Black Cowboys:

This is Thomas Wayne Riley, and welcome to the American Southwest.

Episode 3: Blacks in the American West, Part 2: Black  Cowboys

The American cowboy has been described, by men who actually knew him, in these terms: he was independent, loyal, impulsive, generous; he had a hot and hasty temper, a strong sense of right and wrong; and he took his liquor straight. This description is not, however, peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon cowboy; it applies equally to the Negro cowboy, who, after the Civil War, moved out across the plains to play a significant role in the development of the cattle industry and became a part of the spirit of the West- a spirit which demanded a conscience but cared little for color.

That’s an exceptional quote from Walter Prescott Webb in his 1931 book, the Great Plains. I found that quote in a 1955 article from the American Quarterly called The Negro Cowboy. And I found THAT article after searching online for the connection between an author I read in college, Charlie Siringo, whose book A Texas Cowboy or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony - Taken From Real Life (great title, by the way) whose book I still have, but I was looking for the connection between that book and the key historical character of this episode, Nat Love… who, wrote an incredible autobiography you’ll soon hear extensively about. I wanted to get a glimpse of what cowboy life was like so I reread a bit of Siringo’s before taking a break and opening up Nat Love’s fantastic book… which made me realize, no one gives a better glimpse into the life of a cowboy than Nat Love himself. And since this episode is about Black Cowboys, it’s probably best I stick with the direct sources anyways. That being said, every celebrated publication I read of the life of a cowboy was fantastic and I wish I could go into them all. Instead though, I’ll focus on voices not often represented which theme part one of this series began.

The American Cowboy is the quintessential character and caricature of not only the American west and southwest, but of America in general. People from all over the world wish to emulate the storied lonesome, occasionally courageous, and sometimes violent men from that thirty year period after the civil war. And in 2021 that’s still seemingly true. But now we know, the picture of the cowboy in reality isn’t quite the one that immediately comes to mind… In Tricia Martineau Wagner’s Black Cowboys of the Old West she states, quote, Of the estimated thirty five thousand cowboys that worked the ranches and rode the trails between 1866 and 1895, researchers have calculated that the number of black cowboys ranged from five thousand to nine thousand, with the high number representing 25 percent. End quote. Another author, William H. Forbis in his book, The Cowboys, said that about one American cowboy out of every seven was black. It seems in Texas though, about 1 in every 4 was. Which makes sense because it is the area of the cowboy where the most former slaves resided. There’s a great deal of debate about the actual number of black Cowboys,  with a recent Netflix movie even beginning its trailer with the claim that a rather high number of cowboys were black…but I’m not sure it matters exactly how many blacks and African Americans participated in living the life of a cowboy.. but rather.. that they did at all. And I think that fact should be celebrated and explored, as it obviously is beginning to be with such movies as the harder they fall, the aforementioned Netflix movie. I hope with this episode I can shine a light on the fact that the common narrative of the American Cowboy in the era directly after the civil war and before the turn of the century was much more colorful than the already amazing stories we’re used to seeing. So I’m going to tell you about this… not forgotten, but relatively unknown history of black cowboys in a way that Nat Love, the most famous Black Cowboy of all, would call a quote unquote.. True Western Style.

  start with the term cowboy. There’s a slight to good chance that the term was specifically describing black men who worked with cattle in the south and southeast as far back as the 1700s. Here’s a great observation and quote from Deborah M Liles in her Black Cowboys in the Livestock Industry where she’s quoting other authors so I’ve condensed it to not be too filled with name drops. She says about the term Cowboys that it, quote, was originated by absentee cattlemen referring to slaves who had been left in charge of the herds in the Carolinas. End quote. Liles also says that, quote, white men who worked cattle referred to themselves as drovers, traders, or stock raisers and keepers, as did census takers. End quote. So the white men clearly differentiated their own titles from those of the black slaves that surrounded them. Up until 1865, the final year of the civil war, in South Carolina, black slaves who tended to cattle were known as cow… boys… Cowboys being two words. While in my opinion, there’s no absolute confirmation of the term’s etymology, I’m open to entertaining the idea that quote unquote cowboy… originated in the southeast in reference to black slaves and their proficiency with horses and cattle.

Those same South Carolinian low country slave holders began to specifically request their slaves from certain areas of Africa, chiefly: Gambia and the Gambian River. Where.. the Gambians were not only familiar with the cultivation of rice… which was so very important in South Carolina but they were also familiar with both cattle and the horse trade from the north of Africa, i.e. Senegal. Although, most horses from the north African Muslims did not survive in the Gambian river region with its many diverse ecosystems where the desert transitions into equatorial forests. Still, the Gambians knew rice and herding cattle and that made the difference on plantations inundated with equatorial diseases and where the white population knew little about those two important industries.

Quick aside about the African slave trade, if such a thing could have a quick aside, which obviously it cannot but I will give one anyways, the main reason black African slaves were used in southern united states plantations and farms, as well as the rest of the Americas, is because these black africans were immune to the diseases which saturated the swampy warm mosquito filled areas that the European colonials decided to cultivate and build their economic foundations on. Having black africans as slaves was therefore an economical advantage born out of practicality since the europeans had no immunity to the plagues of pre modern southern united states. So when the white non disease resistant slave holders went up north, they depended on their cow boy slaves to run the plantation in their absence, which these cowboys may have done, on horses, most likely armed, and in remote areas away from supervision.

Deborah Liles in Black Cowboys and the Livestock Industry makes the convincing point of, quote, It’s safe to say that slaves on plantations experienced different living conditions from those who worked with owners who mainly participated in the live stock industry. Testimonies of ex-slaves in the Works Progress Administrations Slave Narratives project confirm the different lifestyles many slaves experienced. Many whose masters were involved in the livestock industry noted that they were well fed and seldom lacked for beef or bacon, whereas those who were in a plantation environment generally stated that there was little beef and other rations. End quote. In addition to beef bacon, cornbread, and even vegetables, other slaves like Monroe Brackin mentions eating wild game and wearing home made clothing and having leather leggings. The author Deborah Liles then goes on to say that these slaves would often work side by side with their owners and most assuredly ranked higher than their fellow slaves who worked the fields. She further quotes Historian James Smallwood who wrote that, quote, Texas cattlemen treated some slaves with the same consideration that they gave white hands. Ranchers regarded some bondsmen as so indispensable--not to mention trusted -that they used blacks in cattle drives to Mexico, where slavery was illegal. End quote.

In the Louisiana of the 1770s, some French government land grants were only issued to those men who could prove they had one hundred heads of cattle, horses, and AT LEAST two slaves to look after and raise said cattle. Slave journals of the time have even recorded their necessary ability to brand cattle, round em up, tend to them, and even hunt them down when the cattle were lost, much like their fellow slaves in the Carolinas.

Then after the Louisiana Purchase, black and Indian slave cowboys began hopping back and forth and all throughout the Mississippi floodplain into Texas and Spanish vaquero lands learning their traditions of roping and horsemanship extensively enough to spread them among their Anglo, African, and Native American owners and fellow cowboy slaves. As historians have pointed out, the sheer number of borrowed words and lingo from the Spanish vaqueros attest to this adaptation and fusion of cultures. Words such as: lariat, lasso, rodeo, and rancho.

By the year 1825, despite the Mexican government in Texas barring the practice of slavery, up to 25 percent of the population were slaves brought from the southern united states, and the numbers only increased year after year. This so bothered the Mexican government that they banned further American immigration in 1830, which set off a chain of events that eventually caused the Mexican American War and the territorial acquisitions of one third of the current United States including the American Southwest. Later the Southern Slave State of Texas would join the Civil War on the side of the confederacy in 1861 with a population of slaves of at least one hundred and eighty two thousand, five hundred and sixty six, which was the number given in the 1860 census and which made up 30 percent of the state’s population. In a piece for the Smithsonian Magazine, Katie Nodjimbadem, I do hope I’m saying that right, I apologize otherwise, but Katie says, quote, While Texas ranchers fought in the war, they depended on their slaves to maintain their land and cattle herds. In doing so, the slaves developed the skills of cattle tending (breaking horses, pulling calves out of mud and releasing longhorns caught in the brush, to name a few) that would render them invaluable to the Texas cattle industry in the post-war era. End quote. I would say many of them didn’t learn these traits at this time, but had already known them, it was just that they were the only ones participating in these acts now, instead of alongside or under the supervision of their masters.

After the civil war and Juneteenth had freed the slaves, many of the freedmen found that they were unmatched in their skills with cattle and even horses and were immediately able to work as cowboys, sometimes for their ex owners who were desperate for help in the burgeoning cattle industry. I’ll quote Katie with the Smithsonian again:

Freed blacks skilled in herding cattle found themselves in even greater demand when ranchers began selling their livestock in northern states, where beef was nearly ten times more valuable than it was in cattle-inundated Texas. The lack of significant railroads in the state meant that enormous herds of cattle needed to be physically moved to shipping points in Kansas, Colorado and Missouri. Rounding up herds on horseback, cowboys traversed unforgiving trails fraught with harsh environmental conditions and attacks from Native Americans defending their lands. 

This would be the birthplace and time of the cowboy as we know it. From ex confederates, eastern fugitives, and European immigrants to indians, Mexicans, free blacks, and freed slaves, the cowboys were a colorful group of people who shared an extremely harsh and demanding lifestyle thats sole draw was freedom. It’s no wonder they became such an enduring icon.

While cowboys of all types shared in many of the duties, Black Cowboys, or so it seems modern historians have concluded, were typically given the not so great jobs of the trade. Such as being assigned to handle wild horses with wild behaviors in a career known as horsebreaking but.. that doesn’t even come close to what they’ve been credited with doing. Tricia Martineau Wagner in Black Cowboys of the Old West said, quote, these cowboys worked with horses and cattle as rangers, riders, ropers, bulldoggers, broncobusters, and mustangers. They were drovers, foremen, cowpunchers, cattle rustlers, brand readers, cattlemen, cooks, singers, and fiddlers. End quote. So, they held the exact same jobs and many more than their white counterparts. She also said that some were quote, legends in their own time, end quote.   of my favorite things I learned in this research is the name that some of these jobs had, such as buckerman and Hoss stink. Both are another term for a person who wrangles or breaks horses, or Hosses, hence Hoss. Why they’re called stinks, is beyond me but in Texas Cowboys, memories of the early days, a certain Brook Campbell wrote a small piece called… Hoss Stinks… in which he remembers his time in 1870 when, quote, the hoss learned that it couldn’t throw the rider, it would submit to being handled and soon respond to commands. End quote. I guess they’d stink the hosses enough to be able to be ridden. Or maybe, the rider stank like the hosses after riding them. Anyways, the fate of Brook Campbell isn’t exactly rosy; he ended up in what he called an invalid chair later in life due to one particularly rough ride where instead of his neck, he felt and heard his spine doing the popping… goes to show the dangers of this kind of work which many African Americans found themselves engaged in with their jobs as cowboys.

