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Chase Baker
Mrs. Hermes
AP US History
4 December 2013
The Rights and Responsibilities of the American Cowboy
Starting in the late 1800’s, the cowboys created the American dream. The cowboys
represent a masculine and rebellious ideal that still to this day is rustic yet glorious. The cowboy
as America knows it, is surrounded by myth, yet there is a great deal of historic truth as
well. The American cowboy had numerous responsibilities that shaped the western frontier in
the late 1800’s and though the era of the cowboy was short-lived, the cowboy remains an
important American icon to this day.
After gold was discovered in California in 1848, millions of ambitious prospectors
traveled west in search of overnight wealth. Although the odds were stacked against them, they
believed in the chance of striking it rich. Along with the ambitious miners came farmers and
pioneers taking advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862. However, with the chances of making
a way of life through precious metals and vast farmlands came many dangers. Long, hot days
and barren, cold nights along with many unfriendly Native American tribes proved to kill or
scare the unprepared away. Water, scarce, and not many food sources in the Great Plains, were
also great obstacles to overcome, yet these challenges shaped these pioneers into the
hardworking cowboys of the 1880s. (The West, 2001)
Another group of people that faced the challenges of the west were the ranchers. These
rugged individuals found big business in herding, driving and rounding cattle. The ranchers
learned from their Mexican neighbors on how to round up, rope and care for these Texas
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longhorns. While the Mexican settlers used the longhorns primarily for food, the ranchers saw
that there was money to be made. They began using the hides as ways to profit while also selling
the beef. The demand for beef became high on the east coast after the transcontinental railroad
was built in 1867 and new refrigeration methods were made. These ranchers drove these
longhorns from Texas upwards into Kansas and made money from these thousand mile long
drives. (The ways of the Cowboy, 2008)
Derived from the same hardworking, untamable spirit of the ranchers came the cowboys.
With no rules and countless acres of land to be settled, it was a free man’s paradise; if that man
had the courage, drive and heart to be there. The cowboys still did long cattle drives, herding
five hundred to fifteen hundred cattle per trip. They were responsible for roundups and trail
rides. During the late 1860s journalists first started writing about cowboys and their mysterious,
yet romantic characters. Soon by the 1880s the image of the heroic American cowboy was
spread across the states. The mythical figure was then spread more so by frontier dramas,
starring showmen like Buffalo Bill Cody and writers creating twenty-cent novels depicting these
resourceful, self-reliant men. By the end of the 1880s into the 1890s droughtful summers killed
hundreds of thousands of cattle and began ending the cowboy’s short-lived career. To add on to
the problem, land owners began putting up fences and disturbing the cattle’s ways of roaming.
To make things even worse, along with fences came barbed wire, invented by Joseph Glidden,
which not only kept the cattle from roaming, but hurt and killed some as well. (Cow, 2010)
Finally, by 1900 Texas established its own rail directly to Chicago and lost the need for long
cattle drives, killing off the final cowboys.
With the end of a short-lived way of life, came the historic and everlasting view of the
cowboy through books and the movie industry. The book The Virginian, by Owen Wister which
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began spreading across the country and filling the minds of the average American with the
fantasies of the Mid-West occurred in 1902. At the very end of the actual cowboy era, came the
eternal movie era. Etched into people’s minds were the images of the tall, bleak men, alone of
horseback with nothing between him and the Great Plains except for his saddle, his horse and his
revolver. (Cowboys, 2006) This image appealed to many people and began to become a symbol
for the American West. The movie industry added onto the allure as well. Many westerns were
filmed during the 1920s and with movies also came frontier dramas. Although the life of the
cowboy was outlived just forty years after it started, still to this day the cowboy will be
remembered as a symbol for the vast, untamed American West.
The cowboy had many responsibilities, including going on month long drives, conducting
roundups, and taking care of himself and his cattle in the barren west. The cowboys derived
from the hardworking pioneers and equally as hardworking Mexican ranchers. The work ethic
was distilled into them and they knew that to survive meant to herd cattle. Not asking for fame,
the cowboys roamed for around 30 years before Glidden invented barbed wire, officially ending
their rein. Soon after, books were written and dramas were produced, engraving the cowboy into
the hearts of millions of Americans. Although the cowboy was short-lived, their kind will live
on forever as a symbol of hard-work, courage and the Great American West.
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Works Cited
Cow. (2010). Retrieved December 4, 2013, from BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/shp/americanwest/cowboysrev2.shtml
Cowboys. (2006, March 12). Retrieved December 4, 2013, from History:
http://www.history.com/topics/cowboys
The ways of the Cowboy. (2008, July). Retrieved December 4, 2013, from US History:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/41b.asp
The West. (2001). Retrieved December 4, 2013, from PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/five/cowboys.htm