The Cowboy Way of Life

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Howdy

 

Now I will be the first to admit that I don't know a whole lot about real cowboys. I like shooting cowboy guns, and I liked watching Westerns as a kid, and I still like watching them. But I realize that a whole lot of what we used to watch on TV and in the movies was made up by a Hollywood script writer. So I always take it with a large grain of sand when somebody comes on the Wire and starts spouting off about how it was 'back in the day'. Most of us plumb don't know what we are talking about.

 

Last week I was watching the History Detectives on PBS. Hold on, I know a lot of us hate PBS, but they are very good at some things. They were researching exactly where the Chisholm Trail was and whether some of the trail markers are in fact incorrect. One of the researchers interviewed a rancher whose family had been ranching in Texas for many generations. One of his comments really struck me. He mentioned how many of the cowboys who signed up for a cattle drive were Black or Indians. I knew that. He mentioned that the pay was $100 at the end of the drive, and that was pretty good money in those days. I didn't know that, but it struck me as reasonable.

 

But then he said that most cowboys only signed on for one drive. They completed it, then they moved on to some other work, never rode on another trail drive again. The reason given was it was too dangerous. Not rustlers, or the extremes of the wilderness, but stampedes. Stampedes were the most dangerous threat to the life of the cowboy, and most of them did not want to risk it again.

 

Now I know this is just the testimony of one rancher, but if it is true, it puts a completely different slant on things. Just one cattle drive, then most moved on to some other form of work. Think about it. If most young cowboys only rode on one cattle drive, it kind of changes the whole perspective of what some of us have come to believe as the cowboy way of life.

[Adirondack Jack, SASS #53440]

I've heard it said that as many as half the REAL, drive-working cowboys were non-whites. It was hard, dangerous work, and the west was filled with freed blacks not looking to pick cotton ever again, so like so many unruly whites chafing against city life in the east, they went west to find a better life. A cattle drive was a hard way to get a small stake, but it beat starving.

[MMJ#89586]

I'm a Riverboat gambler. Not really a cowboy at all but I still shoot revolvers, double barrel shotguns and a Marlin rifle. What I'm trying to say is I represent a western character from that time. Many were not necessary "cowboys ".

[Stump Water]

Was traveling through south-western Virginia last week and passed a small town where the predominant structure was a mill of some sort. It was surrounded by "mill housing".

 

The first thought was everybody that lives in that little town works at that mill.

 

But when you look closer you see a general store, a post office, a constable's office, a livery & feed store, blacksmith shop, an overland freight outfit unloading at the general store... you get the idea.

 

The "cowboy" that wasn't permanently employed by a ranch was a migrant worker... or the young buck that believed the romantic stories told by the bunkhouse salts about far-off lands and untamed trail towns that, after one drive, lost their romance.

 

And that romance is why the cowboy is the icon of the era.

 

To me it's not about the cowboy way of life, but about the frontier way of life and the code of ethics people had to live by in order to survive and get along on that frontier.

[Blue Steel Duke]

I agree Driftwood, much of what we consider fact is in reality Hollywood legend. TV is a powerful narcotic, a Psychologist in the late 90's made an interesting observation. He said that with the amount of segregation in America, TV was often the only common ground, so the white community viewed the Black community in light of the Jefferson's or Cosby show, and the Blacks saw the whites in terms of Archie Bunker.

 

BSD

[Go West]

The "Code of the West" and the "Cowboy Way" appear to be Hollywood creations. Buffalo Bill, the 101 Ranch, Pawnee Bill and others brought excitement and romance to millions of people who probably had very ordinary lives. Dime novels did the same in print. Today we have entertainment galore to add some spice to millions of regular people. I believe Lincoln said something to the effect of, " God must have loved the common man because there are so many of them." Embracing things western and being involved in SASS are a few ways this commoner can add some excitement to my life because I enjoy both reality and fantasy.

[Jabez Cowboy,SASS # 50129]

Cowboying is still Hard Dangerous Work for low pay !!!

And when you are used-up due to injury or age ,,,,,,, you maybe get a minium CPP Canada Pension Plan)check if you last long enough to collect ...

 

 

Jabez Cowboy

[Guest Paniolo Cowboy SASS #75875]

The "Code of the West" and the "Cowboy Way" appear to be Hollywood creations. Buffalo Bill, the 101 Ranch, Pawnee Bill and others brought excitement and romance to millions of people who probably had very ordinary lives. Dime novels did the same in print. Today we have entertainment galore to add some spice to millions of regular people. I believe Lincoln said something to the effect of, " God must have loved the common man because there are so many of them." Embracing things western and being involved in SASS are a few ways this commoner can add some excitement to my life because I enjoy both reality and fantasy.

