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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, whether it's John Wayne

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Speaker 1: or Little Nez, the cowboy holds a sacred place and

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Speaker 1: the pantheon of American heroes. But the cowboy that we

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Speaker 1: know didn't spring fully formed from the dust and tumbleweeds

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Speaker 1: of the wild West. The original cowboy, in fact, had

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with the wild West. Historically speaking, the

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Speaker 1: whole cowboy image, the trusty horse, the open range, get along,

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Speaker 1: little doggie, camp fires under starry nights, old town road,

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Speaker 1: beans from a chuckwagon, yeehaw, cattle drives, branding, chaps, and

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Speaker 1: spurs grew from roots a long way from the American West.

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Speaker 1: It all began in Europe with three central elements man, cow,

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Speaker 1: and horse. In Spain, for centuries, the horse was king.

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Speaker 1: Richard W. Slatta writes in the introduction of his book

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Speaker 1: Cowboys of the amir Beca's social history of cowboys in

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Speaker 1: the Western Hemisphere. Quote the Spanish culture endowed horsemanship with

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Speaker 1: high status. Official portraits of Spanish kings depicted them astride, pawing,

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Speaker 1: rearing horses. The Spanish used their horses in a burgeoning

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Speaker 1: livestock economy, which included cattle and sheep to complement farming

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Speaker 1: in the fourteen hundreds, and when the Spanish made their

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Speaker 1: voyages to the so called New World in the late

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Speaker 1: fourteen hundreds, they took with them horses and cattle. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: from Espaniola, the island that today houses the Dominican Republic,

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Speaker 1: and Haiti, the men, the horses, and the cattle made

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Speaker 1: their way to Florida and parts of what's now Mexico.

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Speaker 1: The cattle multiplied, and the need for horsemen to track

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Speaker 1: them down and keep them in line grew. Cows were

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Speaker 1: needed then, more for their hides than their meat, So

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Speaker 1: ranchers trained Native Americans who came up with all sorts

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Speaker 1: of new cow handling techniques, and the vaccaro was born.

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Speaker 1: The word comes from the Spanish word for cow, vacca,

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Speaker 1: and the volcaro, sometimes pronounced baccarro, is the direct predecessor

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Speaker 1: of the American cowboy. In Russell Friedman's book In the

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Speaker 1: Days of the Vacaro, America's first true Cowboys, he explains

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Speaker 1: that Vacarro's were herding cattle on the Mexican planes some

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Speaker 1: five hundred years ago. They were poor laborers and not

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Speaker 1: given much credit by the Spanish colonizers who employed them,

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Speaker 1: but they invented the cowboy as we know it. Other

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Speaker 1: cowboys proliferated through Central and South America. In Mexico there

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Speaker 1: was also the chatto, usually the Vaciro's horsemen landowners. There

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Speaker 1: was the Naro in Venezuela, the Waso in Chile, the

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Speaker 1: gaut Show in Argentina and Uruguay. They can all trace

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Speaker 1: their ancestors to the Va Caro, and America too, would

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Speaker 1: soon have its own version of a horseman and cattle herder.

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Speaker 1: As the Vicarro's learned to rope and ride and through lariats,

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Speaker 1: as they modified their saddles to include a horn to

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Speaker 1: anchor rope too, and as they introduced sun blocking hats

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Speaker 1: and leg protecting chaps. They moved into what is now Texas,

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Speaker 1: and their influence was felt even farther west. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty two, King Kamama the Third sent for some Vicarios

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Speaker 1: to help with wild cattle in Hawaii. The Hawaiian cowboy

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Speaker 1: became known as the Paniolo. Eventually, an American counterpart formed

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Speaker 1: and spread throughout the West. Cowboys had other names cowhands,

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Speaker 1: cow punchers, cow pokes, cattlemen, buckaroos, and drovers. We officially

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Speaker 1: those who moved cattle from one place to another on

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Speaker 1: a cattle drive. But the work was the same, long days,

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Speaker 1: nights on the plains, a lot of dust, some danger,

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Speaker 1: and when they weren't working the herds, they were branding cattle,

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Speaker 1: fixing fences, caring for their horses, and performing other hard

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Speaker 1: labor around ranches. They weren't necessarily gamblers and gunfighters like

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Speaker 1: say wild Bill Hickock, or gun slinging law men like

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Speaker 1: White Earth or his showy buddy Dot Holiday, or did

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Speaker 1: I sharpshooters like Anti Oakley, or all out showmen like

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Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill Cody. Though all of these legends have legit

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Speaker 1: claims to a spot in the Wild West Hall of Fame,

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Speaker 1: and in a way, all of those types have become

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Speaker 1: known as cowboys. Slaughter wrote in the Cowboy Encyclopedia, the

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Speaker 1: cowboy of the American West, a dashing figure in popular

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Speaker 1: novels and films, was in reality a poorly paid laborer

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Speaker 1: engaged in difficult, dirty, often monotonous work. The cowboys work

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Speaker 1: year centered on two big events, the roundup and the

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Speaker 1: long drive. Roundups were held in the spring, and often

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Speaker 1: also in the fall. After cowboys had herded cattle to

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Speaker 1: a central location, they branded newborn calves, castrated and de

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Speaker 1: horned older animals, and in the spring chose the cattle

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Speaker 1: to be taken to market. At one time, tens of

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Speaker 1: thousands of cowboys worked ranches throughout the West. By the

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Speaker 1: end of the American Civil War, an estimated quarter of

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Speaker 1: those were black cowboys, many of them formerly enslaved. But

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Speaker 1: the cowboys heydaid didn't last long. The invention of barbed

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Speaker 1: wire in the late eighteen hundreds helped pen cattle in

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Speaker 1: and the expansion of railroads made long cattle drives less necessary.

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Speaker 1: So the white, well kempt gunslinger cowboy of Hollywood westerns

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Speaker 1: isn't a particularly accurate image, but like the cowboy himself

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Speaker 1: or herself, it is an enduring one. Today's episode was

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Speaker 1: written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For

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Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other topics that are

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Speaker 1: wanted dead or alive, visit how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. Four more

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