That being said! It may have been the reality of black cowboys that they lived a rather surprisingly similar lifestyle to their white counterparts. As William Loren Katz says, quote, the West was a vast open space and a dangerous place to be. Cowboys had to depend on one another. They couldn’t stop in the middle of some crisis like a stampede or an attack by rustlers and sort out who’s black and who’s white. Black people operated on a level of equality with the white cowboys. End quote. University of Oregon History Professor Kenneth Wiggins Porter has also said, quote, That a degree of discrimination and segregation existed in the cattle country should not obscure the fact that, during the halcyon days of the cattle range, blacks there frequently enjoyed greater opportunities for a dignified life than anywhere else in the united states. End quote. To further the idea that black cowboys had a brotherhood with their fellow men, Katie with the Smithsonian said, quote, African-American cowboys faced discrimination in the towns they passed through—they were barred from eating at certain restaurants or staying in certain hotels, for example—but within their crews, they found respect and a level of equality unknown to other African-Americans of the era. End quote. Cooperation, despite their racial backgrounds, was crucial among cowboys on the dangerous and adventurous open ranges. Deborah Liles again says, quote, It is also important to note that, on cattle drives after the war, black cowboys were often treated with respect and paid the equivalent of white wages. This kind of working environment existed because they were acknowledged for their skills, not their color, and the fact that it existed in the years directly after the war all but confirms that this respect existed before as well. End quote.

One such story I read gives a good example of how cowboy slaves were treated prior to the war. It involves a slave man named James Cape who was trained as a child to ride horses and tend cattle. Then, once a little older, he and four other men were sent from Southwestern Texas into Mexico to get some horses. Here’s a quote from Deborah Liles:

At one point, he, meaning James Cape, was the "leader" of a two-hundred-horse drive when a hailstorm erupted. His actions to stop the horses from "scatterment" were rewarded with a new saddle from his master. End quote.

Cape was later sent to the frontlines of the civil war in place of his master to look after the horses but once the war ended, he continued to be a cowboy in Texas and Missouri.

Although the black slaves and later black cowboys may have had it easier than their fellow contemporary African Americans in some respects, being a cowboy is still very tough and dangerous work as I’ve already gone into. And often times being black did indeed mean they got the worst or most dangerous of the jobs. One man who described what was probably the most dangerous of these jobs, that of breaking horses, or as he put it, being a bronc buster, was Matthew Bones Hooks, a man who was Texas Panhandle through and through who, much later in life, would establish black settlements and communities throughout that region.

Matthew Bones Hooks was born after the civil war and was known in the cowboy world as being one of the best bronco busters who could break any horse. He learned to break these horses on the DD Ranch where Hooks says the cowboys, quote, made me the best bronc rider in the country. But they weren't trying to make me a rider they were trying to get me throwed. End quote. According to the Texas folklorist and author J Frank Dobie, bucking was not usually a vicious act, but a natural instinctive response by horses to get rid of any clawed and fanged animal on their backs… I’d definitely count a cowboy holding on for dear life as a clawed and fanged animal so I don’t much blame the horses. In Ana Carolina Castillo Crimm’s article Matthew Bones Hooks from Black Cowboys of Texas, she says of his time on the DD Ranch that quote, the teasing cowboys would put young Matthew on any horse that looked like it would buck him off. End quote. And later she says that riders, quote, had to put up with broncs who might buck, jump, or rear. The worst were the broncs with the belly full of bedsprings. End quote. Some horses would attempt everything they could to shake a rider including throwing themselves over backwards onto ‘em or rolling over them to crush ‘em off. In J Frank Dobie’s book, the Mustangs, which Ana Carolina Castillo Crimm (A-Triple-C from now on) quotes, he retells a story a cowboy had once told him. The cowboy said, quote, That dun struck out pitching right through the middle of the herd. He pitched for half a mile right and left, backwards and forwards. There was no getting his motion. He pitched till we were both broke down and I was bleeding at nose, mouth, and ears. End quote. I had to look up what a , D, U, N, dun is in relation to horses and it’s apparently a horse with a lighter coloring on its body than on its legs, mane, tail, and face. An apparent genetic quality. It also has a dark coloring down its spine. The cave paintings of Lascaux in France dating to around 15,000 BC feature the dun variety of horses.

Switching back to Matthew Bones Hooks, he said of bronc busting, quote, we used to say that if you could ride a horse as far as three jumps, you could usually ride him, but you were usually thrown by the second jump. End quote. By Hooks estimation, horses only had four directions that they could jump. Luckily for him, he was able to predict which direction they’d buck next. Not every cowboy was quite as lucky. But about the job he had as a youngster, no more than sixteen by now, he said he took it because, quote, The only thing I have found that a white man was afraid of was a rattlesnake and a pitching horse. I do not know why, but they were. End quote. It pays to be the bravest of the bunch. And i can confirm as a white man, I am very afraid of rattle snakes. I almost stepped on one earlier this year in a New Mexico Canyon and I almost died from the threat of a heart attack alone.

To further describe the work of black cowboys and cowboys in general, A-Triple-C has a lengthy passage I quote now:

Each cowboy had between seven and ten horses, most of them smaller Spanish mustangs, weighing around nine hundred pounds. Each cowboy might have a pet pony, but he also had a cutting horse, a bridle horse, a night horse, a roping horse, a saddle horse and a packing horse. The night horses had to be the safest and most dependable, because, in an emergency such as a cattle stampede, a cowboy would have to jump on the horse without saddle or bridle, and the horse would carry him out of danger with nothing but his headstall and rope. These horses were often smart enough to bring a man back to camp if he were lost. The saddle horses were used for the daily duty of the roundup and were worked hard all morning for four to five hours in search of the elusive cattle. At lunch, the cowboys rode in and changed their exhausted, sweating mount for a second horse out of their string and rode out for a long, hot afternoon of gathering more cattle. Once the cattle were herded together, cowboys switched to their roping or cutting horses for separating the cattle to be branded. End quote.

Cowboys worked all day while on trips and if the herd got loose, all night. And as the above passage mentions, cowboys had a lot of horses. If it weren’t for the beginning of this episode going into the origin of the term cowboy, I’d wonder why on earth they weren’t termed horseboys. Which I honestly don’t even like saying out loud. Forget that awful word. Forget that I said that.

A-Triple-C then does the math of exactly how many horses would be on a cattle march that Matthew Bones Hooks would have been in charge of and that number ranges from one hundred and forty… to two hundred and fifty. And that was for a maximum of twenty five cowboys.  As you’ll hear later on with the incredible story of Nat Love, he worked cattle herds with 40 other cowboys… Regardless, Matthew Bones Hooks had his work cut out for him. Not only did he have to feed, doctor, and care for all of these horses, but in the morning, he also had to ride the bucking out of them before saddling ‘em. Then once each horse was exchanged for another, he had to care for and graze the used ones until the next few cowboys came back with even more exhausted horses. Repeat until the evening. Repeat for the duration of the long treks.

It wasn’t like these long treks invited good nights of sleep either. As a black cowboy from the late 1870s, a D. W. 80 John Wallace puts it, quote, we used our wagons and the ground with our blankets for a bed and a saddle for a pillow.. It was common to find a snake rolled up in your bedding or to be awakened early in the morning by the howl of the wolf or the holler of the panther. End quote.

Matthew Bones Hooks would continue to be a cowboy for a few more years, breaking horses, moving cattle, and working for different bosses that included, unbeknownst to him, some thieves. At one rather tense and pants soiling point in his life he’d have a noose around his neck and was about to be hanged for cattle theft before providence intervened and he was let go on account of him having no idea the people he worked for at the time were rustlers. Later in life, he’d become a porter for the very railroad companies that helped make cowboys obsolete. Much like Nat Love… but more on him in a moment…

Despite his exceptional stories of horse breaking and how important they are to this episode, I think my favorite thing about Matthew Bones Hooks, is his World Heritage Prayer that was recorded for all of posterity in the year 1890. This Prayer has become known by me and now all of you listeners, as the Great Chili Prayer of 1890. A-Triple-C puts it like this, quote,

The huge pot of chili done, everyone anxiously lined up for a serving, but Hooks would not allow anyone to eat until he had said grace. He got on his knees and bowed his head, while his old friends, most of them, now quoting Hooks, too stove up to get on their knees, end quote, also bowed their heads. His chili prayer was captured for posterity by one of the members in attendance:

Lord God, You know us ole cowhands is forgetful... We just know daylight and dark, summer, fall, winter and spring. But I sure hope we don't never forget to thank You before we is about to eat a mess of good Chilli. We don't know why in Your wisdom, You been so doggone good to us. The Heathen Chinese don't have no Chilli ever, the Frenchmen is left out. The Rooshins don't know no more about Chilli than a hog does about a side saddle. Even the Meskins don't get a good wiff of it unless they stay around here. Chilli eaters is some of your chosen people. We don't know why You is so doggone good to us. But Lord God, don’t never think we ain't grateful for this Chilli we is about to eat. Amen. End quote.

Thank God for cowboys, chili, and Matthew Bones Hook’s cowboy chili prayer. But really, even more descriptive and informative than Matthew Bones Hooks of the cowboy trade is the now infamous, Nat Love, who declared that there was no more knowledgeable person of cowboying in the west… than he himself.

So full disclosure, I didn’t plan on having such a large part of this episode being a biography of Nat Love but he’s just so interesting and fun and he really paints a wonderful and harrowing picture of what the life of a cowboy must have been like. Not to mention he runs into so many other interesting and influential people that populate the history of the American west and southwest. He even knew Jessie James and the gang! And through him I can essentially tell the story of the cowboy in general! He wrote his very own autobiography so there’s so much information about him FROM him. But, unlike Beckwourth, he wrote his story himself instead of having it transcribed which thankfully eliminated some mistakes and mishearings. But LIKE Beckwourth, his stories are full of fun hyperbole that Bracket F Williams in the forward to Love’s autobiography in the 1995 Bison Books Edition said, quote, must be treated as stories designed for telling around campfires, rather than ones intended to be pored over in academic settings. End quote. But Love himself does say in the Preface that, quote, I assure my readers that every event chronicled in this history is based on facts, and my personal experiences of more than fifty years of an unusually adventurous life. End quote. But right before that in parenthesis he says, quote, facts will prove stranger than fiction. End quote.

It’s worth mentioning the actual title of his book, which goes as follows: The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick”: A True Story of Slavery Days, Life on the Great Cattle Ranges and on the Plains of the “Wild and Woolly” West, Based on Facts, and Personal Experiences of the Author. It’s a wonderful and very descriptive mouthful and I now love the term wild and woolly west. Which I think he actually borrowed from the aforementioned Charlie Siringo, whose A Texas Cowboy book was originally published in 1885. In it there’s a chapter titled, back to my favorite occupation, that of a wild and woolly cow boy. Or maybe, they all called themselves that… It’s also fantastic to point out that the cover of three of the books I read for this episode about Black Cowboys, not just Love’s autobiography, sported one of a few fantastic photos he had taken of himself. I really like these pictures and they’re almost exactly like the ones you find in touristy towns like Branson, Tombstone, or Deadwood where you pay to dress up and hold guns in some saloon or barn… you know… I have somehow never done that despite really wanting to… I should remedy that. Anyways, the pictures of him standing hip out, loaded gun belt hanging off the other hip, in his chaps and gloves holding a rope or his rifle but always with his hat bill folded up and bandana around his neck flowing down can only be described as dashing. The pictures will be up on the site. Enough intro though, it’s time to hop on your saddle and hold tight for the awesome story of Deadwood Dick.

