Texas back .
then, as most know, was Mexican territory. Mexico wanted to civilize and fight off Indian tribes in it's .
outer regions, so they sent people to live in the deserted area. They allowed Americans to live on the .
land to help word off the tribes. On this land they raised cattle on mass ranches. The ranchers were .
mainly Mexican and after a while more whites started populating the land. Along with the whites .
came slaves to work on the ranches. The ranches were known as cattle plantations. After many .
years a stable dress code was made by the ranchers. The ranchers sent out cattle to other states .
and were nicknamed "Cowboys". Cow meat was becoming more popular than bison meat so that's .
what the ranches grew and sold, hence the name Cow-boy. The popular gun belt was occupied.
by a lasso. Many different places had cattle herders such as Gambia hundreds of years prior, .
and Florida around a decade before. Florida had a runaway slave-Native American settlement.
of herders who did the same tasks as cowboys, but were only known as herders. The herders.
in Texas were unique, because they started their own slang, dress codes, cattle trails, leisure .
time events and were crowned the name Cowboy. Most of these cowboy events can be watched .
in pretty much all rodeos. (**) .
.
Black cowboys started out as slaves on the cattle plantations. After the Emancipation.
few ex-slaves left and most were drawn to the life of a cowboy. Even though life was tough as.
cowboy, life was even harder for a black man living in a city at that time. Decades after freedom, .
in the Southern cotton regions between 1,500 and 1,600 blacks were being lynched. Racism was .
still major on ranches. The life of a ranch cowboy was different than the life of a cattle trail cowboy. .
On the ranches they were often paid the same wages as white cowboys. In urban living a black man.
.
could not get a decent job or respect. Black cowboys were not treated as "equals" except in the .
