Interesting history tidbit: 25% of cowboys were black.

[Box Cutta]

Slightly related : African-Americans in Horse Racing

TL,DR : Black jockeys were dominant.

fukk Cacbiscuit.

 

[Amerikan Melanin]

Look up deadwood dikk and Nat Love.

 

[Amerikan Melanin]

More than that. My family is from Oklahoma and we founded the historical society in Tulsa county. Trust me man black people were the first cowboys. America had romanticized it like it was some great job for noble white men. It wasn't that all.

I'm a black cowboy. I was raised by them. My family still owns cattle, horses, and farms. I'm very fukking proud of my history too.

Hey brother can I come visit?

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@KidStranglehold

Was that you that was talking about the Fulani culture & their knowledge of cattle that was brought to America with the trans Atlantic slave trade

YEP!!!


AFRICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN “COWBOY” CULTURE

The first major contribution by Africans to North American society was in the arena of cattle raising. When the Fulani (or Fula) people from Senegambia, along with longhorn cattle, were imported to South Carolina in 1731, colonial herds increased from 500 to 6,784 some 30 years later. These Fulas were expert cattlemen and were responsible for introducing African husbandry patterns of open grazing now practiced throughout the American cattle industry. Cattle drives to the centers of distribution were innovations Africans brought with them as contributions to a developing industry. Originally a cowboywas an African who worked with cattle, just as a houseboy worked in “de big House.” Open grazing made practical use of an abundance of land and a limited labor force.

Africans and their descendants were America’s first cowboys. Most people are not aware that many cowboys of the American West were Black, contrary to how the film industry and the media have portrayed them. Only recently have we begun to recognize the extent to which cowboy culture has African roots. Many details of cowboy life, work, and even material culture can be traced to the Fulani, America’s first cowboys, but there has been little investigation of this by historians of the American West.

Contemporary descriptions of local West African animal husbandry bear a striking resemblance to what appeared in Carolina and later in the American dairy and cattle industries. Africans introduced the first artificial insemination and the use of cows’ milk for human consumption. Peter Wood believes that from this early relationship between cattle and Africans the word, “cowboy” originated.

As late as 1865, following the Civil War, Africans whose responsibilities were with cattle were referred to as “cowboys’ in plantation records. After 1865, whites associated with the cattle industry referred to themselves as “cattlemen,” to distinguish themselves from the Black cowboys. The annual North-South migratory patterns the cowboys followed are directly related to the migratory patterns of the Fulani cattle herders who lived scattered throughout Nigeria and Niger. Not only were Africans imported with the expertise to handle cattle, but the African longhorn was imported as well, a breed that later became known as the Texas longhorn.

Much of the early language associated with cowboy culture had a strong African flavor. The word buckra (buckaroo) is derived from Mbakara, the Efik/lbibio work for “poor white man.” It was used to describe a class of whites who worked as broncobusters, bucking and breaking horses. Planters used buckras as broncobusters because slaves were too valuable to risk injury. Another African word that found its way into popular cowboy songs is “get along little dogies.” The word “doggies” originated from Kimbundu, along with kidogo, a little something, and dodo, small. After the Civil War when great cattle roundups began, Black cowboys introduced such Africanisms to cowboy language and songs.

- SlaveRebellion.org


Really if you go really deep into the roots of American culture in general its greatly influenced by African-Americans/Africans. Someone should write a book about all of this.

 

[SeveroDrgnfli]

Hey brother can I come visit?

Lol bro it's not tight. Thunder storms. Tornados. Poisonous animals. Hella white people. One major city that's not even cracking if you don't like football and the okc thunder. Start a garden and get a cat if you want the farm experience.

 

[satam55]

Honestly, I thought that this was common knowledge. And to be honest, I always thought atleast half of them were black and native american.

Yeah, I really thought this was universally known



In fact, there's a episode in a series about the makings of America where they specifically talk about black cowboys



I remember being taught about this like two weeks into AP US history, I think

What makes y'all actually think that?

 

[filial_piety]

What makes y'all actually think that?

The same way you know the world is round ..its just something that you were taught through word of mouth from older black folks, lessons in school and documentaries... I always thought most black people were aware of this

 

[Colin X]

What makes y'all actually think that?

I don't remember this ever being hidden from us in history classes or even on tv(like documentaries)


It's not like they tried making us think every single cowboy was a white guy or some shyt.

 

[Mortal1]

Great thread love the information dropped in here.

 

[Yehuda]

What makes y'all actually think that?

Every thread about a historical fact is full of "I thought this was well-known

" ass comments.

 

[ReturnOfJudah]

25 percent my ass. We're are the original Cowboys

 

[OG Talk]

More than that. My family is from Oklahoma and we founded the historical society in Tulsa county. Trust me man black people were the first cowboys. America had romanticized it like it was some great job for noble white men. It wasn't that all.

I'm a black cowboy. I was raised by them. My family still owns cattle, horses, and farms. I'm very fukking proud of my history too.

Facts...

They made cowboys white in books and movies on that same trickery steez that they use to cast Christian Bale as Moses...

 

[N711oir]

Yeah it was way more than 25%
That number would probably make more sense referring to them.

But even the romanticize stories of the Lone Ranger were based on Bass Reeves.

They eviscerate so much if not all, if they can of our true history. It's almost foreign to " black" people to realize racing and riding horses was second nature.

Go back even further you understand what the Renaissance was really about.

 

[Neuromancer]

Bass Reeves - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[thekingsmen]

Cowboys were black...nothing new but its always good to retain the info.