Deadwood Dick, but previously Red River Dick, was born into slavery as Nat Love in 1854 in Tennessee to parents who lived and worked together for their master which kept them too busy to look after Love, so, from an early age he was forced to look after himself. A trait which no doubt benefited him later in life. Another trait which benefited him later was his ability to quote, out drink any man I ever met in the cattle country. End quote. He chalks this up to an incident at a young age where he and his brother and sister got drunk from their mother’s homemade wine in a sweet corn patch that left him the following day with a quote, head on my shoulders several times larger than the one I was used to wearing. End quote. He’d further comment, quote, I could drink large quantities of the fiery stuff they called whiskey on the range without it affecting me in any way, but I have never been downright drunk since that time in the sweet corn patch. End quote.

When the war broke out, he and his friends desired only to join the Yankees but being too young, decided instead to fight the forests. With he and his companions separated into two regiments they would find and attack yellow jackets, bumble bees, and even hornets nests in place of the hated rebels. In skirmishes they dubbed the battle of the wilderness, fort Sumter, and one simply called Hell, they would kill every last flying menace they could find no matter the damage, which was often extensive. After the protracted battle against the hornets of fort Sumter he says quote, My nose looked like a dutch slipper, and it was several days before my eyes were able to perform the duties for which they were made. End quote. Eventually, the real war came to him and his master’s home though. As the Yankees poured into the south they passed through the land eating and taking everything they could including livestock and horses. This, he says, quote, entailed considerable misery and hardships on those left at home, especially the colored people who were not used to such a state of affairs, and were not accustomed to providing for their own wants. End quote. But the south would surrender to the invading Yankees and eventually his master and his father, who had been accompanying their owner in the confederate army as a fort builder, returned home and quote, in most respects things went on the same as before the war. End quote. Things went on the same because quote, in common with other masters of those days he did not tell us we were free. End quote. He being their master. But eventually, the news spread that Lincoln and the United states had freed them and after this, they rented the land in which their cabin rested from their late master. Unfortunately, while being free, for many years afterwards they were starving and nearly naked. But they would soon grow crops, engage in woodworking, and eventually learn to read and write.

But tragically his father would die when Love was still young, followed shortly by his sister’s husband and eventually his sister. So as a young man Love helped raise his nieces and nephews and console his mother while working for a dollar fifty a month. But the call of adventure and travel, a call I know very well, was beginning to grow.

I do have to point out a story he tells of his weekly Sunday rock battles. Apparently he and all the boys of the neighborhood, after working 6 days a week would gather together and collect all available rocks and then quote, we would proceed to have a pitched battle, throwing the rocks at each other as hard as we could, and with a grim intent to commit battery. As a rational consequence the bravest would force the weaker side to retreat. It then became a question of running or being rocked to death. After these battles we were all usually in very bad condition, having received very hard knocks on sundry and various parts of our anatomy, but for all that we have never bore malice toward each other. We were careful to keep these escapades from the knowledge of our elders. In this way we were quite successful until one time we had a boy nearly killed, then we thought the old folks would whip us all to death. This incident ended the rock battles. End quote. Growing up I participated in acorn and the occasional pine cone battle but rocks?! That’s something entirely more gnarly and hardcore. By the time even my younger brothers were growing up they’d whine if a nerf dart hit them funny. Well, I never heard my brothers complain but I certainly heard some of their neighbor friends. Anyways, this story, at least to me, illustrates the heartiness and s  trength that someone must have in order to go out west in the late 19th century and decide to become a Cowboy. By the time he made it out there, which he soon will, he’d already lived through countless tough and hungry years with much loss and sadness, bruises and wounds.

While still working 6 days a week to feed and clothe his family, Love took up the additional job of breaking a nearby farm’s colts for the owner’s son. With the additional challenge of doing it without the father and owner of the horse ranch discovering. For each Colt he made ten cents. And he broke a lot of colts. Over a dozen by his estimate without the boss ever discovering. He describes the whole ordeal like this:

Our mode of procedure was to drive one at a time in the barn, get it in a stall, then after much difficulty I would manage to get on its back. Then the door was opened and the pole removed and the horse liberated with me on its back, then the fun would commence. The colt would run, jump, kick and pitch around the barn yard in his efforts to throw me off. But he might as well tried to jump out of his skin because I held on to his mane and stuck to him like a leech. The colt would usually keep up his bucking until he could buck no more, and then I would get my ten cents.

No wonder Love becomes such an accomplished and storied cowboy. Quote, The experiences I gained in riding during these times, often stood me in good stead in after years during my wild life on the western plains. End quote. So Love’s experience is pretty similar to Matthew Bones Hooks and the other cowboys I quoted earlier which leads me to believe that the lifestyle was pretty consistent on the open range. Consistent and dangerous.

But for Love, the call of the wild was eventually too loud to ignore and he knew it was time to go out west. To help facilitate this, he bought a raffle for a horse in town for fifty cents and won! But instead of keeping the horse and taking off, Love sells the horse back to the sponsor for $50 only to buy another ticket and win yet again! Obviously he sells the horse back for another $50 and walks away with $100. Then after a few months helping around the home, buying things for his family, and continuing to console his mother, his uncle shows up to take his place. He was now free to see the world.

So In February of 1869, Love left his small wooden cabin and family near Nashville and headed west to dodge city Kansas on foot. Immediately he was struck by the craziness of the frontier town and of its cool cowboys. After failing to communicate with any of them in town though, he found some eating breakfasts on the outskirts where…. Well, I’ll let him tell you.

They proved to be a Texas outfit, who had just come up with a herd of cattle and having delivered them they were preparing to return. There were several colored cow boys among them, and good ones too. After breakfast I asked the camp boss for a job as cow boy. He asked me if I could ride a wild horse. I said “yes sir." He said if you can I will give you a job. So he spoke to one of the colored cow boys called Bronko Jim, and told him to go out and rope old Good Eye, saddle him and put me on his back. Bronko Jim gave me a few pointers and told me to look out for the horse was especially bad on pitching. I told Jim I was a good rider and not afraid of him. I thought I had rode pitching horses before, but from the time I mounted old Good Eye I knew I had not learned what pitching was. This proved the worst horse to ride I had ever mounted in my life, but I stayed with him and the cow boys were the most surprised outfit you ever saw, as they had taken me for a tenderfoot, pure and simple. After the horse got tired and I dismounted the boss said he would give me a job and pay me $30.00 per month and more later on. He asked what my name was and I answered Nat Love, he said to the boys we will call him Red River Dick. I went by this name for a long time.

In town the boss of the outfit would get him a saddle, bridle, spurs, chaps, a pair of blankets, and a fine colt 45 revolver before they all headed further west and south to the Texas panhandle on one unforgettable journey.

Almost immediately after they left dodge city they were ambushed by about 100 Indians which quote, During this fight we lost all but six of our horses, our entire packing outfit and our extra saddle horses, which the Indians stampeded, then rounded them up after the fight and drove them off. And as we only had six horses left us, we were unable to follow them, although we had the satisfaction of knowing we had made several good Indians out of bad ones. End quote. And by good Indians… he means a dead one. Curiously, red River dick would constantly throughout his autobiography comment negatively about Indians and especially Mexicans and even half breeds. Nat Love, or Red River dick by this point in our story, seems to be telling the tale of a cowboy, not necessarily that of a black cowboy. He mentions the evils of slavery in a pretty fantastic long paragraph in the first chapter or so but after that, his mention of being black or being imperiled by that fact is next to none. In the foreward of the Bison Books Edition of Love’s Autobiography, Williams would say this, quote, one is simply left to wonder why he decided to write his life in the voice of a generic cowboy rather than that of a “black,” "colored," or even "freedman" cowboy. Part of the answer, it would seem, lies in his effort to recapture the glory of bygone days. His determination, despite the statement in the long subtitle, is to represent the boys in their glory as they lived in the wild and woolly West. He describes their "true" hearts and "great" souls in the preface. They are "the BROTHERHOOD of men." The Life and Adventures of Nat Love is a man's tale of how to make and keep low friends in high places and how to get in and out of "close places" surrounded by’ "low people" with the love of a great horse. End quote. And it really is a refreshing tale. I encourage everyone listening to read it, even though it seems like I’m giving a lot away, I skip over so much. Back to the story, though.

After the ambush by the native americans, they’d spend the rest of their journey home mostly on foot after burying their fallen comrade. It was the first time red River dick had ever fired a weapon but as he put it, quote, I unlimbered my artillery and after the

first shot I lost all fear and fought like a veteran. End quote. And by losing all fear he really meant it. He’d also say quote, After this engagement with the Indians I seemed to lose all sense as to what fear was and thereafter during my whole life on the range I never experienced the least feeling of fear, no matter how trying the ordeal or how desperate my position. End quote.

For the next three years he’d work in the Duvall outfit out of Texas making regular trips to dodge city and throughout this time he’d become, according to him, quote, known throughout the country as a good all around cow boy and a splendid hand in a stampede. End quote.

From Texas, Red river Dick would travel even further west to Arizona to work for the Pete Gallinger company where he’d prove himself again while making more friends along the way. He had this to say of these men, quote, Many of these men who were my companions on the trail and in camp, have since become famous in story and history, and a braver, truer set of men never lived than these wild sons of the plains whose home was in the saddle and their couch, mother earth, with the sky for a covering. They were always ready to share their blanket and their last ration with a less fortunate fellow companion and always assisted each other in the many trying situations that were continually coming up in a cowboy's life. End quote.

By speaking so much to y’all about Nat Love, I’m essentially describing the life of any cowboy on the open range, not just that of black cowboys. He provides through his autobiography, a fantastic view into this much romanticized lifestyle. It’s also part of the reason I quote him so much. He really gives so much great detail about the exciting and the mundane things a cowboy in this time period, THE time period of the cowboy, did.

Here’s another extended quote that highlights the tasks of cowboys in general:

When we were not on the trail taking large herds of cattle or horses to market or to be delivered to other ranches we were engaged in range riding, moving large numbers of cattle from one grazing range to another, keeping them together, and hunting up strays which, despite the most earnest efforts of the range riders would get away from the main herd and wander for miles over the plains before they could be found, overtaken and returned to the main herd.

In addition to his everyday tasks, he had the added bonus of encountering Indians and cattle rustlers which they’d chase deep into the wilderness. Sometimes to no avail, sometimes winning their stolen goods back. At one point he mentions about frontier Justice that quote, in those days on the great cattle ranges there was no law but the law of might, and all disputes were settled with a forty-five Colt pistol. End quote. Overall it seems, Red River dick loved his work and honestly he makes me wish I had a time machine. He says quote, I gloried in the danger, and the wild and free life of the plains, the new country I was continually traversing, and the many new scenes and incidents continually arising in the life of a rough rider. End quote.

