid them.
Race myth freaks would be amusing if they weren't a half gallon short of a gallon.
ma fren,
I am well aware that regardless of an African American's hue (a wide range or their degree of admixture) they will always be BLACK. I wholly acknowledge their blackness. I would have it no other way!
The western states, SW states, are the many that uses the word cowboy so it would be absurd of me to use it when associating with New England States with parts of "south" (original 13 colonies). Slaves were obviously slaves but the Wide Wild west provide blacks with less scrutiny when compared to their cotton picking brethren or similar agricultural tasks associated with slavery. If there is anything incorrect in my delivery, please correct it my bruddah. My points: 1. Black are blacks so i am stating what is known. 2. Black cowboys were part of the AMerican west 3. Cowboys not part of New England 4. W and SW states afforded a new frontier for blacks 5. I will not agree that the original cowboys in USA were Gambian Fula in the land of Gulla. The Gullah reference is for the Carolinas and cowboys are associaed with the Western US!
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In the opening scenes of "Gone With The Wind," Black slaves are depicted herding cattle on the Tara Plantation, this depiction represents what some believe is the origins of the Black cowboy. There is an earlier origin for the Black cowboy in Africa, and the book, "Nomads of Niger" by American photographer Carol Beckwith and Belgian Anthropologist Marion Van Offelen captures this view quite well. This book presents the history of the Fulani people of Africa by taking the reader back to approximately 5000 years old rock cave paintings in the Algerian Sahara. Van Offelen believes the paintings depict people herding cattle in a way similar to the way the Fulani nomads herd their cattle today, a link that would span from African antiquity through the Euro-African slave trade era to modern times. "Nomads of Niger" also presents the contemporary beauty of the Fulani people in an excellent photo essay and I find the cover photo of a Fulani cowboy herding cattle on a camel most interesting.
The camel "Africa to America" link exists via former Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a man named George Perkins Marsh. They spearheaded the purchase of camels to be used by the U.S. military in California, Arizona and Texas before the Civil War, with thirty-three of those camels coming from the African country of Tunisia. The camels brought to Texas came into contact with African-Americans both slave and free according to an article titled “The Camels Of Camp Verde” by Kenn Knopp. After the Civil War the Texas camels went into entertainment and were the lead attraction in the Austin Mardi Gras. Thirty-two camels escorted by “costumed Negroes” pulled the “King Of The Carnival’s” float of the Austin Mardi Gras. An important side-note to the “The Camels Of Camp Verde,” article is an inference that somehow African slaves were also being brought into Texas under the cover of importing the camels, the following excerpt is from this article:
"In the late 1850’s responding to the publicity that camels were desired in Texas, ship loads arrived at Texas ports. Emmett’s research indicates that these camels were the perfect cover to deflect attention of other “commodities” to Texas ports, namely African slaves. Texans were growing more and more wary of accepting slaves as Federal Law prohibited their importations." http://www.texfiles.com/ERAjune02/camel.htm
I'd like to present two sources that also discuss the African/Black cowboy link. The first is an article titled "Africanisms In America" on the Website, transafricaforum; the following is from that article;
"...The annual north-south migratory pattern followed by the cowboy is unlike the cattle-keeping patterns in Europe but analogous to the migratory patterns of the Fulani cattle herders who live scattered from the Senegambia through Nigeria and Niger to the Sudan. Early descriptions of Senegambian patterns strikingly resemble later descriptions of cattle herding in the South Carolina hinterland. Texas longhorns and African cattle were brought to America with Fulani slaves. Many details of cowboy life work, and even material culture can be traced to Fulani antecedents, but there has been little work on the question by historians of the west." Researched by Maurice Mitchell and Carrie Solages, Interns- TransAfrica Forum November 1999 www.transafricaforum.org
The second source is from Bennie J. McRae, Jr., who also mentions the Africa/Black cowboy link via Gambia in an article titled "BLACK COWBOYS.... also worked on the ranches and rode the cattle trails " The following is from his article:
"The history of the Black cowboys began long before the establishment of large ranches with cattle grazing in the late nineteenth century. Gambia and some other African countries were known to be lands of large cattle herds with the natives possessing innate skills in controlling and managing the movement of the animals. They were not called cowboys at that time, but merely herders. Throughout the slave trade, ranchers and farmers (slaveowners) with large herds of cattle in the lower south were attracted to this particular groups that had been captured in those African countries." http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/bkcwboy2.htm
The cultural exchange between Sub Saharan Africans and North Africans led to some of the greatest horse societies in Africa, the Songhia, the Hausa, the Oyo and the Dahomey, to name a few. While accounts describe cattle herding in some African cultures as gender specific towards the male, a wealth of information exists about gender specific roles for African women and horses. Africa seems to have spurred several epic warrior classes of females, the most famous being the Dahomey Amazon warriors witnessed by Europeans like Sir Richard Burton in the 1860's. Information from www.gendergap.com tells of a Libyan Queen "Myrene" who led a North African female cavalry of thirty thousand into battle in the 6th century. This female warrior mentality made it to the Americas in the name of two Haitian women, Cécile Fatiman and Princess Amethyste, who helped lead the Haitian Revolution of 1791 and one American Buffalo Soldier named Cathy Williams (1866-1868). Cathy Williams served around New Mexico disguised as a man for two years until she became ill and a physical revealed her gender. She eventually settled near the Colorado-New Mexico border town of Trinidad. An excellent site to learn about Cathy Williams is: www.buffalosoldier.net/CathayWilliamsFemaleBuffaloSoldierWithDocuments.htm.