 

 

What makes you think that the "Code of the West" is a Hollywood creation and did not really exist?

[Bart Solo]

I know there are cattlemen and cowboys to this day. I am related to some of them. I don't think they learned how to cowboy watching television. They learned from their fathers and mothers who learned from theirs and back to the 19th century.

 

There are still short cattle drives to this day. I remember my cousins talking about their father's last cattle drive at his funeral. The old man needed help on to his horse. He didn't get off all day. He ate lunch in the saddle. A few weeks later he died in his easy chair after watching a Denver Broncos game with his family, but he died a cattleman. His sons talk about his last drive with pride. Yep, they might have moved the cattle just a few miles to a loading ramp, but he was a cattleman to the end. He might have been a pilot in WWII and an "officer and a gentleman" by act of Congress, but he lived the cowboy way all of his years. I am pretty sure he didn't learn that watching television. He learned it from his father, who learned it from his, who might have been some wild kid who came to Colorado from some city some where, but who stayed because he loved the land and the cowboy way of life.

[Blue Steel Duke]

I know there are cattlemen and cowboys to this day. I am related to some of them. I don't think they learned how to cowboy watching television. They learned from their fathers and mothers who learned from theirs and back to the 19th century.

 

There are still short cattle drives to this day. I remember my cousins talking about their father's last cattle drive at his funeral. The old man needed help on to his horse. He didn't get off all day. He ate lunch in the saddle. A few weeks later he died in his easy chair after watching a Denver Broncos game with his family, but he died a cattleman. His sons talk about his last drive with pride. Yep, they might have moved the cattle just a few miles to a loading ramp, but he was a cattleman to the end. He might have been a pilot in WWII and an "officer and a gentleman" by act of Congress, but he lived the cowboy way all of his years. I am pretty sure he didn't learn that watching television. He learned it from his father, who learned it from his, who might have been some wild kid who came to Colorado from some city some where, but who stayed because he loved the land and the cowboy way of life.

Well said!

 

BSD

[Jabez Cowboy,SASS # 50129]

Bart Solo;

Ya said it a lot better than I could hope to !!!!

 

My Mom's Dad was a Scot from the Highlands, who as a wee lad sailed to the British Colony worked his way South & West and then North a few years latter ..... Arriving in the "Northwest Territories of Alberta" in May of 1870, having along the way "Picked-up" a herd of cattle.... He came North through the "Montana Territories" by way of points futher South ...

And though he did many things in his Colorfull life, he remained a Scot and A Cowboy...

 

 

Jabez Cowboy

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Howdy Again

 

Some of you seem to have missed the point of my original post. Or maybe I did not explain it properly. My point was, if the rancher who was interviewed was correct, and most cowboys only signed on for one cattle drive and then moved on to other occupations, it might have a significant effect on how we interpret the 'life of the cowboys' today.

 

A couple of frequently asked questions on this board:

 

Did the cowboys sit around the campfire at night reloading their ammo?

 

Well if you are just in this for one time, who is going to bother to reload any ammo at all? Wouldn't it be simpler to just buy one box of ammo?

 

Most cowboys shot with one hand, so we should too.

 

Who is going to be working on shooting skills if they spend all day driving cattle and are going to get into another line of work soon anyway?

 

Some cowboys must have had their guns slicked up so they could shoot more efficiently.

 

Who is going to bother with this either, if you are going to go into another line of work soon?

 

I could go on. I just think if the statement about how short a time some of these guys were cowboys is true, it might put a different slant on a lot of things.

[Bart Solo]

I don't think I misinterpreted your original post. I think your original post is based on the premise that only those people who chased 10,000 head up the Chishom trail could be called cowboys. If that was true the days of the cowboy started in 1866 and ended about 1886 when the railroads reached far into Texas and the epic cattle drives came to an end. I respectfully disagree with your premise. I believe there were cowboys before 1866 and there are cowboys today. They were and are hard working men who spend their time working cattle from the back of a horse, or sometimes from the left seat of a pickup or a small airplane. They have evolved their own unique subculture that is as vital and real as that of any other American subculture. Not much of it was invented in Hollywood.

 

By the way after cartridge guns became common cowboys didn't spend much time reloading because they bought ready made cartridges. Ready made was cheap and convenient. They also ate a lot of beans out of cans and carried bricks of coffee when cans and compressed coffee became available, for the exact same reason. Cowboys didn't have the best shooting skills because they rarely, if ever, shot anybody. They used one gun because they didn't have much money to buy more than one. To the extent they shot one handed it was because one handed was the fashion of the day.

