Description
1940's Texas Folk Art Black American Cowboy Carved wood Figure with Leather<br>chaps, belt. Rare, Unusual, one of a kind. A definite museum piece. Guaranteed<br>first half of the 20th century most likely 1920's through 40's. 22" tall x 9.5"<br>wide. I didn't find any identifying features, but I'm not familiar with Texas<br>folk artists as I spent most of my career on the east coast.<br><br>Black cowboys in the American West accounted for up to 25 percent of workers in<br>the range-cattle industry from the 1860s to 1880s, estimated to be at least 5000<br>workers according the latest research.[1] Typically former slaves or born into<br>the families of former slaves, many black men had skills in cattle handling and<br>headed West at the end of the Civil War.[2] Though the industry generally<br>treated black men equally to white men in terms of pay and responsibilities,<br>discrimination persisted, though to a lesser extent than in other industries of<br>the time.<br><br>Background<br>Nat Love<br>Nat Love (1854 – 1921), an African-American cowboy and former slave.<br>After the Reconstruction of the South after the American Civil War, freed slaves<br>were still denied land ownership and other rights in many states, and about<br>20,000 Exodusters headed west to Kansas between 1879 and 1884, with smaller<br>migrations to other Western states. Many trained under Mexican vaqueros,<br>cattle-raising Native Americans, or their former masters; they then worked as<br>ranch hands for wages equal to their white counterparts and offering more<br>opportunities than existed for freemen in the South.[2]<br><br>Black men, typically former slaves, children of slaves, or working in<br>plantations, and farms would have been exposed to kitchen work and stables as<br>well. As early as 1770, regulations in Louisiana required two slaves to manage<br>100 head of cattle.[1] White ranchers could even win competitions based on the<br>cow-handling skills of the Black slaves in their possession.[3] Initially, white<br>ranchers referred to white workers as "cow hands," with Black people in the same<br>position referred to with the pejorative "cow boy." Over time the term cowboy<br>came to apply to anyone in the industry of herding cattle.[3][4] Prior to the<br>abolition of slavery, the cattle trade was considered to offer a high degree of<br>relative freedom to slaves, who would be issued s, often left unaccompanied on<br>horseback for long stretches, and trusted to return.[4]<br><br>Free Black cattle drivers drove cattle from Kansas to areas including Atlanta,<br>the Dakotas, and Canada, as well as New Mexico, Arizona, California and<br>Oregon.[5]Porter, Kenneth Wiggins (1969). "Negro Labor in the Western Cattle<br>Industry, 1866-1900". Labor History. 10 (Summer): 346–74.<br>doi:10.1080/00236566908584084. Some freed slaves remained with their former<br>masters as employees.[4] As these areas became more settled and established more<br>practical transportation networks, the era of migrant cattle ranching came to an<br>end.[6]<br><br>Work<br>Black cowhands were typically assigned to handle horses with poor temperaments<br>and wild behaviors, a career known as horsebreaking.[5] Other people in the<br>cattle trade were trail cooks, which could earn extra money over other cowhands,<br>regardless of race.[5] Trail menus from black chefs included biscuits, sowbelly,<br>beef, molasses, and coffee. Black chefs would also hunt deer and wild turkey<br>between washing and kitchen cleaning duties.[5] Black cowhands were also<br>expected to perform on the trail, and expected to sing or to pack a musical<br>instrument.[5] Others would often serve as bodyguards or money transporters,<br>which has been attributed to the unlikelihood of thieves searching a black man<br>for large sums of money.[5]<br><br>Bose Ikard served as Charles Goodnight's banker for many years. Bill Pickett was<br>credited with inventing bulldogging.<br><br>There were also black women cowboys, though their numbers are unknown, as income<br>was provided to a common household rather than to individual women. Women were<br>unlikely to inherit a homestead or continue to work in ranching, as freemen and<br>white ranchers were unlikely to work for a black woman.[7]<br><br>Rodeos<br>Popularized across the United States in 1873 by Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild West<br>shows showcased skills and characters of the Western United States in the form<br>of a traveling performance including rodeo roping, Native American dances, and<br>other acts.[3] Among these traveling shows, African-American cowboy Jesse Stahl<br>was famous for his saddle riding, a defining aspect of rodeos.[3] Racism was<br>common in rodeo competitions, and terms such as "harder to cover" could be used<br>to mask racism in rodeo competitions under the guise that white riders had more<br>difficult horses.[3] Black rodeo riders would be compared to animals, given<br>nicknames reflecting African animals and using animal metaphors not found in<br>descriptions of white rodeo performers.[3] In response to their treatment and<br>Jim Crow laws, Black cowboys formed "soul circuits," later organized as the<br>Southwestern Colored Cowboys' Association, with the largest number of<br>African-American cowboys participated in rural communities along the coast of<br>Texas up to the 1940s.<br>TW158
