In the second installment of our series on Black cowboys, we’ll take a look at how they played a part in shaping the early foundations for the sport of rodeo through participation in Wild West shows. Many Black riders like Bill Pickett, pictured here, had an impact on traditional rodeo events as we know them today - but both their stories, and those of the Native American and Mexican cattlemen and riders who taught white American settlers in the West are often pushed to the sidelines. Let’s keep reframing mainstream narratives about cowboys and the rodeo!
Opportunities for paid work in cow herding declined as barbed wire was invented and the railroad system grew towards the late 1800s, but the eastern and urban US remained fascinated with the lore of cowboy culture in the American West.
Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Shows met and further popularized this demand by staging “Wild “West” themed performances that shocked and awed audiences with incredible feats of trick roping and riding. The Wild West acts featured many astonishingly skilled Black, Mexican, and Native American performers.
The development of these shows were influenced by the techniques vaqueros taught ranch workers (including their modifications of Spanish saddles and lariats for use in the Americas) and by the Spanish form of rodeo, charreadas. Charreadas included stunts such as roping bulls and riding wild horses. Practicing these skills and traditions became local “ranch versus ranch” entertainment - evolving into Wild West Shows and rodeo competitions.
Bill Pickett, one of the most legendary Wild West show performers, was born in Texas to formerly-enslaved parents in 1870. After Bill left school to become a ranch hand, he invented “bulldogging” - a daring method of catching runaway cattle. Bill’s “bulldogging” involved grabbing a steer running full speed by its ear or lip using his own mouth and flipping it over onto the ground.
This unique talent earned him widespread celebrity at local fairs and in Wild West shows. Bill Pickett’s stunt later evolved into the popular rodeo event known today as steer wrestling, a feat in which performers wrestle steer to the ground by its horns.
The contributions of Black riders and ropers to the sport of rodeo are not often visible. When voices are missing from popular historical narratives, it’s important to reflect why and how they have been omitted. Their absence impacts our understanding of both past and present. Let’s continue to unearth and share hidden stories like those of these Black cowboys
SOURCES
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/02/19/1074792510/black-cowboys-mississippi-big-rodeo-project-justin-hardiman
Cartwright, Keith Ryan. Black Cowboys of Rodeo: Unsung Heroes from Harlem to Hollywood and the American West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021.
Flamming, Douglas. African Americans in the West. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
Patton, Tracy Owens and Sally M. Schedlock. “Let’s Go, Let’s Show, Let’s Rodeo: African Americans and the History of Rodeo.” The Journal of African American History 96, no. 4 (2011): 503-521.
Gender, Whiteness, and Power in Rodeo: Breaking Away from the Ties of Sexism and Racism. Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2012.
Wills, Matthew. “Black Cowboys and the History of the Rodeo,” JSTOR Daily, February 11, 2021, https://daily.jstor.org/black-cowboys-and-the-history-of-the-rodeo/.
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/black_cowboys_in_oregon/#.Y8qzAOLMJAc
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-solange-and-mitski-reconsider-who-can-be-the-cowboy/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/
https://www.rancholoscerritos.org/black-on-the-range-african-american-cowboys-of-the-19th-century/
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