 

Cowboys wouldn't waste their money on slicking up their guns. They would spend their money on nice tack, or hookers. Professional gunmen, gamblers, outlaws and lawmen, probably would spend money on "slicked up" guns. Have you ever seen some of the fancy quick draw holsters worn by some of the gamblers in the old west? I know that Billy the Kid used a double action shortly after they were introduced and the James gang adopted cartridge guns quickly after they were available. The only exception to equipment upgrades was Wild Bill.

[Blackwater 53393]

From what I've gathered over the years, many "cowboys" never went on a single cattle drive. Very few went on more than one drive, and although there were some who specialised in moving large herds over long distances, they were a very small minority. Many who cowboyed all or most of their lives worked on one ranch or another their whole lives much the same as mechanics go from one repair facility to another. I actually had the oportunity to do a little cowboyin' back in the seventies, (1970s so no wisecracks,okay?) and worked with some old cowboys. I don't know how old, but they knew cows and horses the way few do today, and one was grey headed, stooped, and leather hided like old pictures you see in books describing the life. He said he'd worked on the King Ranch in the thirties. I asked if he'd ever been on a big drive and he said no, but that he'd worked with men who had.

 

He explained that just because a herd was being moved to market, the work on a spread didn't stop and that most ranchers and cattlemen seldom went on a drive themselves. Ranch hands as he called them usually did the sort of work depicted in stories like Monte Walsh, tending to portions of the stock and property for the owner or in later years big cattle companies. He called the cowboys who did the big drives "cow nurses" and "drovers" in the conversations I had with him. He said they were tough, but that most of them settled down after a drive or two, and that most went to work for a big ranch for the steady pay. Some found work in towns or moved to where they could find factory work, but many worked the ranches and farms their whole lives.

 

He also said that many "cowboys" were indeed black, Native American, and Mexican, and they were just as prevalent as white hands. If you did your job, where you came from didn't matter much to the folks you worked with.

 

I don't know how much of what he said was true, but others who worked with him and me seemed to agree with what he said. It was rough work and he knew how to do it well and he knew the easy way to do it. I only wish I'd learned to rope like he did. He said he, "didn't have time to be nursemaidin' a greenhorn" and I didn't need to rope these cows "'cause they're tame".

[Utah Bob #35998]

There was plenty of ranch work on the giant spreads of the late 1800s. While many cowboys may have only participated in one major drive most continued to work as cowhands. Until the turn of the century, there just wasn't much work in the west other than farming and ranching especially if those were the only skills you possessed

.

For cowboy history The Log of a Cowboy by Andy Adams is a great read.

[Guest Tennessee Stud, SASS# 43634 Life]

This past year... I spent approximately 1,500 miles by horseback.... in seven states, total. Found out late in life just how much I really enjoyed somethin'... what used to be taken for granted by me as a kid.

 

Many a quiet time... passed on the trail... thought 'bout how hard it musta been to cowboy back in them days. Be a hard life... fer sure. Several cattle drives would certainly age a man... expeditious-like. Have to.

 

Now-a-days... when I ride a horse... I carry a handgun secondarily 'cause of two-legged varmints. But primarily... 'cause I might have to shoot the horse. Handgun don't need to be slicked... or perty... just functional. My favorite saddle has oxbow stirrups... (pic was made back when it was new)... but I like the feel of them stirrups. One of the problems with 'em stirrups is... if a man is throwed... that man's boot can slide on through that stirrup and hang up. So I tote a handgun... but I always tote anyway.

 

I suspect... bein' surrounded by several hunnert thousands of pounds of livin' leather... a gun might feel comfortin'.

 

ts

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Well, I started this post by stating that I don't know a whole lot about cowboys. I will also freely admit that I barely know one end of a horse from the other, and the few times I have actually sat on one I sure did not feel real confident that I knew more than the horse.

 

So if my ramblings on the idea of cowboys not spending a whole lot of time in the job do not turn out to have a whole lot of truth to them, so be it.

 

I just thought it was an interesting concept.

[Buckhorn Woodie]

Well, I started this post by stating that I don't know a whole lot about cowboys. I will also freely admit that I barely know one end of a horse from the other, and the few times I have actually sat on one I sure did not feel real confident that I knew more than the horse.

 

So if my ramblings on the idea of cowboys not spending a whole lot of time in the job do not turn out to have a whole lot of truth to them, so be it.

 

I just thought it was an interesting concept.

 

 

Well contrary to the movies 90% of ranch work is not on a horse.

[South Devon Cattleman, SASS #59003]

The name is Cowboy and not Horseboy. So most of the work is centered around cattle.