When not riding upwards of 80 to 100 miles a day or learning Spanish like a native speaker, Red River dick, or as I will call him, RRD, was learning the trails and brands enough to be promoted to chief brand reader of the ranch. He describes the duty like this, quote, In the cattle country, all the large cattle raisers had their squad of brand readers whose duty it was to attend all the big round-ups and cuttings throughout the country, and to pick out their own brands and to see that the different brands were not altered or counterfeited. They also had to look to the branding of the young stock. During the big round-ups it was our duty to pick out our brand, and then send them home under the charge of our cowboys, likewise the newly branded stock. After each brand was cut out and started homeward, we had to stay with the round up to see that strays from the different herds from the surrounding country did not again get mixed up, until the different home ranges were reached. End quote.

On Christmas Day in 1872, RRD witnessed the death of five horses and three of his friends in a dispute that began over a saddle horse. It was, quote, a day in my memory which time cannot blot out. End quote. A cowboy’s life could be a violent one. And not just from Indians or other cowboys but occasionally from the elements as well.

On one massive two thousand head herd of cattle delivery from arizona to dodge city, red River dick and forty other cowboys ran into some trouble as soon as they crossed into kansas. Once across the Cimmaron River, a typical I 44 corridor Great Plains thunderstorm liked to have scattered the entire herd. Love has this to say about it:

Imagine, my dear reader, riding your horse at the top of his speed through torrents of rain and hail, and darkness so black that we could not see our horses heads, chasing an immense herd of maddened cattle which we could hear but could not see, except during the vivid flashes of lightning which furnished our only light. It was the worst night's ride I ever experienced.

That quote is so great and hair raising, I can even picture myself there, feeling and seeing it all… I lived almost 11 years in Oklahoma so I’m familiar with such storms and irrational temperaments of weather but I’ve never experienced it from the back of a horse at full speed over dangerous terrain. Although I have ridden my motorcycle through heavy rain, small hail, and even ice. After that last one my knees ached for days from the wet cold. That ride had been less than forty minutes. I couldn’t imagine all night on a horse…

The morning after the storm on their way back to camp RRD says this, quote, we saw the great danger we had been in during our mad ride. There were holes, cliffs, gulleys and big rocks scattered all around, some of the cliffs going down a sheer fifty feet or more, where if we had fallen over we would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below, but we never thought of our personal danger that night, and we did not think particularly of it when we saw it further than to make a few joking remarks about what would have happened if some one of us had gone over. One of the boys offered to bet that a horse and rider going over one of those cliffs would bring up in China, while others thought he would bring up in Utah. It was our duty to save the cattle, and every thing else was of secondary importance. We never lost a single steer during this wild night, something we were justly proud of. End quote.

Remember the talk of night horses that Matthew Bones Hooks spoke of and how they were the most trusted and the smartest… well it seems these men had some good night horses.

After this two month journey through the plains, he and his forty cowboys As well as all the others who’d just performed similar treks decided to quote, paint the town a deep red color and drink up all the bad whiskey in the city. End quote. This was typical of cowboys after a long drive throughout the period. They’d drink, dance, gamble, party, and shoot up the town so much so that by the end of the debauchery, they’d be broke. Except Red River Dick, of course. Who’d save all but $50 before the nights festivities.

Many times he mentions the importance of his gun and his horse, which makes sense in such a line of work. To emphasize this he says, quote, A cowboy's first care is always after his gun and his horse, that animal often meaning life and liberty to the cow boy in a tight place and the cow boy without a horse is like a chicken without its head, completely lost. End quote.

Occasionally the monotonous rocking back and forth life atop a horse a cowboy endured could be broken up by exciting or unusual events. RRD and crew at one point head down to what he calls old Mexico where they talk and laugh and exchange pointers with the Mexican cowboys. He goes on to say meeting other cowboys from other parts of the country or from other states always offered the immense benefit of knowledge gained and pointers traded about the land and the job. He says quote, we were always ready to learn anything new when we met anyone who was capable of teaching us. End quote.

You see how it’s impossible to not keep constantly quoting him when he just has the best things to say? He’s got so many great stories so I’m going to keep telling you about him even though I’ve got a couple other people I’d love to talk about…

On another long haul of cattle on the way to Wyoming, Red River Dick and his cowboy friends would run into some Native Americans in Indian territory, or modern day Oklahoma, who wanted a toll for their walking through the land. The cowboys said, this wasn’t their land on account of it being a Federal Government Highway that was free to use, so they’d be paying no such toll. Predictably, once the cowboys had made camp and bedded down for the evening, the indians attacked them and attempted to scatter the herd so they could steal some of the steers. The cowboys successfully fought them off with their guns but got little to no sleep after collecting the cattle again. Then the next morning, once the sun was up, they saw a horrific sight that they hadn’t expected to find. Quote, the indians in large numbers had hid in the tall grass for the purpose of shooting us from ambush and being on foot they were unable to get out of the way of the herd as it stampeded through the grass, the result was that scores of the painted savages were trampled under the hoofs of the maddened cattle, and in the early gray dawn of the approaching day we witnessed a horrible sight, the indians were all cut to pieces, their heads, limbs, trunk and blankets all being ground up in an inseparable mass, as if they had been through a sausage machine. The sight was all the more horrible as we did not know the Indians were hidden in the grass during the night. End quote. While my inclusion of this story may seem a little gratuitous, it does point out the obvious dangers that cowboys faced. It wasn’t just from the native american’s rifles or arrows, but their own stampeding cattle are also capable of killing a cowboy. The dangers don't end there though.

The very next night after the horrible stampeding massacre, another dangerous ambush happened at around midnight when the sound of distant thunder from the north grew louder and louder while RRD was on lookout. It wasn’t from Indians though, this was my old friend, the Buffalo. I’ll let him tell the story:

We immediately gave the alarm and started for our herd to get them out of the way of the buffalo, but we soon found that despite our utmost efforts we would be unable to get them out of the way, so we came to the conclusion to meet them with our guns and try and turn the buffalo from our direction if possible, and prevent them from going through our herd. Accordingly all hands rode to see the oncoming stampede, pouring volley after volley into the almost solid mass of rushing beasts, but they paid no more attention to us than they would have paid to a lot of boys with pea shooters. On they came, a maddened, plunging, snorting, bellowing mass of horns and hoofs.

They’d lose 5 heads of cattle that night and many more were maimed by the unstoppable mass of bison. Sadly, much like the Indians from the night before, in a sort of twisted reversal of fates, they also lost a cowboy named Cal whose spooked horse raced in front of the herd. They’d only find scraps of Cal Surcey’s clothing and about a jackrabbit’s size worth of his horse. But of course, RRD’s response to this is just fantastic. He says of the incident, quote, it seemed to me that as soon as we got out of one trouble we got into another on this trip. But we did not get discouraged, but only wondered what would happen next. We did not care much for ourselves, as we were always ready and in most cases anxious for a brush with the Indians, or for the other dangers of the trail, as they only went to relieve the dull monotony of life behind the herd. End quote. Oh to live life excited for a life or death encounter because the day job is just that dull… after the journey’s conclusion he’d have this to say about Cowboy life and it’s excitement:

To the cowboy accustomed to riding long distances, life in the saddle ceases to be tiresome. It is only the dull monotony of following a large herd of cattle on the trail day after day that tires the rider and makes him long for something to turn up in the way of excitement. It does not matter what it is just so it is excitement of some kind.

He’d certainly find excitement on the way home from his next job when they were overrun by an attacking Indian party. His horse would get shot out from beneath him, they’d engage in hand to hand combat, and he’d remember shouting, quote, We will battle them to hell! end quote. During the engagement his friend would be killed with a bullet through the heart and they’d soon realize their only option was to run. Or as he put it in this fantastic bit, quote, then it became a question of running or being scalped. We thought it best to run as we did not think we could very well spare any hair at that particular time, anyway we mostly preferred to have our hair cut in the regular way by a competent barber, not that the Indians would charge us too much, they would have probably done the job for nothing, but we didn't want to trouble them, and we did not grudge the price of a hair cut any way, so we put spurs to our horses and they soon carried us out of danger. end quote.

He’d continue to move horses and cattle and be in or near gunfights with more Indians, ruffians, and rustlers. He’d advance in his position as cowboy and brand reader and he’d say he lived basically, quote, as high as a king. End quote. After winter RRD would round up the stray cattle and get ready for more herding. Simply put, he’d continue his cowboying with the rest of his comrades. In a long passage I will quote from him, I know, yet another long passage, but I hope you’re not tired of hearing them, he’s just so great at conveying thoughts and stories. Anyways, he has this to say, quote, To see me now you would not recognize the bronze hardened daredevil cowboy, the slave boy who a few years ago hunted rabbits in his shirt tail on the old plantation in Tennessee, or the tenderfoot who shrank shaking all over at the sight of a band of painted Indians. I had long since felt the hot sting of the leaden bullet as it plowed its way through some portion of my anatomy. Likewise I had lost all sense of fear, and while I was not the wild blood thirsty savage and all around bad man many writers have pictured me in their romances, yet I was wild, reckless and free, afraid of nothing, that is nothing that I ever saw, with a wide knowledge of the cattle country and the cattle business and of my guns with which I was getting better acquainted with every day, and not above taking my whiskey straight or returning bullet for bullet in a scrimmage. End quote. I mean… it doesn’t get much better than that and I can’t help but think that his experience or at least the way he tells it, is quite possibly the best summation of cowboy life that exists on record.

When not actively cowboying, but while searching for the necessary excitement that passes the time between travels, RRD would say that he and his fellow cowboys would participate in daredevil riding, roping, shooting, fighting Indians and cattle rustlers, and hunting buffalo. But they wouldn’t hunt buffalo from two hundred yards away, oh no, they’d ride out to them, force them to stampede, shaking the ground all around, rope them, and then dispatch them with knife or revolver. These men were crazy. One such time Love found the biggest bull he could find in the back of the herd and roped his horns but instead of reeling him in, the buffalo threw him from the horse, knocked the horse to the ground, and took off with his favorite saddle! But not to be deterred, after he shook off his concussed vision he hopped on his horse bareback in pursuit. He’d get that saddle back and he’d eat well that evening. In a quote I wish I had for my bison kingdom episode he has this to say of the meat, quote, A buffalo steak fresh from a still quivering buffalo broiled over coals is a dish fit for the Gods. End quote.

At this time in his story, RRD tells the tale, possibly tall, of him going to Mexico, riding his horse into a saloon, firing into the ceiling, and ordering drinks. He soon realizes he’s surrounded outside by angry Mexicans and that his only recourse of escape is to shoot himself out of the situation. Which he does without a scratch while putting to permanent sleep a lot of his fellow man. I don’t know what to make of this story really. While fun and exciting, I can’t say, unlike most tales of his, that it’s true. I honestly don’t believe that it is true. But, wether it is or not, by this time in his career, Red River Dick was indeed known as the best shot from Arizona to the Texas panhandle. Which would soon increase his notoriety and lead to his name change.

But first, RRD is sent to round up all the wild mustangs that roamed the panhandle and surrounding areas that he and his fellow cowboys could find. He gives a thrilling story about he and the 20 odd cowboys encircling the mustangs before leading them for thirty consecutive days, day and night back to the ranch where they could be broken. In the meantime though they discover their cook and his wagon were overtaken by indians and the cook was killed. RRD and the other cowboys vow revenge. They also realize these horses can’t be trusted so the whole thing was kind of a bust.

