Hommme , Home on the Range

After Reconstruction

South

• Primarily agricultural area– Decentralized, isolated, agricultural– Human and Natural resources, but few factories or cities– Agricultural system different from North and West

• Sharecroppers and tenant farmers

• Some attempts to develop industry and get South out of poverty cycle.– Textile– Tobacco

• Dukes- American Tobacco Company

– Lumber– Steel

Why did South Remain Poor?• South began industrialization later

• South had only a small technological community- poor schooling

• Work force isolated• Divided by Race

Movvinnnn Out West

• After Civil War the new industrial order created the means and the motive to close the final western frontier.

• People want to move out and explore the country

• On a mission to unlock the potential of this land and make it fruitful

Ranchers• Before the war, pork was #1 meat -started to be seen as “difficult to digest”

and “unwholesome”BRING ON THE BEEF!!!!

• Cattle ranching becomes popular as Americans go out west to profit from the demand up north

Americans learn from the Mexicans how to cattle ranch and graze what is now….

Cover of The Beef Bonanza: How to Get Rich on the Plains, by Gen. James. S. Brisbin, one of the books that helped fuel the cattle boom of the early 1880's.

Yeeee Hawww!! Cowboys

What do you imagine when you think of a cowboy?

Theodore Roosevelt on horseback in the Dakota Territory in the 1880's, when he had moved west to live as a cattle rancher.(Library of Congress.)

19th Century Cowboys

• Definition: A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other rancher related tasks

• The cowboy has deep historic roots tracing back to Spain and the earliest European settlers of the Americas.

• Traveled along many different trails experiencing long cattle drives

Cowboys eating dinner on the range. A typical chuckwagon, like the one shown here, carried potatoes, beans, bacon, dried fruit, cornmeal, coffee and canned goods.

(Library of Congress)

Cowboy Slang

• Ace in the Hole - A hideout or a hidden gun.• Addle-headed - Empty-headed, not smart.• A Hog-Killin' Time - A real good time. "We went to the

Rodeo Dance and had us a hog-killin' time.”• Purdy: A form of "pretty" or can be used as "good",

"nice”• Howdy: Slang, relatively same as Yo.• Leapin' Lizards: A form of sudden suprise.• Unshucked: Cowboy talk for naked. An unshucked gun

is one that's out of the holster.

Life of the Cowboy

Texas Cattle Trails

Before the Civil War, the Shawnee Trail (far right) led Texas cattlemen to markets in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Following the war, increased settlement closed that route, and in 1866 Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed a trail west to the New Mexico and Colorado markets, called the Goodnight-Loving Trail (far left).

Soon, however, railheads in Kansas led cowboys up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, and up the Western Trail to Dodge City and points north.

Chisholm Trail

----Main trail that crossed the Red River near Ringold, TX and went due north to Kansas ----1867-1871 cowboys drove nearly 1.5 million head of cattle on this trail

Black Cowboys• African-Americans

came to cattle country most often as slaves.

• By the start of the Civil War in 1861, Texas had over 180,000 black inhabitants and close to four million head of cattle.

Black Cowboys• Rarely became trail chiefs or owned their own

stock• Encountered less discrimination along the cattle

trail than in most other occupations at the time. • While riding herd, black and white cowboys

depended upon each other. They lived, ate, and slept together.

"There, a man's work was to be done, and a man's life to be lived, and when death was to be met, he

met it like a man.” - Nat Love

Caballeros

• Caballeros were Spanish-born Americans that moved north of the Rio Grande to settle new lands throughout the Southwest 200 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

• Cabellero means gentleman, and it was one of the highest, noblest positions a man could have.

Vaqueros• Lower class,

independent settlers were called vaqueros, and they were the original cowboys.

• They were very proud, skilled cattle drivers whose traditions and heritage continues to today.

Vaqueros• “One out of every

three cowboys in the late 1800s was the Mexican vaquero.”– Kendall Nelson,

Gathering Remnants: A Tribute to the Working Cowboy

Cowboys branding "mavericks" on their cattle in the 1880's. This cowboy name for cattle without a brand can be traced to Texas rancher Samuel Maverick, whose habit of neglecting to brand his herd led his neighbors to call an unbranded steer "one of Maverick's.”

Roundup on Texas Ranch

"Second Guard." A cowboy camp at night in the 1880's, with some cowboys bedding down while others prepare to head out for night duty watching over the herd. Photograph by F. M. Steele.

•“Range Wars” break out among competing groups for land

•Barbed Wire: enabled hundreds of square miles to be fenced off cheaply and easily

•Eventually used to shut out those competing with them for land

•Ends the excitement of long cattle drives

Fun Comes to an End

Fenced in Ranch

"Where we shine." Cowboys at the end of an 1897 roundup in Ward County, Texas, pose with their herd of almost 2,000 cattle. By this time, barbed wire had closed down the long cattle trails for nearly two decades. Photographed by F. M. Steele.

See ya’ll tomorrow!!