this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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Do we know today how high the percentage of black cowboys was? I could imagine classic western movies have lied to us in that department too ...
It was a shit job that rose to prominence shortly after the civil war during the era of sharecropping. I’d assume it’s pretty damn high. In general jobs that suck that much get filled by people whose other options are worse.
Reminds me of reading a collection of excerpts from women working in a textile mill in the early 19th century. Like, the conditions are described are fucking HORRIFIC, like, 14+ hour shifts, one day off a week kind of shit. And you know what many of these women write about, other than the grueling conditions?
How fucking great it is. How great it is to be free. To have financial independence. To have something to call their own.
It's at once inspiring, that humanity can find happiness in the struggle for their own self-actualization even in terrible conditions, and fucking horrifying that THAT state of affairs in the mill was an improvement for those impoverished coming from traditional farms with little hope of learning other trades that would give them independence.
No idea on numbers, but considering IRL cowboys were poor folks doing hard work nobody else wanted to do...probably quite a few black men 0-3 generations removed from slavery.
"A significant number of cowboys were black, with some estimates giving figures as high as 25% nationwide for those on trail drives."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy#History