510-512
- Analyze Primary Source Documents.
- Describe the cattle interests in the American
West during the nineteenth century.
Analyzing Primary Sources:
- Read each diary/journal and make a list of the
difficulties, problems and concerns of each:
• James Bell: His journal as the boss of a Texas
cattle in the 1870s.
• Anonymous diary: A wagon train heading west
to California, Oregon or Utah in the 1850s.
Directions: Create a venn diagram comparing and
contrasting the two documents:
James Bell’s Journal
of cattle drive
Anonymous Diary
of wagon train
The Western Cattle Industry
• Cattle industry originated in southern Texas
by Mexican ranchers who worked with “Texas
Longhorn” cattle in early 1800s.
• Demand for beef increased due to urbanization and industrialization.
• In 1867, Joseph McCoy opened a shipping
yard in Abilene, Kansas at the westernmost
railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
• Texas ranchers then opened the Chisholm
Trail driving their cattle herds northward to
Abilene to market.
– By 1870 over 1.5 million cattle had been
shipped through Abilene.
– This was referred to as the “long drive”.
The Western Cattle Industry
• As railroads expanded further westward
more cowtowns grew including
Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City in
Kansas Cheyenne, Wyoming.
• Characteristics of a “cowtown”:
– Exaggerated reputation of violence
having gun control laws and local
police forces.
– Used “sin taxes” to pay for town
expenses while eliminating business
taxes.
– By 1890, the west had become the
most urban region in the U.S. with
two thirds of its population living in
towns of at least 2,500 people.
The Western Cattle Industry
• End of the open-range cattle industry:
•Before the 1880s, ranchers grazed their cattle freely on
public land which allowed them to minimize their costs to
ranch.
•When high profits and increased demand for beef attracted
large corporations, lands were fenced in to control cattle
with fewer cowhands.
•Corporate ranches overgrazed much of the ranch lands.
•Droughts and blizzards struck in 1886-1887 killing off herds
and most small, independent ranches collapsed unable to
afford to rebuild their herds.
The Western Cattle Industry
• Typical Cowboy:
– Poorly paid, seasonal work, could be
boring and dangerous and was racially
diverse:
•Many cowboys were white
southerners unable or unwilling to
return home after the Civil War.
•About 25% were black cowhands.
•Mexican cowhands developed
most of the tools and techniques
involved in ranching.
•Myth – Reputation of violence?
The Western Cattle Industry
• How did corporate control of ranching
change the life of cowhands?
– Cowhands traditional rights
disappeared:
•Prohibited them from running
brands of their own on the side
•Forbade cowhands from drinking,
gambling and carrying firearms.
– Response:
•Organized strikes!
– 1883 Panhandle Stock
Association in Texas.
– 1886 Northern New Mexico
Cowboys Union
The Western Cattle Industry
– Response:
•Organized strikes!
– 1883 Panhandle Stock
Association in Texas.
•However, these strikes and unions
failed in the long term.
Prospectors
Western
Main
Mining
Street,
Camp
Boxelder,
ID Dakota Territory
Cattle
Hydraulic
The
Gillespie
Drive
Mining
Camp
Hotel
in Hot Springs,
Old
West
Justice
Employees of the Prairie Cattle Company at the
ranch headquarters in Dry Cimarron, New Mexico,
in 1888