It’s here in the story that Nat Love, Red River Dick, the black American, ex slave, gives a curious reflection on an event that has become rather important and infamous in American history. In 1876 he’s only 60 miles from Custer and his Seventh Cavalry who are notoriously surrounded and killed by the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American Tribes. He laments their passing and the great massacre that occurs in the process and he wishes he and his fellow cowboys could have been there to stop it. Its curious that he feels that way to us now with the benefit of hindsight but at the time, it really was seen as a huge defeat for America and progress, at least in the western part of the untied states. I know ive read of many in the north and especially northeast who celebrated the defeat of Custer but, to a man actually out there on the plains and in the constant path of danger from indians, this was a scary prospect to Love and his comrades on the trail.

A few days later it was July 4th, 1876, the 100 year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of America, and RRD, along with every other cowboy in the surrounding areas were in Deadwood, South Dakota. It was on this day that a contest was proposed for a grand prize of two hundred dollars. The contest was to see who could, from atop a horse, rope, throw, tie, bridle, saddle, and mount what he describes as some of the most wild and vicious mustangs he’d ever encountered. Needless to say, in 9 minutes flat, a time that he describes in 1907 as having never been beaten, he won first place. Right there on the spot Red River Dick became known from then on and forever as Deadwood Dick, a name which he truly enjoyed. A curious fact is that 5 of the other contestants out of twelve were black which fortifies the notion that black cowboys were disproportionally given the task of bronco busting as some authors have suggested. You’d think for a chance at $200 any ole cowboy would give it a shot… unless they knew better and enjoyed the way their head sat atop their neck at the proper angle. Not to be outdone at cowboying though, Deadwood Dick would go on that same afternoon to win at both a rifle and a revolver shooting competition which brings truth to his stories of shooting straight. He said afterwards that he and his fellow cowboy brothers would spend that money well over the next few days in which time I imagine they drank that town dry. Later on his way back to Arizona he’d run into Buffalo Bill, further disproving my insistence that the West is larger than it seems.

So Nat Love had become Red River Dick who had become Deadwood Dick who is not long afterwards baptized by fire in his new name. In October of that same year, Deadwood Dick is gathering stray cattle when he’s attacked by Indians and shot through the leg, thigh, chest, and off his horse which was killed. Bleeding and out of bullets, he’s surrounded but fights vigorously enough to nearly lose both his nose and a finger before being knocked unconscious and dragged back to the Indians camp. Curiously, when he wakes up, his wounds are dressed and it seems that the tribe is going to spare his life. But still, for several days they kept him tied up before finally releasing him, all the while feeding him Buffalo steaks cooked over buffalo chips. He would soon learn this was Yellow Dog’s tribe and it was filled with Native Americans of various lineage including some having black ancestors. After granting him freedom, they pierced his ears and adopted him into the tribe. They taught him war dances, medicine dances, they spoke in hand gestures, and of course, the chief threw his young and beautiful daughter into Deadwood Dick’s unwilling arms for marriage. But after 30 days of living with Yellow Dog, DD would made his escape in the dead of night by crawling for over 250 yards through the grass before stealing off with a good looking horse and racing his way back to the home ranch. He would have this to say about his luck in this ordeal and his luck in general after his cowboy brothers marveled that he had returned, quote, those indians are certainly wonderful doctors, and then I am naturally tough as I carry the marks of fourteen bullet wounds on different parts of my body, most any one of which would be sufficient to kill an ordinary man, but I am not even crippled. It seems to me that ever a man bore a charm, I am the man, as I have had five horses shot from under me and killed, have fought indians and Mexicans in all sorts of situations, and have been in more tight places than I can number. Yet I have always managed to escape with only the mark of a bullet or knife as a reminder. End quote. He’d keep that horse he stole for five years and would call him, Yellow Dog Chief. Nat Love’s the best.

He would go on to praise the Indians as great fighters and healers. He said they practice constantly with the bow, even the children, which made them exceedingly expert. He’d also describe how their oblong shields, being made of tanned bison skins, were so strong an arrow wouldn’t pass through it, nor a bullet in most cases, yet he’d seen their arrows go clean through a buffalo. And speaking of bison, they apparently named him Buffalo Papoose. They told him through sign language that he had killed five of theirs and wounded three more which… big, if true. I mean, I’m not sure I’d spare someone who caused eight casualties on my side. At the end of this chapter though, he would say this, which I think makes his stories, even that of the Mexican saloon, more believable. Quote, it was not with any sense of pride or in bravado that I recount here the fate of the men who have fallen at my hand. It is a terrible thing to kill a man no matter what the case. But as I am writing a true history of my life, I cannot leave these facts out but every man who died at my hands was either seeking my life or died in open warfare, when it was a case of killing or being killed. End quote. He’d never see Yellow Dog or his band of Indians again although without saying he was grateful, he does say he learned a lot which would benefit him later in the course of his career as Deadwood Dick, who was of course, the most knowledgeable person at cowboying in the wild and woolly west.

A year later in 1877, having fully recovered, he joined the boys on the season’s first trip up to Dodge City. After arriving and meeting up with old friends and doing what cowboys do after a long drive, Deadwood Dick and company, over the space of many days, had their fair share of quote unquote, the bad whiskey. Although according to him, he had enough of the stuff to be feeling rather reckless and in need of some amusement. Which he found at the old Fort Dodge when he realized, quote, it seemed to me that it would be a good thing to rope a cannon and take it back to Texas with us to fight Indians with. End quote. He of course blames the bad whiskey but, I’ve been told alcohol only makes you do things you really want to do but are too afraid to do when sober. Of course I’m being facetious, but the bad whiskey may have indeed influenced him enough to ride into the open gate of the active military fort, through the armed sentry, succeed in roping the cannon, fail to budge the cannon, proceed to take off the rope, and then ride past the now completely awake and mobilized cavalry through the front gate and out onto the open plains. Wheeeeeere he was obviously overtaken and caught. When asked if he knew anyone in town that could help him clear his name, he mentions Bat Masterson.

Now, Bat Masterson will no doubt play a leading role later in this podcast when I inevitably cover the life and legend of Wyatt Earp, which is top on my list of future episodes. But for now, all you need to know is that Bat Masterson was an accomplished civilian scout for the army, buffalo hunter, and by the end of this very year of 1877, he’d be elected as Sheriff of Ford County, which houses Dodge City. But of course he knew Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, and would later in life become good friends with Theodore Roosevelt… eventually I will convince y’all that the West isn’t such a small world after all. But I do recognize I have done little to dispel that notion thus far. Anyways, Bat asks him what on earth he was doing, to which he repeats the above quoted line about wanting to take that cannon to fight indians at which point everyone laughs it off and the Cavalry agree to let him go if he pays for their drinks at the bar they were all meeting at. Deadwood Dick mentions this tab amounted to fifteen dollars but in the end, Bat Masterson paid his way for him and off he went free of trouble for invading a military base, trying to steal military equipment, and then fleeing the scene of the crime. Of course, not before Bat Masterson had told him, quote, I was the only cowboy that he liked, and that his brother Jim also thought very much of me. End quote. Such is the amazing life of Deadwood Dick. I love this man.

Later that year Deadwood Dick would get stuck out in a dangerous and cold storm while looking for wandering cattle and calves for four freakin’ days in which he nearly found himself dead, but instead was rescued by an old man with long hair named Cater. Cater had been hunting buffalo since the early 1830s. His cabin that housed and warmed Deadwood Dick was filled from floor to wall with horns, pelts, more furs than could be counted, snake skins, and rattlesnake rattlers. He was fed Bison meat and veggies and all throughout the night he heard the old man’s stories… stories I absolutely wish I could’ve heard myself. The next morning The old man Cater gave him breakfast and sent him off with lunch. But DD’s troubles weren’t over yet. That night his horse would leave him after being spooked by what I can only discern, from his description, that of a ghostly female voice. This sudden abandonment forces him to walk with his heavy saddle all the next day and almost into the night, wondering the whole time if he was going to survive this particular ordeal on the open plains. Thankfully, he’s saved by the sight of Bison. At first he can’t shoot them because his hands are shaking and his vision is blurred on account of his lack of nourishment and walking so far with the heavy saddle. But eventually, he takes the shot and hits his mark. He eats until he can no longer fit anymore in his gut and his parched throat drinks the Bison’s blood from its slit neck which he describes as tasting, quote, like warm sweet milk. End quote. Despite that turn of luck, he’s not out of danger yet. But probably because of that luck, he survives the next danger he faces when a blizzard quickly overtakes him and he passes out only to wake up back at camp. Miraculously, his cowboy brothers found him and brought him back and warmed him, but still, he says, quote all the skin came off my nose and mouth and my hands and feet had been so badly frozen that the nails all came off. End quote.

Deadwood Dick would continue to Cowboy, be involved in Range Wars, which I will go into in more detail in just a bit, and he would describe his many awesome run ins with Billy the Kid. I’d love to do an episode on Billy the Kid in the future but despite stomping around his birthplace, deathplace, and just about everywhere he ran around in in Texas and New Mexico from Silver City to Las Vegas, I don’t know much about him. Which, now that I think about it, is the best reason to do an episode, so that I can learn with y’all. Anyways…

In Mexico he’d fall in love for what he called the very first time, despite meeting many handsome women on the open plains. But according to him, quote, I had never experienced the feeling called love, until I met my charming sweetheart in old Mexico. End quote. I totally understand where he’s coming from in this regard as I have also recently been struck by the thunderbolt. But anyways, I’m going to quote the second to last long excerpt from this man’s amazing autobiography before I must move on. So to quickly recap, Nat Love, through his various aliases, has roped horses, cattle, a formidable Bison, and an unmovable cannon… but after the shock that is the thunderbolt of love, and under the influence of what he calls Mexican whiskey, Deadwood Dick decides to rope a train…but I’ll let him describe it:

I was feeling fine, so when the little engine came puffing along in the distance I said to the boys I have roped nearly everything that could be roped, so now I am going to rope the engine. They tried to persuade me not to make the attempt, but I was in no mood to listen to reason or anything else, so when the engine came along I put my spurs to my horse and when near enough I let fly my lariat. The rope settled gracefully around the smoke stack, and as usual my trained horse set himself back for the shock, but the engine set both myself and my horse in the ditch, and might have continued to set us in places had not something given way, as it was the rope parted, but the boys said afterwards that they thought they would have to send for a wrecking train to clean the track or rather the ditch.

Love’ll make you do crazy things. Unfortunately, his lovely Mexican young lady would die from disease before they were to be married. He’d say, quote, her death broke me all up and after I buried her I became very wild and reckless, not caring what happened to me. End quote. Love’ll make you do crazy things. While trying to forget her he’d get into fights with Mexicans and indians, have even more horses shot out from under him, he’d be constantly wounded, and go daredevil riding… but only time would heal his deepest of wounds. Time and the interest of the work on the ranch. Which was his, in my opinion, original love. But even that love wasn’t meant to last forever. Much like he’d hooked the train that rode past him, the train would soon rope him and exactly like Matthew Bones Hooks, Deadwood Dick himself, would also become a porter for the ever expanding railroad.

