Cowboys Myth vs Reality
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Geronimo Martini
4/20/04
The American Cowboy Myth vs. Reality
There was an estimated 35,000 cowboys who went on long drives in estimated in 20 year period beginning in 1866. We sometimes erroneously think that all these cowboys were white but about 5,000 were Negro cowboys and about an equal number were Mexican American. Long drives would usually include eight to ten cowboys herding 2,500 to 3,000 cattle 1,200 to 1,500 miles twice a year during early fall or late summer or spring. We see the TV cowboy as either good or bad. In old western movies cowboys would ride in to a bank with a bandana over their face to rob the bank but this hardly happened. Cowboys needed bandanas to help them endure the 18 hour days of herding cattle for two to three months at a time usually not covering more than eight to ten miles a day.
TV cowboys had one horse that could be the perfect sidekick and could endure all. Some examples are Lone Ranger and his horse Silver, Roy Rodgers and trigger, Gene Autry and champion, and Hopalong Cassidy and Popper. All these T...