Cowboys of the Americas
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Cowboys of the Americas
（Yale Western Americana series）
Yale University Press, c1990
- : pbk.
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Note
Bibliography: p. 289-299
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
ISBN 9780300045291
Description
People throughout the world thrill to stories of galloping hooves, stampeding cattle, blazing gunfights, and other elements of cowboy lore, but few know what life was actually like for the working cowboy. This engrossing book by Richard W. Slatta explores the reality of cowboy life in the United States, Canada, and Spanish America, from the cowboy's beginnings as a wild-cattle hunter to his decline in the early twentieth century. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, artworks, and posters, Cowboys of the Americas evokes the colorful world of North and South American cowboys in pictures and words. Quoting extensively from first-hand descriptions of cowboy and ranch life, Slatta provides fascinating vignettes of the cowboy in the American and Canadian West, as well as of Hawaii's paniolo, Mexico's vaquero, Venezuela's llanero, Chile's huaso, and Argentina's gaucho. Slatta compares the appearance, dress, character, and activities of these cowboys, demonstrating that Spanish influence was pervasive in all open-range cattle frontiers of North and South America. He takes the reader along with the cowboy to roundups and trail drives, horse races, campfires, saloons, and brothels. He reveals the harsh reality of frontier racial conflict and Indian wars. And he discusses the changes that overtook the cowboy as farmers, immigrants, and technology pushed across the plains, transforming the old way of life in the saddle and leaving the cowboy image alive only in myth and popular culture. Slatta points out that this legacy of the cowboys has not been unimportant, however. In Argentina and Uruguay, for example, the once maligned gaucho was rehabilitated by the elite as a symbolic weapon against the perceived threat from urban immigrant masses. And in the United States, rodeos, Wild West shows, novels, toys, advertising, films, and television have transformed public perception of the cowboy from an uncouth rowdy to a national hero, so that identification with the cowboy helped Ronald Reagan become one of America's most popular chief executives.
Table of Contents
- From wild-cattle hunters to cowboys
- cowboy character and appearance
- American plains frontiers -geography and imagery
- in the saddle - ranch work
- ranchers and cowboys
- home on the range - ranch life
- horsin' round - equestrian fun and games
- hellin' round - drinking, gambling, and other fun
- cowboys and indians - frontier race relations
- riding into the sunset
- the cowboy rides again - myth, literature, popular culture.
- Volume
-
: pbk. ISBN 9780300056716
Description
This is a comparative study of the social history and mythology of cowboy culture right across the Western Hemisphere, from Patagonia to the Tukon, including the unique cowboys of the Hawaiin cattle industry. Slatta argues that Spanish influence, neglected in most accepted historiography, is primary in all open-range cattle frontiers of North and South America. His focus is on people, working ranch hands, and how they lived their lives, quoting frequently from first-hand descriptions of cowboy and ranch life. Structured rather like a Western film, this illustrated book opens with vignettes that highlight the various cowboy types and then uses flashbacks to reveal the distant, shadowy origins of the cowboy as a wild cattle hunter. Close-ups show the cowboy's appearance, character, and values, and Slatta then draws back for a sweeping view of the cowboy's environment - the great plains stretching towards an infinite horizon. As the book draws to a close, it considers the changes that overtook the cowboy, as farmers, immigrants, and describes how technology forced him off into the sunset, but left his image and mythology intact in myth and popular culture.
Table of Contents
- From wild-cattle hunters to cowboys
- cowboy character and appearance
- American plains frontiers -geography and imagery
- in the saddle - ranch work
- ranchers and cowboys
- home on the range - ranch life
- horsin' round - equestrian fun and games
- hellin' round - drinking, gambling, and other fun
- cowboys and indians - frontier race relations
- riding into the sunset
- the cowboy rides again - myth, literature, popular culture.
by "Nielsen BookData"