There are several ways to approach the origin and evolution of the Black cowboy and one of my favorite documentations about the Black vaquero comes from a paper written by Vincent Mayer Jr. titled "The Black On New Spain's Northern Frontier - San Jose de Parral 1631 to 1641," the following is from this paper:
"Apart from the Negro slaves who worked in the mines or on the haciendas of their master, there was also a significant number of free Blacks and mulattoes. In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, many of these Blacks, along with a growing number of mestizos, constituted a vagabond class which plagued the north. However, this group of men also made up an important portion of the wage labor and vaqueros needed on the haciendas. Stockmen were especially dependant on them since no labor was available for the great cattle roundups.... By 1579, they were demanding fifty to two hundred pesos a year. "
Another reference to African cowboys in the colonial Caribbean comes from the article, "Out Of Many Cultures -The People Who Came-The Arrival Of The Africans," By Dr. Rebecca Tortello: "...Up until the early 1690s Jamaica's population was relatively equally mixed between white and black. (Senior, 2003, p. 446). The first Africans to arrive came in 1513 from the Iberian Peninsula after having been taken from West Africa by the Spanish and the Portuguese. They were servants, cowboys, herders of cattle, pigs and horses, as well as hunters." http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story0059.htm
An evolutionary view focuses on a Texas Black cowboy born into slavery in 1860 named Daniel Webster Wallace, nicknamed "80 John" from the ranch he worked on. The information of Daniel Webster Wallace is from the Website: www.texancultures.utsa.edu/ publications/ texansoneandall/africanamerican.htm. Wallace worked his way up as a cowboy working for a White man named Clay Mann, saving his typical cowboy pay until he bought enough cows and land to start his own ranch. Texas historians say that this Black cowboy eventually became "Boss' and died a millionaire in 1939, a far stretch from the 200 pesos a year the Black vaqueros of sixteenth century New Spain earned.
Africans in the Western hemisphere, even in slave status were not completely mind-washed of their culture and re-made in the image of their masters. Europeanized Africans who came as free colonizers had even less cause to hide their multi-cultural Euro-African agrarian skills. Most sources show that some African migrants to the Western hemisphere were involved with cattle and horses well before the thematic historical intersection of American and Hispanic cattle and horse cultures in what we know as the American West, and I say this not to prove who did what first, but to ask others to always consider this link when writing about the Black cowboy
Thanks for reading,
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posted
Snipping Yazid's mumbling and moving on to the pertinent point.
---------------------- One_and_Done:
On what do you base this on? Your own personal fantasies? How do you know these people are mixed or whatever else race myth delusions you can dream up. This sounds like the ravings of the freaks that hang around the race myth sites. Apparently you aren't smart enough to avoid them. ----------------------
Apparently you're trying to squirm your way out of your lame statement with the use of ebonics. I'm not going for it.
The fact is you're making wild factless claims about African American cowboys. Why? Maybe its because you're brainwashed and believe that
1. Any African or their descendents that Achieves anything must be mixed, admixed or whatever stooge of the month phrase you mix and match junkies come up with.
or
2. Any African or their descendents that deviates in even the slightest fashion from whatever your deranged fantasies of what Africans must look like has to be mixed.
It really doesn't matter at this point because your already too far gone mentally to help. Fools obsessed with Africans and the diaspora making things up as they go along and trying to pass it off reality.
You can now take off that big red wig and those size 30 flat bottom shoes.
Posts: 76 | Registered: Apr 2006
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