Branches Book

BRANCHES

Selma Spath

COWBOYS

Cattle driving can be traced as far back as the 1540s, when the Spaniards began driving cattle in Mexico northward. 9 During colonial times, before the cowboys of the Great Plains existed, the cattle-raising industry was present in Massachusetts, the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Most of the conventions around branding were born in Florida. The cowboys that existed at this time were not seen as heroes or renegades; they were seen as very unsmart people and as intruders on public land. 10 It was the cowboys that later drove cattle from Texas and in the West, they were seen as heroes. These are the men that we think of when we hear the word “cowboy” today. The golden age of cowboys began as the Civil War ended in Texas where about 5 million wild cattle lived mostly undisturbed. The North and the East provided perfect markets for the plethora of cattle in Texas. In the North, the supply of beef had been consumed by Union soldiers and in the East, where cities were forming and rising, beef was in high demand. 11 Texans took advantage of the fact that cattle was worth 10 times more in the North and the East, so cowboys began herding them north towards a railhead in Missouri. Of course there were some obstacles; cattle were stolen by outlaws and the men herding them were often killed. The cowboys were also disliked by the farmers and Indians whose crops were crushed by their cattle and many complained about the spread of the Texas fever through the cattle. 12 As railroads were built across the Great Plains towards the West, new trails were forged by the cowboys to meet them. A few of these trails were the Chisholm, Western, and Loving. During the golden age, towns like Abilene, Wichita, Ellsworth, Caldwell, and Dodge City relished in a period of "prosperity and violence" due to the cattle drives and, later, northern towns like Ogallala, Cheyenne, Glendive, and Miles City also benefitted. 13 The Western trail was one of the longest and most popular cattle driving trails during the golden age of cowboys. The 2,000 mile trail was forged in 1874 and was used most from 1875 to 1889. Yearly, the trail saw 300,000 cattle,

9 Mary Patricia Martell Jones, "The Western Trail," Writn' for the Brand, last modified June 25, 2014, http://writinforthebrand.com/the-western-trail/. 10 Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, eds., "Cowboys," History,

http://www.history.com/topics/cowboys. 11 Jones, "The Western," Writn' for the Brand. 12 Foner and Garraty, "Cowboys," History. 13 Foner and Garraty, "Cowboys," History.

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