[Aunt Jen]

Two of our ancestors were soldiers in the revolutionary army, one a private, another a general. Another founded a Presbyterian church. Another had a ranch, but lost it, and so trekked to CA to become a 49er. Two others were wheat farmers in the midwest. Another ran a boarding house.

 

None were "cowboys." And my own Alias is not "cowgirl," per se. It's generic character. But that is an iconic figure SASS is wrapped around, and I find it comforting.

 

Our families are from the midwest and the east, and we've both come out to California.

 

For me, my old home town in the midwest meant such things as church, Wonder bread with butter on it, "Grandma style noodles," lightyears of wheat, highways, grain elevators and Sonic Drive-ins.

 

But bringing SASS into our lives helped bring more of our combined heritage to life.

 

SASS is wrapped around the idea of the cowboy, and even though our own family histories weren't cowboy, that iconic image helped connect me to my own history.

 

For which I'm thankful.

 

Aunt Jen

[Phantom, SASS #54973]

Yep...lot's of work around a ranch that don't include being part of a drive...and I think Cowboy Action Shooting is more about Cowboy Guns then actual Cowboys...hence...you can be a gambler...banker...whatever.

 

Cheers!

Phantom

[Aunt Jen]

Sorry, DJ. I s'pose I was off topic. My thoughts were to address the idea that most probably weren't cowboys, how mind weren't, how I was never in touch, nonetheless, with my own heritage, and how SASS helped.

 

Loose...

 

Aunt Jen

[Guest Tennessee Stud, SASS# 43634 Life]

True 'bout ridin' horses, fellas... and the fact they're called "cowboys".

 

But I took Driftwood's comments for what was meant... and thought that he made some real interestin' points. I just added my two cents worth... in relation to the need for slicked-up firearms and such. Hell... I'm no cowboy... just a saddle-bum.

 

But mainly... D J's comments surrounded times back in the late 1800's... involvin' movie depictions of cowboys in regards to constant large-scale movement of cattle from point A... to point B. One of the longest drives... the Loving-Goodnight Trail... passed from Texas thru New Mexico, Colorado... up into Wyoming. I suspect everbody agrees that such drives were not conducted by men afoot.

 

D J's point well taken by me... that it was extremely rigorous... and most men could only muster up the desire to be on cattle-drive only onest. Today... our mental pictures of cowboys are somewhat cataminated by Hollywood... and the true "cowboy way of life" mostly did not (and does not) center around the large migrations of beef. For some folks... when they eventually learn that Hollywood distorts and misrepresents the historical cowboy... it becomes a major paradigm-shift in their way of thinkin'.

 

I thought it was a good post...

 

ts

[Aunt Jen]

And it's likely true: only one cattle drive.

 

Billy Crystal only did one...

 

Aunt Jen

[Utah Bob #35998]

Yep...lot's of work around a ranch that don't include being part of a drive...and I think Cowboy Action Shooting is more about Cowboy Guns then actual Cowboys...hence...you can be a gambler...banker...whatever.

 

Cheers!

Phantom

 

It probably should be Cowboy Era Action Shooting.

[Utah Bob #35998]

Well contrary to the movies 90% of ranch work is not on a horse.

 

Thanks to Ford.

[Doc Coles SASS 1188]

I think it is safe to say that the "romance of the cowboy" was the result of the wild west shows and later the movies. My family were ranchers Oklahoma, Texas, Montana and finally California during the last quarter of the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th centuries. While ranching could be profitable business (often not), cowboys had about as much status then as migrant farm workers do now. Cowboys did a very hard and dangerous job for low pay. There was little future in the profession and many people (like my great grandfather) started there and moved on. Others stayed in the profession because they didn't have other options or skills. Either way, our perception of the profession has little to do with its realities and I doubt many of us would actually choose to do it, just as very few of choose to pick fruit for a living today.

[Wylie Harp, #21158L]

Probably the most familiar images of the American West, is that of the cowboy on a cattle drive. It is the stuff of legends and has been embellished in dime novels and other forms of entertainment as already has been mentioned.

 

It makes sense that this line of hard work however had to have been a short lived experience for most because of the burn out rate similar to that of being a Pony Express rider. I find it reasonable to assume then that for very few it was a way of life, unless you were say a trail boss or a cook. I suspect that most of the one-time drovers were either young men out to “see the elephant”, drifters, wanted outlaws or sons of bitches who were only looking for a way to get to the Kansas cow towns of Abilene, Wichita, Hays, and of course Dodge City

 

~:Wylie:~

[Bart Solo]

The railroads and the Kansas quarantine law did in the long cattle drives. They ended because they were no longer economically feasible.

