Black History : The Lesser-Known History of African-American Cowboys

Liberty

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Aug 28, 2015
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One in four cowboys was black. So why aren’t they more present in popular culture?

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In his 1907 autobiography, cowboy Nat Love
recounts stories from his life on the frontier so cliché, they read like scenes from a John Wayne film. He describes Dodge City, Kansas, a town smattered with the romanticized institutions of the frontier: “a great many saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses, and very little of anything else.” He moved massive herds of cattle from one grazing area to another, drank with Billy the Kid and participated in shootouts with Native peoples defending their land on the trails. And when not, as he put it, “engaged in fighting Indians,” he amused himself with activities like “dare-devil riding, shooting, roping and such sports.”

Read more
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/





 
The Forgotten Story of America’s Black Cowboys

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The irony behind the word “cowboy,” is that it was used to negatively describe Black “cowhands” but now serves as a universal depiction of the bootstrapping, gun-toting white males associated with western culture.


This is evidenced in popular films including, but not limited to, The Magnificent Seven (1960), Django (1966) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007).

Read more

http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/07/24/forgotten-story-americas-black-cowboys/
 

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