Black cowboys
[4] Though the industry generally treated Black men equally to White men in terms of pay and responsibilities, discrimination persisted, though to a lesser extent than in other industries of the time; historian Kenneth Porter describes the employment composition of trail parties as: "...A trailherd outfit of about a dozen men would on the average consist of seven or eight Whites, including the trail boss, three Negroes—one of whom was probably the cook, while another might be the horse wrangler, and the third would simply be a trail hand—and one or two Mexicans; if a Negro was not the wrangler, then a Mexican often was.
They then worked as ranch hands for wages equal to their White counterparts and offering more opportunities than existed for freemen in the South.
"[5] Prior to the abolition of slavery, the cattle trade was considered to offer a high degree of relative freedom to slaves, who would be issued guns, often left unaccompanied on horseback for long stretches, and trusted to return.
[6] As these areas became more settled and established more practical transportation networks, the era of migrant cattle ranching came to an end.
[3] Black cowhands were typically assigned to handle horses with poor temperaments and wild behaviors, a career known as horsebreaking.
[10] There were also other Black women in notable roles in the American West, including Mary Fields, a star route postwoman,[10] and Jane Manning James, who had a farm with her husband.
[11] Social life on the trail could be egalitarian, with White and Black cowhands sharing sleeping quarters and even blankets.
[2] Traveling trail hands leading a migration of cattle were typically low-paid at the time, though better paid in the northern states.
[2] Denied opportunities to become a foreman or range manager, many Black cowhands trained White counterparts, with others settling land with their own cattle.
[5] Among these traveling shows, African-American cowboy Jesse Stahl was famous for his saddle riding, a defining aspect of rodeos.
[15] The short film They Die by Dawn (2013), directed by Jeymes Samuel, has characters based on Nat Love and Mary Fields.
[16] The Western film Hell on the Border (2019) features a character based on Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy U.S.
[14] The Harder They Fall (2021), also directed by Jeymes Samuel, is a Western with characters based on historical Black people in the West, including Nat Love, Bill Pickett, and Mary Fields.
[17] The 2022 neo-western science fiction film Nope is about two Black horse-wranglers dealing with an unidentified flying object in Agua Dulce, California.
[18] Beyoncé's song "Daddy Lessons", on her album Lemonade (2016), helped create the "Yeehaw Agenda", a trend of reclaiming Black cowboy culture through music and fashion.
[23] The 1998 children's picture book Black Cowboy, Wild Horses tells a story about Bob Lemmons.
Other riding clubs include Circle L 5 in Fort Worth, Texas, founded in the early 1950s, and Cowgirls of Color.