 

By the way, last year at a family reunion, I talked to one of my young relatives. He was raised on a ranch. His wife was raised on a ranch. He has a degree in agribusiness. His wife is a nurse. The young couple wants more than anything to have a ranch of their own. Unless one of them inherits a ranch, they are pretty much doomed to working for somebody else. Ranch land is pretty expensive. I ask him if he ever thought of going to work in town. He looked at me like I had said something really ugly. I think cowboying gets in your blood, but most every cowboy wants to graduate to cattleman.

 

Back when personal computers were rare and the internet was still a glint in Al Gore's eye I remember walking into my uncle's office. There he had an early computer hooked up with a direct line to the Board of Trade in Kansas City. The old man or my cousin would check it morning and night. The rest of the time he and his sons worked with the stock, raised the crops and fixed the things needing fixing. To make it in the modern west you have to have one foot in the future and one foot in the past. While the phrase "cattle company" is in the name of their business, they farm as well. Lately they have been raising corn to sell to the fuel companies.

 

By the way there is a sort of modern equivalent to the old cattle drive. Every summer for many years my cousins loaded up combines on trucks and cut wheat. Their cutting crew, mostly young men and women in the family, worked day and night north to Canada tell they ran out of wheat. It has much of the same flavor as the old cattle drive. They work in a tight team. They keep moving. They work hard day and night. They played hard at the end of the harvest. Of course, that wasn't ranching, but when you want to feed your family you do what you have to do.

[Bull Creek Cole]

OK, now for my view on the cowboy way of life. To directly reply to the OP, I agree that there were many blacks, mexicans and other immigrants, and some indians who participated in the cattle drives. Not only to the railheads here in Kansas but farther north, also. The reasons they signed on for the drives are as varied as the men themselves but can probably be fitted into a few categories within consideration of the times. The Civil War had just ended and the south, including Texas, was enduring reconstruction. There were former slaves who were looking not only to escape the south and all the biases therein, but also to find a place they could call their own and control their own destiny (something familiar to all of us); there were plenty of men in the form of ex-soldiers, farmers, storekeepers, etc., who drifted west because they had nothing to return to at home; young men raised in the west who were not old enough join the war were probably looking to prove themselves or just for a little excitement and adventure; immigrants and others looking to escape eastern cities, too. Most went on the cattle drives for the money, but I'm sure some signed for the excitement. Especially after hearing about the wild times and wild women at the railheads. I doubt any of them went on a cattle drive for the romantic notion hollywood has created as the cowboy way of life. The movies cannot re-create the sun-up to sun-down, seven days a week, hard work in 100 degree heat to below freezing weather while eating dust or wallering in mud that was all part of the drive. Nor can they re-create the dangers of stampede, night herding, getting thrown from your horse and everyday maladies that claimed many lives. Many of the drovers weren't even looking to return to wherever it is they started the drive. They were looking to get away from where they were and make a grub stake while doing it. So it makes sense that quite a lot of them never went on a second drive. Of those that went home, I would guess that there was a fair amount that discovered they weren't cut out for that kind of occupation and never signed up for a second drive. But in the end there were some ranchers and ranch hands that enjoyed the lifestyle and went on many drives, both short and long distances. There were even some lucky enough to live to see the end of the big drives in the late 1880's when quarantines, homesteading farmers and greed caused the railroads to extend farther south.

 

It's my opinion that the much romanticized cowboy way of life is more typified by the ranch life in the years that followed the drives. Big ranches from Montana to Texas gave the cowboys a home on the range, a bed in the bunkhouse, hot food, and regular pay for a monthly trip to a nearby town with a saloon. With luxuries like that, there was a lot more time to do the rodeoing, roping, shooting and everything else we associate with the cowboy way of life.

[Jabez Cowboy,SASS # 50129]

Good discussion......

 

Jabez Cowboy

[Wyatt Earp SASS#1628L]

The only "Cowboys" I'm aware of were those low-down curs that lived in south eastern Arizona in the early '80's. We killed a few and ran the rest out. I doubt they ever ran a herd of cattle to Kansas, although they did run some small groups up from Mexico.

Wyatt

[Wylie Harp, #21158L]

The only "Cowboys" I'm aware of were those low-down curs that lived in south eastern Arizona in the early '80's. We killed a few and ran the rest out. I doubt they ever ran a herd of cattle to Kansas, although they did run some small groups up from Mexico.

Wyatt

Those dudes were known as "cow-boys"

 

~:Wylie:~

[Subdeacon Joe]

What do you all think of Centennial by James Michener? I think that as a broad overview it is quite good.

[stepnmud#33546]

'Lone Cowboy' by Will James.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Cowboy-My-Life-Story/dp/0878423575