9 ms·
A former slave who became a cowboy, a rancher, and a Texas legend
- jollofricepeas 3y agoVery cool. It’s great that we’re starting to learn more about US history. There’s so many untold stories that need to be told.
- 082349872349872 3y agoCountry music sometimes has a chorus that changes interpretation* after each verse; in one case I encountered a song where the verses themselves changed interpretation after I'd learned some North American history: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33931615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33931615 * are there any other genres which do this?
- n4r9 3y agoIt's quite common in folk music to use clever metaphors to cloak a song's true meaning. For example, the traditional English folk tune "John Barleycorn" looks like a murder ballad at first sight, but is in fact describing the harvest of barley and it's many uses (especially alcoholic!): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn Country music has strong roots in English and Irish folk music, so there are a lot of thematic crossovers.
- n4r9 3y agoFollow-up comments: - its* (facepalm) - The excellent folk music website MainlyNorfolk has a fascinating amount of detail about this tune: https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/johnbarleycorn.html https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/johnbarleycorn.html
- 082349872349872 3y ago> ...the sceptical incline to think it may be an invention or refurbishing carried out by some educated antiquarian. If so, he did his work long ago and successfully, for the ballad was already in print in the early years of the seventeenth century... That's an amusing possibility. I'm inclined to assign authorship of JB to "Trad." but do believe I ran into a similar case of a joke running for a few thousand years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39658391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39658391
- EGreg 3y agothat reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ieIbInFpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ieIbInFpg
- pixxel 3y agoJust finish Lawmen: Bass Reeves (about the legendary lawman of the wild West, Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River.) https://thetvdb.com/series/bass-reeves https://thetvdb.com/series/bass-reeves Recommended.
- austin-cheney 3y agoThere is Scott Joplin the 19th century black composer from Texas who is the inspiration for most Mario music.
- robertlagrant 3y agoMore notably he wrote the Maple Leaf Rag, which is still taught to piano students to this day, and was featured in The Sting[0], 1973's Best Picture winner. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735
- vjaswal 3y agoI don't recall Maple Leaf Rag in the movie, but Solace and the Entertainer by Joplin are there. Solace in particular is magnificent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr2n2PnaC2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr2n2PnaC2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsFGcPujqKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsFGcPujqKE
- Hunpeter 3y agoSome people might also know Solace from BioShock: Infinite.
- robertlagrant 3y agoYes - you're right. The Entertainer.
- graemep 3y agoUnlike this guy Scott Joplin is pretty famous. Its easy to find his music on CDs or as sheet music.
- huytersd 3y ago[flagged]
- smoothbenny 3y agoIf one thing’s for certain, it’s that Lil Wayne was unsuccessful
- huytersd 3y agoHe has money and fame. It’s hard to call that unsuccessful.
- thread_id 3y agoThis is why I visit Hacker News every day. Thank you community!!!!
- HaHaHackerNews 3y ago[dead]
- consumer451 3y agoA Texan YouTuber once mentioned offhandedly that his history teacher father had taught him that the The Alamo was largely about slavery. This blew my Yankee-educated mind. When I looked to research it more I found this piece, also from Texas Monthly, about that year's winner of "The Texas Historical Commission’s annual prize for the best work of Texas history." > Forget the Alamo https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/forget-the-alamo/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/forget-the-alamo/
- theultdev 3y ago[flagged]
- actionfromafar 3y agoRemember Joe Travis!
