The Other Cowboys

Potential title for essay: The Other Cowboys

Listening to the Highwayman song, it’s an old country song sung by four old white men with the music video showing nothing about people of color. All of the people shown in the video are white, but surely there had to have been some people of color in the Wild West.
Only a few days ago I happened to come across something in the news about black cowboys and it made me think for a second. I’d seen cowboy movies before and I’d been living in the United States for a few years now and I’ve never even imagined such thing as a black cowboy, and here was the news outlet saying that about a quarter of the cowboys were actually black!
This is completely off-topic relative to my previous assignment, but it is a topic that I am more interested in and it is certainly more prevalent in today’s United States and frankly, whole world.

Central topic: History of black cowboys and how they have been underrepresented in all media and academia.

Subtopics and keywords: Cowboys, The American West, Freed Slaves, Systematic Racism, Under-representation.

Source 1 (scholarly): Black Cowboys in the American West: An Historiographical Review

Citation: Goldstein-Shirley, David. “Black Cowboys in the American West: An Historiographical Review.” Ethnic Studies Review, vol. 20, 1997, pp. 6. ProQuest, https://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/docview/215486780?accountid=8500.

Summary: Despite their presence in the Western frontier and in the cattle ranching scene, black cowboys have always been left out. This applies to not only popular media such as movies and novels, but also academic journals. There were several thousand black cowboys in the era after the mid-nineteenth century yet they are largely unheard of. They even had a notable presence in the rodeo scene and many were known for their marksmanship and horsemanship.
After World War II and even more so during and after the civil rights movement, some people started paying more attention to these forgotten cowboys. Surprisingly, the first people who shed some light on this part of history were English professors and not historians; and that is due to the interest in American Western literature. When looking into that field, they realized a gap and while sources are scarce, there is information about black cowboys in biographies and autobiographies as well as in the biographies and autobiographies of their fellow white cowboys who mention their black partners.

Personal Response: When I first found the article I was shocked to see that it was published over twenty years ago; as I had only recently heard about the topic. I think this article is very significant not only in general about the forgotten parts of black American history, but also in the context of current racial justice protests. The fact that after twenty years a popular news outlet brings light to this field shows what the protests have accomplished and continue to do so. The past may not directly help solve problems today, but it helps with identifying the roots of the problems today. Lack of representation of black people in the United States is evident in many places, but in my particular example it is easy to see how it has deceived all of us. Novels and Hollywood movies have carved an entirely white image of cowboys in our minds but the protests these days are helping correct the mistakes.

Quotes:
“Of the estimated 35,000 cowboys on the Western American frontier during the second half of the nineteenth century probably several thousand were black”
“Biographies and autobiographies of black cowboys appeared as early as the turn of the century, and many accounts of white cowboys’ lives refer to black workmates.”
“In some areas all-black crews were common, and there even were some free black owners of cattle. Moreover, some black cattlemen owned slaves.”
“restoring Blacks to Western history will restore an appreciation of that democracy”

Source 2 (periodic): Black Cowboys Ride a Movement

Citation: Thompson-Hernandez, Walter, and Kayla Reefer. “Black Cowboys Ride a Movement.” New York Times, 10 June 2020, p. A14(L). Gale Academic OneFile, https://link-gale-com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A626185470/AONE?u=cuny_baruch&sid=AONE&xid=5ba1477e. Accessed 29 July 2020.

Summary: There have been black horse riding groups in many places in the United States but they are not very widely known. Some of them are even centuries old. This serves to show that black cowboys and cowgirls did not just came to be in recent times and have historical roots. They have been around for as long as their white counterparts have been, and although many of them are lost in time, there are names among them that are known and stand out such as Nat Love and John Ware.
Historically, black horse riding communities have been challenging the society’s ideas about race and now they are continuing to do so. Black cowboys and cowgirls are showing up to the recent racial justice protests riding their horses, and some people are shocked to see them. Horses have long been the symbol of authority and power and now the horse-riding protesters are showing that they have power and they stand with what they believe. The article focuses on The Compton Cowboys but as the article mentions, they are not the only ones and there are other communities in Houston, Atlanta, and other places.

Personal Response: It is nice to see different groups leveraging what they have and taking part of the movement to promote racial equality. I think it is both really iconic and effective that the cowboys and cowgirls took part alongside their horses. Not only does it shed some light in the past that has been mostly omitted, but also the presence of the horses and black people riding them gives off a vibe of power that I think is necessary today, especially with authorities that are armed to the teeth on the counter side of the protests. It was also interesting to see Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” mentioned in the article since when I first heard about black cowboys I thought of that song. I wish there was some information about how the protesters on horseback were treated and whether it was better and more dignified than other protesters. It would also be interesting to know if the white cowboys and cowgirls and their communities are aware of their black counterparts and they choose to ignore them or they are simply ignorant to their existence.

Quotes:
“Like the mounted demonstrators of today, the black cowboys of the past challenged the traditional idea of what a horse rider could look like.”
“the cowboys rode with their fists raised in the air, yelling ‘No justice, no peace'”
“The presence of black cowboys and cowgirls at the recent protests is a reclaiming of sorts of the traditional role of mounted riders in demonstrations in urban communities.”
“Historically, horses have been used by elite military units and law enforcement as a way to show authority, their visibility, height and commanding nature a symbol of power.”