vol.9 "COWBOY"

Hundreds of years before the American cowboy was born, there was Vaquero, a master of equestrians who skillfully manipulated herds and became legendary for their lasso techniques.

The cowboy culture of the American West can be traced back to the Spanish tradition of "Baquero" vaquero.
They were workers, horse-riding workers and cattle.
This style of livestock spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and was later imported to the Americas.

Hundreds of cattle needed vast land to obtain sufficient feed.
Also, because it was necessary to travel longer than on foot, horseback baqueros developed.

Baquero is a traditional horse-riding herdsman with roots in the Iberian Peninsula and has extensive development in Mexico from the methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. Baquero became the basis for North American cowboys in northern Mexico, the US Southwest and Western Canada.


[Vaquero to America]

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico in 1519, a ranch was established to keep cattle and horses imported from Spain.
The landowners put Indigenous Indians on well-trained horses and taught them how to handle cows.

By the early 1700s, pastoralism spread north of what is now Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, and south to Argentina.

Indigenous cowboys are called Vaqueros, which means cow in Spanish, and they learned the technique of using woven ropes.

The 21 Franciscan missions, which began in 1769, eventually led to a series from San Diego to San Francisco, and became the beginning of California's livestock industry.

The mid-1700s to the 1820s
Livestock production was thriving in California and the southwest, but there was little market for final products such as meat, skin, and candle fat.

In the mid-1700s, there were long trains of wagons that carried these products to Mexico City and returned with supplies.

In the early 1800s, American ships began calling at ports in California, trading similar supplies.
The rancher has first acquired a local livestock market. A large checkpoint was held to collect the cows, and the horse-riding master Baqueros controlled the confusion.
Baqueros, known as a master of equestrianism and jumping rope, was said to only get off his horse when dancing with beautiful women.


Initial MID1800
As many Americans rushed over the lands once controlled by Mexico (particularly after the Mexican-American War of 1846-48), ranching became no longer a Hispanic profession.

The Anglo newcomers adapted to the Baquero style, with many settlers married to former Spanish ranch families.
The 1849 Gold Rush attracted more people in California, increasing demand for beef.

Californians rode trained pony, made large rings of hand-woven leather, and wrapped scrolls called dar la vuelta "bend" in the Spanish word dar la vuelta) around the corners of the high saddle to demonstrate their strength in the movement of the cows.

Late 1800s
With the expansion of the livestock industry, these jockeys found jobs in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii, bringing home equipment and how to handle livestock.

Cowboys in Oregon, Idaho and Nevada remained strong in Hispanic colour, including using center-fire-equipped saddles with gear below the center point of the saddle, long reartas, and silver spade bits ("Bakaloo" comes from Vaquero).

Texans on trail drives adopted many techniques from the Mexican Baquero, and carried them along the plains to create a subculture of single travelers working on the ranch.