In 1890 he bid farewell to the cowboy lifestyle and took a job for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The year before that he got married to his lifelong wife and second love. Who he reassures us is quote not one bit jealous of my first love, who lies buried in the city of old Mexico. End quote. He then goes on to describe his life as a man in the employ of the railroad. The rest of his telling is still fantastic and written in his same prose and wording and worth every second of reading. But I’m going to end his story with this amazing quote that mirrors my feelings, except from someone who has an even more intimate knowledge of the landscape and of the aura that the area encapsulates… quote, I always say to the traveling American, see America. How many of you have done so? Only those who have seen this grand country of ours can justly appreciate the grandeur of our mountains and river, valley and plain, canyon and gorge, lakes and springs, cities and towns, the grand evidences of god’s handiwork scattered all over the fair land over which waves the stars and stripes. End quote. He then goes on to say, quote, think of the pioneer who in 1849 traversed these once barren stretches of prairie, walking beside his slow-moving ox team, seeking the promised land, breaking a trail for the generations that were to come after him as you are coming now in a pullman car. Think of the dangers that beset him on every hand, then wonder at the nerve he had… then again… let your chest swell with pride that you are an American… End quote. He goes on to beautifully describe the west and I’m tempted to read you the entire long and wonderful quote but I want you to read it for yourself. I want you to spend the nominal amount of time and money to read this fantastic piece of nonfiction auto biography written by a black man, born a slave, who witnessed and was a part of more things than the average human could ever hope to accomplish… At the end of his long and lovely description he says, quote, I think you will agree with me that this grand country of ours is the peer of any in the world, and that volumes cannot begin to tell of the wonders of it. Then after taking such a trip you will say with me, “See America.” I have seen a large part of America, and am still seeing it, but the life of a hundred years would be all too short to see our country. America, I love thee, sweet land of liberty, home of the brave and the free. End quote.

Through Nat Love, Red River, Deadwood Dick and his stories and my retelling of them, I imagine you have a pretty dang good idea of what the life of a cowboy was like, wether black or white, wether in Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, or in Texas, they had it rough and tough but as the writer J Frank Dobie said, quote, No cowboy ever quit while his life was hardest and his duties were most exacting. End quote. Nat Love definitely embodies that and I think that’s a good exclamation mark to the end of his story and of the description of cowboys in this episode. So now I’m going to tell you about some other famous Black cowboys with some pretty incredible stories that don’t dive as deeply into the day to day work of cowboy life, but rather, dives deeply into their very colorful lives instead.

Unlike Deadwood Dick, our next historical actor, while fascinating, is a bit confusing… well not confusing, but… well, it could be two persons that I’m talking about here.. but both are exceptionally interesting! Although, one may be entirely fictional but so widely believed that it was very difficult and downright impossible for me to DISprove his existence… thankfully, many other people before me, well, actually not many but a few smarter and harder working people before me MAY have done that very disproving for me… but without further adieu, I would like to introduce you to Isom Dart… who may or may not have been born as Ned Huddleston. For now though, he’s Ned.

Ned was born in Arkansas in 1849 as a slave where he worked the fields until 1861 when he was sent to the front lines of the Civil War as a nurse, cook, and food thief for the Confederacy. He was only 12 years old. But after the war and freedom he left Arkansas and headed west into Texas where he became a rodeo clown. Now… if you’re not too familiar with what a rodeo clown is, it isn’t quite as funny as it sounds. Their job, besides to provide some entertainment I suppose, is to distract the angry, deadly bull from goring or trampling the unseated rider long enough to allow said rider to evacuate the arena safely. Rodeo clowns literally dance and prance around to catch the eye of the very angry beast who in that moment’s got murder in its heart. It isn’t any wonder why Ned would eventually grow proficient enough with horses that he himself would become a stuntman and then a master horseman after that dangerous job. At the same time that he was getting great with horses though, he was also growing proficient in rustling, or stealing them. Our first clue of some possible mischief in this story though, is right here with Rodeo Clowns. I did a quick search on when the profession was invented, if invented is the right term, and around the year 1900 came up… at this point in Ned’s story, we’re in the year of our Lord 1866 or so… anyways…

After meeting a Mexican Vaquero named Terresa, the two of them would go into Mexico, steal horses, push them across the Rio Grande, and sell them to needy American Ranchers. The problem with that is the penalty for horse stealing in Texas was, according to the 1879 Penal Code of the State of Texas, quote, confinement in the penitentiary not less than five nor more than fifteen years. End quote. That was the written law… the Wild West law, was, a short drop and a sudden stop. ALTHOUGH… The myth of rampant lynching of horse thieves in the old west may be just that… a myth. And please know I do not intend to be bringing in so many myths! Or possible myths! Regardless, I’m sure Terresa and Ned believed there were some serious consequences had they been caught rustlin’ horses. But it seems the reward may have been worth it to Ned and for a time, they were actually quite lucrative. Eventually though, the two took an honest job and headed on a cattle drive to the northern Utah, Colorado border. Once there, they split up and Ned decided to try his hand at going steady.

At this point he ended up in a place on the Wyoming, Utah, Colorado border called Brown’s Hole where the remote valley offered solitude for all sorts of sordid people including Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch Gang.

Quick aside about Brown’s Hole cause it’s pretty cool. The place would eventually became known as Brown’s Park… I guess that sounds a lot more inviting on a brochure. The small valley town sits on the Green River and ends in modern day Dinosaur National Monument which although I’ve planned on three separate occasions to visit, I have yet to… but I can’t wait. It was first written about in 1650 by a Spanish Father Ortiz and later explored by previous The American Southwest Podcast alums such as William H Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and Kit Carson himself. I feel like I’ll never have to tell Kit’s story ‘cause he’ll just keep being brought up. Major Native American groups also either called the place home at one time or had visited it; from the Comanche, Sioux, and Blackfoot to the Arapahoe, Ute, and even the Navajo who passed through it before settling in the ruins of the Anasazi down south. The Lewis & Clarke expedition wrote about it… a fo rt slash trading post called Davy Crockett was built by fur traders (although the man himself wouldn’t step foot in it)… and during the Goldrush years of 1848 it became known as a popular stop for cattle on their way out west. It was also a popular stop, and then stay, for all manner of outlaws. It was even said during Brown’s Park’s heyday with ruffians that all manner of outlaw deeds were tolerated… except murder, of course. Although, murder was tolerated if the offender stole cattle or was themselves a murderer. Violence was just a wrong word away with knife and gun fights surprisingly common and I read quite a few stories about both of them in Brown’s Hole. So it was in this lovely little town that Ned eventually decided to try his luck at mining with a new partner he’d recently met.

At that time The Colorado Territory was full of ore, gold, and silver and plenty of men trying to get at it. Actually, to this day, the area is so inundated with gold that you literally breathe it in when you’re outside. There are extremely fine particles called flour gold that float through the air if it’s a hot and windy enough day. The area’s also filled with lots of silver, including the largest single piece ever found in the US; Uranium, which they’d use in ceramics and glass and all manner of things that no doubt gave lots of folks the cancer pre fission times; and plenty of coal, although, that seems to be running out these days. Anyways, Ned was a towering, for the time, six feet and two inches, and he was a strong and hardworking man. His partner, Jesse Ewing on the other hand was a small man and was described as being as mean as they come. This helped at first as it stopped people from taking advantage of their claim on account of Ned being black and all, but it wasn’t other people Ned should’ve been worried about. After some successful work on the mine, Ewing let greed take over. Here’s a quote from Black Cowboys of the Old west by Tricia Martineau Wagner that’s attributed to a contemporary miner that explains that Ewing, quote, exploited Ned's young strength and strong back, spent all Ned's money on food and blasting powder; then picked a quarrel and drove the young Negro off the claim. End quote. It wouldn’t be the last time the two would have a run in.

Now broke… broke and angry, Ned got a job in a railroad kitchen working for a Chinese cook whoooo also happened to be a formidable poker player aaaaand who also ran regular games. Obviously Ned bet his wages that the cook gave him on said games… usually losing. And then one particularly crooked game later, Ned was completely broke… yet again. Then, in an even worse stroke of luck, shortly after leaving this particular game, Ned’s Chinese cook employer vanished into the wild. He disappeared and it wasn’t long before Ned was nabbed for his murder as the primary suspect.

Once in the Green River Jail, things would continue to spiral downward for Ned when it was discovered that his cell mate was none other than his vile former prospecting partner, Jesse Ewing; The little mean man who had initially taken it all from him. His abuse only worsened in the cell as Jesse would routinely humiliate Ned by making him kneel on his hands and knees so Jesse could place his food tray on his back and eat his meal. One evening, Jesse even almost beat Ned to death with Ned’s own boot! Thankfully, an officer at the jail was able to break it up. If you’re wondering why the domineering figure of Ned took all of this abuse, you’ve got to remember he’s being accused of killing his old boss… and he’s black… in the 1870s… But fortunately for Ned, the cook strolled back into town the morning after the beating and instantly exonerated him. Not long afterwards, Jesse Ewing would go on to get murdered by a man in a, quote, dispute over a mutual lady friend, end quote. His remains are still in the valley today. Now we know that Jesse Ewing was a real man and the book, Utah Place Names: A Geographic Guide to the Origins of Geographic Names, a Compilation by John Van Cott calls Ewing, quote, an eccentric, moody prospector, outlaw, and murderer of the 1860s, end quote. I’ve even seen pictures of his tombstone on the Bureau of Land Management website! So I know he’s real. This is only important because obviously this guy wasn’t the most loved but did he really make a man his table? The same man he stole all of his mined treasures from? A man much larger and stronger and more capable than he? Back to Ned though…

Once again broke, recently out of jail, although never tried, and jobless, Ned decided to try his luck at breaking wild horses. Soon after he’d become such a skilled rider and roper that a friend much later in life named Joe Davenport would say of him that, quote, I have seen all the great riders. But for all around skill as a cowman, Isom Dart was unexcelled and I never saw his peer. End quote. That was written by Joe in 1929 and you’ll notice he called him Isom Dart, not Ned… as I hinted earlier, more on that later. Joe also said though, that, quote, he was fond of watching bucking contests and often attended at Grand Junction. He could outride any of them but never entered a contest. End quote. Another, different, contemporary cowboy said of him, quote, no man understood horses better. End quote. And that he could, quote, talk to horses. End quote. It was even said he could talk a horse away from that horse’s owner! Ned would eventually earn the nicknames Calico Cowboy, Tan Mex, Quick Shot, and Black Fox… probably on account of how sneaky he was with riding horses.

Because of his reputation as a Broncobuster, Ned got a job at the Charcoal Bottom Ranch where he helped catch and tame wild horses with the help of some other cowboys. But soon after, he’d fall in love with a Shoshone woman named Tickup. Tickup though, had both a nine year old daughter, named Mincy, and a Ute husband, named Pony Beater. I’m not down with infidelity but if you choose to screw around with another man’s wife, make sure the man’s name isn’t Pony Beater. It didn’t take long for the angry husband with exceptional tracking skills to hunt down the three of them, force them to return to Brown’s Park, and to claim all of Ned’s belongings for himself. If you’re keeping score of how many times Ned’s lost all of his belongings to terrible circumstances, you’re doing a better job than I am cause I’ve lost that count.

