On the Trail with Black American Cowboys

"Roy Rogers and Billy the Kid may have been the most famous cowboys of the Old West, but one-third of America’s cowboys were African Americans. From the freed slaves who found work on the earliest cattle drives to the contemporary rodeo circuit, African American cowboys have been part of the West’s heritage for generations.

“‘A lot of African Americans went west —— that’s the one place where they could be judged like anyone else,'” said Kevin Woodson of the Texas-based Cowboys of Color, sponsors of the largest multicultural rodeo tour in the world….Many western ranch foremen of the 1850s were African American, Woodson said. African American cowboys were in high demand during the boom years of the western cattle drives from 1866-95.’” (from an article by Kathaleen Roberts, Santa Fe New Mexican, June 29/30, 2013)

“Black cowboys predominated in ranching sections of the Coastal Plain between the Sabine and Guadalupe rivers.” (Teresa Palomo Acosta, Texas State Historical Association online handbook)

Photo credit: from the TSHA online handbook, Black Cowboys preparing for a horse race at the Negro State Fair. Image courtesy of the Erwin E. Smith Collection. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.