Black Cowboys and Early Cattle Drives: On the Trails from Texas to Montana

Download or read book Black Cowboys and Early Cattle Drives: On the Trails from Texas to Montana written by Nancy K. Williams and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dust and Determination After the Civil War, emancipated slaves who didn't want to pick cotton or operate an elevator headed west to find work and a new life. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving drove two thousand longhorns across southern Texas blazing a trail to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. In 1866, the new Goodnight-Loving Trail was crowded with cattle headed for a government market. By the 1870s, twenty-five percent of the over thirty-five thousand cowboys in the West were black. They were part of trail crews that drove more than twenty-seven million cattle on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, Western Trail, Chisholm Trail and Shawnee Trail. They were paid equally, and their skill and ability brought them earned respect and prestige. Author Nancy Williams recounts their lasting legacy.