In what could have been a miraculous set of circumstances if it hadn’t happened to Ned, Tickup straightup murdered Pony Beater after a particular incident which I’m sure his name can attest to, and she and her daughter Mincy rejoined the Shoshones. At this news, Ned ran to Idaho to win her back but… she was with another man now and his pleas fell on deaf ears. Speaking of ears, Tickup came at Ned with an axe when her refusals proved too weak and she nearly severed Ned’s from his head. Now Cut Ear Ned was also broken hearted Ned and he had no choice but to head back to the Brown Hole that was Brown’s Park. And yes, I did just give him that nickname in reference to Part I’s Edward Cut Nose Rose.

Ned’s story continues to spiral… after the ear incident and the breakup with Tickup, he fell into another bad crowd and by 1875 he was back out there in Brown’s Park stealing horses for a group of guys known as the Gault Gang. The Gang consisted of its namesake Tip Gault who had the nickname, the Sagebrush King of Bitter Creek, Jack Leath, Joe Pease, and the ole Mexican scoundrel Terresa. For a time it was good and the stealing of horses was plentiful but, especially for Ned, all good things must come to an end. And eventually for the gang, they also all came to an end after one particularly bad horse stampeding theft went wrong. Pease got kicked by a bucking horse which broke his jaw and crushed his chest, the herd freaked and scattered, and the whole thing was witnessed by a neighboring rancher who pursued the horse thieves. Ned though, decided to hang out with Pease as he slowly died about a half mile from the Gang’s hideout which proved to be a smart decision because after he finished digging the grave and after he had just thrown in his now dead comrade he heard gun shots in the direction of the hideout. To escape a similar fate, Ned dove into the dirt and feigned death until the morning when he felt the coast was clear. Back at the hideout he discovered the bodies of the gang which rightfully spooked him into running. Which he did… for weeks. Until he could walk no more. Obviously he needed a new set of horseshoes. What’s one more horse stolen in a long career of stealing horses, right? Well it would absolutely be the last horse he’d ever steal because it almost cost him his life. The man he was stealing the horse from shot him in the leg as he was escaping. After fleeing and seeping blood he passed out on the side of the road.

Miraculously, Ned was saved. The miraculous part isn’t that he was saved, it’s that he was saved by an old buddy from Arkansas he grew up with and was friends with in his youth! A white man no less! This man’s name was William G "Billy Buck" Tittsworth and this man nursed him back to health and listened to his whole life’s story since the time that they were separated by the war. Once healthy again, Ned hopped a train and headed to Oklahoma where he worked some cotton fields, made up with Tickup, and made plans for her to join him. Unfortunately, she would never make it because she’d die in transit and her now older daughter Mincy would run off and get married. Heart broken yet again he decided he had no other option but to start over. Not in a new career or a town, no… he needed a new name. A name nobody would ever forget.

Back in Brown’s Park, Isom Dart, or Isham Dart depending on the source, got off the train in search of a new life, honest work, and a fresh start. From that moment on, Ned Huddleston was dead and gone and never to be spoken of again… Probably because Ned Huddleston never existed in the first place and everything I just told you, as awesome as it was, never ever happened. But, let me finish Isom’s story before I get into that because Isom Dart IS a real person WITH a real history and a REAL tombstone. Just know that countless historical books, websites, local Utah and Colorado governments, and the united states federal government all tell the tale of Ned Huddleston slash Isom Dart as if it is true and fact.

In Brown’s Park, Dart got a job as a horse wrangler, something he was quite good at, for the Middlesex Land and Cattle Company. At the same time, he was growing close to a local rancher named Elisabeth Bassett and her family which consisted of her husband and five children. Two of those children were named Josie Bassett and Ann Bassett who before long, would both become cattle rustlers and outlaws themselves while shacking up, figuratively and literally, with some very popular outlaws by the names of Butch Cassidy… and Harry Longabaugh, er, I’m sorry, The Sundance Kid. Back to Ned though… he was very close with the Bassett family and would help out when they needed. Ann would even later in life write letters mentioning Isom’s good character. But, good character or not, Isom was arrested in September of 1888 in Wyoming on three counts of illegally branding other people’s cattle.

In that area at the time was a man named James S Hoy and Hoy aspired to be a great cattle Barron and he didn’t like the little people getting their share so whenever possible, he sought to legally extricate them from the area. Sometimes he’d almost lose his life, like when he… well, I’ll let Hoy tell the story about the time he accused the, deadly with a knife, Mexican Joe, of stealing cattle. This is an exert from something called the J S Hoy manuscript which was written by the man himself. Quote, I was reckless enough to visit Joe's camp with a man as a witness, and asked permission to examine any beef hides lying around. This request was an insinuation that I thought they were stealing cattle. . . . They surrounded me chattering and jabbering in their own language, of which I understood but little, Joe saying, "You tink me steal, eh? Examine de hides! Look more! Here is anodder one," and like explanations. He fairly danced in his rage while his eyes scintillated steel and lightning. . . . Joe drew from his pocket a longbladed knife sharpened to a razor edge, using it to point out brands for me to inspect. . . . Just at the most critical moment Conway's huge bulk appeared ... if it had not been for Conway the enraged Mexicans would have killed me. End quote. As wild as that story is though, I do understand where he’s coming from when he expresses his fear of knives. I myself have been stabbed through the hand by a pocket knife in an unfortunate tickling accident my father brutally caused… I’m kidding, my dad’s amazing and he didn’t now I had a pocket knife open when he reached his hand around the driver’s chair of the mini van to tickle me on the way to his brother’s wedding. It took me a long time to get over my fear of knives… but Hoy? Boy oh boy let me tell you about the time Hoy was in Paris as a young man to further his education. To cut the story down…heh… he got caught having sex with his professor’s wife by the man himself, AND two medical students who… performed an impromptu castration of Hoy… Maybe CUT the guy some slack… After the altercation with Mexican Joe, Hoy would use more courageous men than he, who were also protected by the law, to do his bidding. But again, I can’t say I blame him.

So in September, a deputy sheriff named Joe Philbrick from Wyoming arrived in Brown’s Park and arrested Isom without any problems. From Brown’s, they were traveling north towards Sweetwater County in Wyoming when deputy Philbricks wagon went off the road, spooking the horses, and causing them to bolt, which sent the wagon sliding down the wall of a canyon. While Isom was thankfully unhurt, the deputy lay unconscious and with a broken leg. What’s an honest man to do about this situation? Obviously, calm the horses, repair the man, repair the wagon, ride the whole train to Wyoming where he dropped off the deputy at the hospital and turned himself into the law. Clearly charges were dismissed. But Ned, as any good American ought do, and I am not being sarcastic, sued the police for five thousand dollars in damage over wrongful arrest… but the jury would not rule in his favor and no compensation would be awarded for saving that man’s life and being arrested for some pretty flimsy charges being thrown around by an aspiring cattle Barron that would end up leaving the Brown’s Park area shortly afterwards anyways.

Back again in Brown’s, it wouldn’t be long before Dart would be arrested and charged with arson for burning down a competing rancher’s barn. That competing rancher, by the way, would be Harry Hoy, brother to J S Hoy. The night before the trial though, Dart would disappear for quite a few years. It isn’t known where he went or what he did but in the meantime, things were heating up in Brown’s Park and all throughout the region as events known as Range Wars began to flare up.

At the time, cattle rustling was huge on account of the open plains and lack of fencing. It also didn’t help that many locals and smaller ranchers didn’t like big outfits coming in and de facto stealing the land which they viewed as public. A certain Matt Warner of the region had this to say about the whole situation: Quote, These cattle kingdoms was so big they couldn't anywhere near be covered by men and watched. ... In lots of places a man might ride a day or two and see nothing but unwatched, free-ranging cattle, and not a human being in sight. . . . Raiders then wasn't bothered by the idea they was doing wrong. They looked upon the cattle kings as range hogs having no legitimate right to their kingdoms and cattle they had grabbed, and they looked upon the cattle as legitimate spoils of war. End quote. Obviously skimming off the herd a little whenever possible became a lot more looked down upon after the rough winter of 1886-87 which I cover in Buffalo Kingdom. So to put an end to this, the range hogs would use cowboys called line riders to act as fences and keep the cattle within the boundaries of the ranch. Quick side note, line riders, after barbed wire and fencing became regular, now ride the fences and repair any damage or loose wire they may come across which means, while their jobs may have changed, the name still works. But back to the story, at the time, these line riders didn’t always work and herd shrinkage remained a problem. Especially when cold, or I mean, especially around Brown’s Park. So a couple of the local wanna be land barons hired range detectives, otherwise known as regulators, to track down thieves. Obviously, these regulators weren’t above the law but were known to occasionally act as if they were. Murders and disappearances seemed to surround such men in those days and especially around one named Tom Horn who would soon be hired to put a stop to rustling in Brown’s Park for good.

By now, Horn had become a bounty hunter who worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency which had quite the reputation for backing big and or corrupt businesses. But before this time he’d also been a cowboy, hired gunman, deputy sheriff, and a scout for the US Army in the Apache Wars. Which, will soon be the subject of its very own episode on this podcast. So naturally, I imagine Tom Horn will be brought up again in the future. The American Southwest really is bigger than the narratives I’m telling seem to indicate with it’s many interwoven figures. Anyways, in his autobiography, Horn would write that his first kill was that of a second lieutenant in the Mexican Army over a prostitute. So Tom had no qualms with dishin’ out frontier justice and by 1900, he had taken residence in Brown’s Park under an alias to look for rustlers.

Before that though, in 1894, Dart would return to the Park where he would face no trial for the barn burning and horse stealing but would continue to improve his cowboy ways. I read a story where he grabbed the tail of a runaway steer from atop his own full galloping horse and flipped that sucker upside down. He’d also play the fiddle and harmonica, and he became known as a good cook. He even played at babysitting the aforementioned lady outlaw Josie Bassett’s children. In fact, before he was arrested and after the barn burning, the Bassetts actually threw a party in celebration of the incident which leads me to believe they planned it. The Bassetts and the Hoys enmity was so hot that Josie would even form an outlaw gang for the sole purpose of stealing cattle from them. And unfortunately for Dart, he would soon be wrapped up in all of this. But for now he was called a quote, laughing sort of character, end quote and as a helpful and a good man. While not reenacting old rodeos and babysitting, Dart was indeed running his own ranch. The same ranch that Hoy had accused him of stocking with ill gotten cattle.

Later, in 1898, Dart was actually on the right side… or, the non bad side of the law, I guess… when he was rounded up in a posse to corner and capture a murderer, the murderer’s buddy, and two cattle thieves on a rocky hill. They’d catch the murderer but at the cost of a Valentine Hoy, brother of course to both Harry and J S, who would be shot by the bad guys and die. One of the baddies would escape the shootout, although he’d be lynched later by a mob at the Bassett Ranch that no doubt had Dart in it. So again, the non bad side of the law, I guess.

