Subject: vaquero cowboy

Culture: northern Mexican mestizo

Setting: cattle drives, northern Mexico / western United States mid-18th-early 19thc

Event Photos

* Slatta 1990 p41

"Folk sources reveal the vaquero's pride, machismo, and vanity. 'The Ballad of Manuel Rodríguez,' supposedly based on a true incident at the King Ranch in Texas, depicts these characteristics. An especially bad horse threw Rodríguez in front of his fellow riders. An excellent broncobuster, the humiliated Rodríguez quit the ranch and vowed to go pick cotton -- to the cowboy a particularly demeaning type of footwork. Like his equestrian fellows elsewhere, the vaquero looked upon the lowly farmer (as well as goat- and sheepherders) with mixed pity and contempt.

"Vaqueros admired their fellows who were long-suffering, patient, uncomplaining, and persevering, just as Anglo cowboys esteemed men who worked in bad weather or with pain, went without food, and tracked down stray animals at all costs. Courage -- riding into the midst of a milling herd, for example -- represented another vaquero virtue. The vaquero and cowboy expected and valued these qualities. Virtuous actions would not bring praise, but failing to measure up to the vaquero standard could bring criticism, censure, or ridicule."

Primary Sources

* Slatta 1990 p40

"Regrettably, Anglo-American racism tinges most contemporary portraits of the vaquero recorded in English. ... 'Untrustworthy,' 'lazy,' 'drunken,' and 'debauched' are among the adjectives generally applied to vaqueros by Anglos. The observations of Theodore Roosevelt, who was deeply concerned with maintaining Anglo-Saxon superiority, are unfortunately typical: 'Some of the cowboys are Mexicans,s who generally do the actual work well enough, but are not trustworthy; moreover, they are always regarded with extreme disfavor by the Texans in an outfit, among whom the intolerant caste spirit is very strong. Southern-born whites will never work under them, and look down upon all colored or half-caste races.'

"J. Frank Dobie recognized and tried to correct the Anglo biases that colored the image of the vaquero. In 1931 he recorded a more accurate portrait of the Mexican cowboy. Dobie found the vaquero superstitious, a bit cruel to animals, close to nature, faithful, and hospitable."

Secondary Sources

Field Notes