howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas where
the Cold Front continues with light showers and a high temperature
of just 88 degrees today! A very welcome respite from the warm
weather we've been having.
When I started writing this cowboy series I wanted to focus on Black
cowboys because they didn't get much recognition and many people
had no idea that we even HAD Black cowboys, so my goal was to high-
light some of the famous men who influenced their generation.
Today I want to introduce you to one of those men by the name of Bill
Pickett. He was the first famous Black cowboy although he wasn't
totally black because his parents were native Indian, Cherokee, and
Black.
This happened alot because when slaves escaped from the Southern
plantations, many times they would head West into Indian territory.
As a result there were many black Indians, another fact that somehow
Hollywood never dwelt on even though it's a dramatic fact of history.
The tribes would adopt them into their families which is another
interesting story. For some reason they looked upon them as equals,
something that White America couldn't do at the time.
Bill became a ranch hand when he was 11 or 12 and learned to do the
cowboy things like rope, herd, brand and break broncos. Like I talked
about yesterday the ranches started holding cowboy skill
competitions amongst themselves and Bill Pickett was one of the best.
About this time, around 1885 Buffalo Bill and others started the
famous Wild West Shows and one of the main attractions at these
shows were the cowboy skill competitions like roping and bronco
riding. Well, Bill Pickett was picked up by the shows to perform but
he had a special method of wresting steers to the ground.
He had seen bull dogs biting the upper lip of steers to bring them
under control so that's what he started doing! lol. Of course the
crowds went crazy over that and he became world famous, the
most famous cowboy on earth.
This feat was developed for the shows, I don't think there was a
reason to wrestle a Long Horn steer to the ground in real everyday
life, I mean they would just use a rope and rope his legs to take it
down. But that wasn't as exciting. Wild bull riding was also a new
skill developed for the crowds.
And again, no actual cowboy would ever go try to ride a wild bull
so this was done strictly for the Wild West Shows. Of course today
both of these are standard skills that cowboy perform in modern
rodeos.
By the time the Wild West Shows ended around 1930 the modern
day rodeo had already become established but it was the popularity
of the shows that led to the formation of the rodeo that we see today
and why the rodeo competitions started springing up everywhere
with the same events.
And it was largely due to the most famous cowboy of his day Bill
Pickett!
For those of you who don't know what Steer Wrestling is, it's where
the cowboy rides along side a Long Horn steer, jumps off his horse
onto the back of the steer's neck and grabbing his horns and using
those horns as leverage to bring it to the ground. This is all timed
of course, and as soon as all four legs are off the ground the event
clock is stopped and the steer is released.
Bill Pickett started it but for some reason no one wanted to continue
with his special method of biting the steers upper lip! lol.
Here are some photos showing modern day cowboys in this event:
source
source
source
source
As you can see this ain't a wimpy event, alot of cowboys get injured
doing this one.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
ps- ya know, you might just be a redneck if:
your biggest ambition in life is to "git thet big ol coon. The one what
hangs 'round over yonder, back'ah bubba's barn..."
