Black Ranching Frontiers

In this volume, Andrew Sluyter demonstrates that Africans played significant creative roles in establishing open-range cattle ranching in the Americas. In so doing, he provides a new way of looking at and studying the history of land, labour, property and commerce in the Atlantic world.

DIVIn this groundbreaking book Andrew Sluyter demonstrates for the first time that Africans played significant creative roles in establishing open-range cattle ranching in the Americas. In so doing, he provides a new way of looking at and studying the history of land, labor, property, and commerce in the Atlantic world./div DIVSluyter shows that Africans’ ideas and creativity helped to establish a production system so fundamental to the environmental and social relations of the American colonies that the consequences persist to the present. He examines various methods of cattle production, compares these methods to those used in Europe and the Americas, and traces the networks of actors that linked that Atlantic world. The use of archival documents, material culture items, and ecological relationships between landscape elements make this book a methodologically and substantively original contribution to Atlantic, African-American, and agricultural history./div

Annotation Before Owen Wister's publication of The Virginian in 1902, the image of the cowboy was essentially that of the dime novel. This title details the evidence that Everett Johnson a cowboy from Virginia who had been a friend of Wister's in Wyoming in the 1880s, was the initial and prime inspiration for Wister's cowboy.

The reinterpretation of how ranching evolved in the New World is broad, including discussions of grazing and foraging and their relation to vegetation and climate - that is, cultural ecology - cultural diffusion, and local innovation. Above all, Jordan emphasizes place and region, illustrating the great variety of ranching practices.

Who were the black cowboys? They were drovers, foremen, fiddlers, cowpunchers, cattle rustlers, cooks, and singers. They worked as wranglers, riders, ropers, bulldoggers, and bronc busters. They came from varied backgrounds—some grew up in slavery, while free blacks often got their start in Texas and Mexico. Most who joined the long trail drives were men, but black women also rode and worked on western ranches and farms. The first overview of the subject in more than fifty years, Black Cowboys in the American West surveys the life and work of these cattle drivers from the years before the Civil War through the turn of the twentieth century. Including both classic, previously published articles and exciting new research, this collection also features select accounts of twentieth-century rodeos, music, people, and films. Arranged in three sections—“Cowboys on the Range,” “Performing Cowboys,” and “Outriders of the Black Cowboys”—the thirteen chapters illuminate the great diversity of the black cowboy experience. Like all ranch hands and riders, African American cowboys lived hard, dangerous lives. But black drovers were expected to do the roughest, most dangerous work—and to do it without complaint. They faced discrimination out west, albeit less than in the South, which many had left in search of autonomy and freedom. As cowboys, they could escape the brutal violence visited on African Americans in many southern communities and northern cities. Black cowhands remain an integral part of life in the West, the descendants of African Americans who ventured west and helped settle and establish black communities. This long-overdue examination of nineteenth- and twentieth-century black cowboys ensures that they, and their many stories and experiences, will continue to be known and told.

Black Frontiers chronicles the life and times of black men and women who settled the West from 1865 to the early 1900s. In this striking book, you'll meet many of these brave individuals face-to-face, through rare vintage photographs and a fascinating account of their real-life history.

Reviewed by Daniel D Staats for Readers' Favorite - Five Stars. If you like history and/or geography, you will love The Black History Truth: Argentina by Pamela Gayle. The first part of this book is a great introduction to the land of Argentina and its history. Pamela covers the history of this South American country from before the Conquistadors came and destroyed the land as it was. Pamela goes back in history and explains the foundations of chattel slavery. She gives the common beliefs that are espoused by historians, then gives the darker side of the truth. She exposes the fallacies often found in Eurocentric history. Since whites were in charge, they wrote the history and shaded the facts to give credit to the whites instead of natives and Africans. Pamela makes sure to correct many fallacies and give a true accounting of history. In The Black History Truth: Argentina by Pamela Gayle, one learns the heretofore untold stories of the contributions of Africans to Argentina. Pamela wants to boost the usefulness of this book and does so by giving assignments at the end of each chapter. These assignments help the newly learned information to stick in the mind. Pamela does an excellent job of presenting a volatile subject calmly and respectfully. The facts in this book are backed up with the truth behind the myths that have been taught for centuries. One needs to have an open mind as one reads this book. Many of the facts presented by Pamela will be new to most readers. Remember, just because the information is new to you does not mean it is not correct. One refrain you will find in this book is: "Yet, the truth is..."

John F.