Meanwhile, a man named Matt Rash who was a good friend of Darts and who was supposed to marry a Bassett sister, helped form the Brown’s Park Cattle Association and ran the Swan Land and Cattle Company which had over 700 heads of cattle. While it is true that some were liberated from other ranches, not all of his cattle was stolen so when he found a cryptic note telling him to leave or else, he refused to comply. He also refused to believe it was his new friend and hire Tom Hicks… aka…. Tom Horn. Which is why it isn’t odd that there was no sign of a struggle when Rash’s body was found later with a sizable chunk of him gone from a point blank shot at his own kitchen table. His breakfast and pistol still laid untouched on the table and there was no forced entry. The Bassetts blamed Horn but Horn blamed Dart.

Dart, who had also received a warning to leave in 60 days, was furious that he was being blamed for the death of his friend. The Bassetts knew it wasn’t true and leant him two armed men to watch over him in case he was next. At Dart’s cabin the three of them cooled off and waited for the danger to leave but they wouldn’t wait long enough. On the morning of October 3rd, 1900, Dart would be shot through the heart by a sniper with a .30-.30 rifle, the same caliber that Horn used. He’d die on own his doorstep.

Horn would make his escape and never be heard from again in Brown’s Park but his terrorism worked. Cattle rustling would slow down before basically stopping, the Brown’s Park Cattle Association would crumble, and many of the Bassetts and other players would quit the area for good. Horn would go off and fight in Cuba during the Spanish American war and witness with his own eyes the charge of the Rough Riders and Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill. He’d eventually come back to the West though, be accused of murder for higher, and hang in 1903.

So what do we make of Ned Huddleston and Isom Dart? There’s one person in this story who plays a key… actually, he IS the key to unraveling the Ned Dart conundrum. That man’s the friend from Arkansas who nursed him back to health before Ned left the Park and came back as Dart. That man would be William G Billy Buck Tittsworth who in 1929 would write a book entitled Outskirts Episodes where he completely made up Ned Huddleston out of whole cloth. In real life, Tittsworth was an outlaw, a cattle rustler himself, and, at least according to J S Hoy, a freakin’ murderer. But for the sake of our story today, he’s a liar. Not only did he make up Ned, he also made up the Gault Gang! None of those guys were real! Not Gault, not Terresa… the shootout never even happened. There was never a Tickup or Pony Beater… Yet the National Park’s website states these as fact. And so do entire books I used for this episode. Such as Tricia Martineau Wagner’s book, a book I really enjoyed by the way, but the book’s title is Black Cowboys of the Old West, with the subtitle being, quote, True, Sensational, and Little-Known Stories from History. End quote. Key word there being True. Now, I know this is 2021 and truth is apparently relevant but you can’t call your book True if you aren’t quoting True facts! I don’t really blame the author though and I would have claimed it all as true myself to all of you if I hadn’t found an incredible article from 2017 in the Grand Junction Sentinel by a man named Bob Silbernagel titled quote, Black cowboy demeaned by fictional representation. End quote. The black cowboy in question is obviously Isom Dart. The author goes on to say that Isam, not Isom with an a not an o, was born in 1858 in Guadalupe, Texas, although historians are unsure if he was born a slave or a free person. Then by 1881 he was in Wyoming before going in to Brown’s Park where his real life story picks up. His real life story alone is amazing, in my opinion and worthy of telling but apparently to Tittsworth, he needed a more exciting back story. Maybe influenced by Jim Beckwourth’s own biography or the stories of Edward Cut Nose Rose, or even Deadwood Dick, Tittsworth would go on to craft a rather exciting tale about Dart that according to modern historians, is completely fictional. Actually, it’s claimed that his entire book is two/thirds fiction. Here’s a quote from the author, Bob Silbernagel in his article, quote, Dan Davidson, director of the Museum of Northwest Colorado in Craig, has spent 25 years researching Isam Dart and has obtained several important Dart artifacts for the museum. He is certain that Ned Huddleston was a figment of Tittsworth’s imagination. He noted that the only official records related to Dart –– census, probate and court documents –– make no mention of Huddleston. End quote. Bob also quotes from actual letters that the Bassett women would write in the 1920s in response to the outrageous claims that Tittsworth makes and they would even defend the memory of Dart themselves. Bob points out that Tittsworth book wasn’t widely read but at least one person did because in 1938 a book by Charles Kelly came out that was mostly about Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch that was entitled The Outlaw Trail in which he retells the tale of Ned Huddleston Isom Dart practically verbatim. And it’s from this book that people cite in their telling of Dart’s story.

So why did I tell Ned Huddleston Isom Dart’s story at all? Because if I hadn’t, I would have left out one of the most interesting characters of the old west who lived a long exciting career. Except now we know half of it isn’t true even though it’s still being reported as such. Now, you’re armed with that knowledge which is important to remember. Also, it really is such an interesting story, albeit one giant myth worthy of Sebastian Major. The moral of the story, in my opinion is to do your own research and remember to always use primary sources whenever you can.

The last Black cowboy I’ll tell you about in this episode is a man who’s already been on the podcast, George Mcjunkin! If you don’t remember him, that’s alright… let’s dig in… hint hint.

Like Matthew Bones Hooks, Nat Love, and Isam Dart, George McJunkin became known as one of the best broncobusters of his day and probably the best one in all of New Mexico. And also like Hooks and Love, he was born a slave. His story begins in 1851 in a small community by the name of Rogers Prairie, which sat halfway between Dallas and Houston. On account of him being a slave, George apparently  only learned to read and write by watching those around him and trading horse breaking lessons for lessons on literacy. There isn’t a direct account of George’s life told from him but historians do have many second hand ones and there’s even a book called: Black Cowboy: The life and legend of George McJunkin, by Franklin Folsom that documents his exciting life, again, albeit from second hand sources. But nonetheless, nearly 100 years after his death, George McJunkin took his place beside fellow legendary men and women of all colors and backgrounds at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 2019. I love that history slash art museum and implore any lucky travelers who happen to be in the area for an extended length of time, to check it out. But unlike most of the cowboys in that wonderful place, and this isn’t because he wasn’t an exceptional cowboy himself, but unlike most of them other folks in that museum, he’s more known for his paleontological and archaeological discoveries that he made in that land of enchantment state of new Mexico.

Before that though, he helped establish one of the first horse ranches in a town called Trinidad just north of the New Mexican border in Colorado. I know Trinidad well and it sits between the Sangre de Christo mountains and the wide open great plains, just below my favorite mountains, the Spanish Peaks. There’s a great little highway that starts there called the Highway of Legends which is Highway 12. I’ve driven that a few times and I will again soon. But anyways, at the time that the ranch was established, the town of Trinidad was a little rough and tumble. At one point they even had Bat Masterson as their sheriff… The same Bat Masterson I introduced earlier who helped bail Nat Love out of a bind with a certain cannon theft.

Over his long career, George would run many a horse up trails, run multiple ranches, run into quite a few outlaws, and would eventually settle himself in the town of Folsom, New Mexico where he’d set up shop as a blacksmith. But what he’d become most famous for was his fantastic discovery I briefly talked about in the Bison episode.

On August 27th, 1908, a massive thunderstorm would drop almost 15 inches of rain atop the nearby Johnson Mesa which would rush its way in torrents down the dry Cimarron Valley causing massive devastation. During the deluge, a resident of the Crowfoot Ranch phoned down to the telephone operator in Folsom which was about 10 miles away, to tell of the coming destruction. This phone operator, a Miss Sarah Rooke, then spent the next many hours frantically phoning all of the residents in town right up until midnight when the over five foot waves of flash flood lifted her home up off its foundation and took it downstream with her still in it. Her calls went mostly ignored. Stables, homes, railroad bridges, horses, entire families, anything not nailed down sturdy went downstream. Steven Rinella who wrote American Buffalo and who I quoted extensively in Buffalo Kingdom says this, quote, In all, sixteen bodies were recovered in the following days. There was no sign of Sarah Rooke, the telephone operator, until the next spring, when dan Harvey was burning driftwood about eight miles from town. He noticed a shoe in the pile of wood and upon further investigation saw that it was attached to Miss Rooke’s body. End quote. Flash floods out west are serious business and anyone who’s ever slot canyoned or even walked river beds with red Colorado plateau walls can see their destructive powers. It just so happens that George was working at that very same Crowfoot Ranch that phoned Miss Rooke and after the flood he went out to mend the broken fences when he made his discovery of a whole bunch of bones. Where he discovered the bones was in the Wild Horse Arroyo which used to be 3 feet deep but was now 13 and which now had at the bottom, a whole bunch of Bison bones he knew weren’t from modern Buffalo.

George by this time had become quite knowledgable when it came to archaeology, paleontology, and even astronomy and read books about the subjects often. He’s even been described as an amateur archeologist and geologist who gathered rocks, fossils, and crystals. Thankfully he understood the importance of his discovery and showed it to everyone who would listen and even those who wouldn’t for the next fourteen years. But unfortunately, he would die in that Folsom Hotel I took a picture of back in 2016 and will post on the site… and he would die before the importance of his discovery would change our understanding of early Americans.

His biographer, Franklin Folsom had this to say of George McJunkin and his remarkable find, quote, It’s a discovery that made him famous, but his courage, determination, and perseverance is what is remembered about the man. A true cowboy! End quote.

I could continue to tell you story after story of black cowboys… and cowgirls, of whom I didn’t really talk about but which of course existed. I honestly should have gone into black cowgirls with the likes of Johana July… but… well… there’s also Bill Pickett, the best black rodeoer of all time… or Bose Ikard whose gravestone marker says, quote, served with me for four years on the goodnight-loving trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with comanches, splendid behavior. End quote. Or the singing black cowboy Charley Willis… or Willie Kennard, the black cowboy who became a US Marshall after serving as a buffalo soldier. But, this is a perfect spot to end because the next episode and final part of this trilogy is on The Buffalo Soldier. Let’s hope I get the rights to the song so I can open with those wonderful lyrics from Bob Marley…

https://www.nps.gov/cavo/learn/historyculture/george-mcjunkin.htm

Franklin Folsom’s Black Cowboy: The Life and Legend of George McJunkin

Steven Rinella’s American Buffalo

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love

Wagner’s Black Cowboys of the Old West

Siringo’s A Texas Cowboy

Utah Centennial County History Series Daggett County 1998 by Robert E. Parson and Daniel A. Stebbins

https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/black-cowboy-demeaned-by-fictional-representation/article_51322eb2-b44f-11eb-aa56-efc799cf8b9c.html

https://www.reporterherald.com/2017/09/23/black-cowboy-isom-dart-assassinated/

http://www.eltiste-kaiser.com/HoyFile/Hoy-1/JSHoy.htm

https://www.nps.gov/cavo/learn/historyculture/george-mcjunkin.htm

https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/2015/02/23/george-mcjunkin-and-the-discovery-that-changed-american-archaeology/ https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mcjunkin-george-1851-1922/

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/george-mcjunkin/

https://archeology.uark.edu/george-mcjunkin/

https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/texans-you-should-know-how-a-black-cowboys-discovery-changed-the-field-of-archaeology/

Black Cowboy: Daniel Webster ’80 John Wallace by Douglas Hales in The Cowboy Way: An exploration of History and Culture