- consumer451 3y agoWow, thanks for making me search his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Travis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Travis
- consumer451 3y agoAre you claiming that slavery had nothing to do with it? > The revolution began in October 1835, after a decade of political and cultural clashes between the Mexican government and the increasingly large population of Anglo-American settlers in Texas. The Mexican government had become increasingly centralized and the rights of its citizens had become increasingly curtailed, particularly regarding immigration from the United States. Mexico had officially abolished slavery in Texas in 1829, and the desire of Anglo Texans to maintain the institution of chattel slavery in Texas was also a major cause of secession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution
- theultdev 3y ago
- lukan 3y ago"“The word ‘cowboy’ itself began being used in Fort Bend County and the surrounding area in 1821,” Callies says. “It was applied to Black slaves who worked with cattle.” (He notes that just as an enslaved person who worked inside the mansion would be referred to as a “houseboy,” one who took care of cattle was referred to as a “cowboy.” Even decades later, the term “cowboy” remained unpopular with white cowpunchers because of its racial connotations" So cowboy was initially a term for black slaves? And now the idea of a black cowboy seems weird. Interesting how much of our worldview was shaped by movies ..
- defrost 3y agoWhen I grew up the vast majority of station hands were black, the majority of rodeo stars were black, most of the people crazy enough to launch off of a quarter horse onto a cleanskin bull and pull it short by the tail were black ... Not Texas, but it was the 1960s | 1970s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKTW0f_eJdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKTW0f_eJdY
- Gibbon1 3y agoI have read here and there that about a quarter of cowboys in the old west were Black. My dad mentioned that as a boy in the central valley in the 1930's a lot of the farm labor was done by Mexicans. Mexicans used to work their farms in the winter then head north to the US in the summer.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Yeul 3y agoCowboys did manual labor that didn't require much of an education for low pay. How they became the white symbol of Texas is beyond me.
- consumer451 3y agoMaybe due to decades of the romanticized "cowboy" shown by Hollywood? But also, maybe what you described is something people respect, even though they wouldn't want to actually do it themselves.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoWell that is a pretty common trope the US, where red states applaud the independent blue collar worker, and blue states look down on them, unless they are part of a union.
- Log_out_ 3y agoLike a slave plantation forever stuck in a unproductive quagmire?
- lukan 3y ago"didn't require much of an education" Have you ever tried to move one single cow? Now would you consider trying to move a whole group of cows, without someone educating you how to do so? Probably not I think. It certainly takes lots of education to become a skilled cowboy. But it required no school education. And more people grew up with horses than with books(back then) so the low pay was because of high supply, not because it was a simple job.
- vmfunction 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- theultdev 3y agoThat's completely false, but I wouldn't put any stock in anything that comes out of Texas Monthly, it's usually just race-bait... The word "cowboy" originates from the Spanish term "vaquero" which refers to an individual who manages cattle while mounted on horseback. The Spanish word "vaquero" is derived from "vaca" meaning "cow" which comes from the Latin word "vacca". The term "cowboy" was first used in print by Jonathan Swift in 1725 and was used in the British Isles from 1820 to 1850 to describe young boys who tended the family or community cows. Before "cowboy" the English word "cowherd" was used to describe a cattle herder, often referring to a pre-adolescent or early adolescent boy who usually worked on foot. This term is very old in the English language, originating prior to the year 1000. The term "cowboy" was in use by 1849, although it was not used in all locations. The men who drove cattle for a living in the southwest were usually called cowhands, drovers, or stockmen. Variations on the word appeared later, such as "cowhand" in about 1852 and "cowpoke" in 1881, originally restricted to individuals who prodded cattle with long poles to load them onto railroad cars for shipping. To this day, cowhand and ranchhand are mainly used in America. The term cowboy is now generally used in the rodeo and a catch-all term.
- cafard 3y agoSee also https://hudsonrivervalley.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/cowboys-and-skinners-in-the-revolution/ https://hudsonrivervalley.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/cowboys-a...
- AlecSchueler 3y agoWhat's the link between vaquero and cowboy? I get that they both derive from the name of the same animal but is there actually a lineal relationship between them? And why would a Spanish source word cancel out or disprove any later racial associations of the word? Regarding the other terms that were in use: Cowhand, ranchhand, drovers, stockmen etc etc. - does the use of these terms disprove the racialised aspects of cowboy or the story of how the word became popularised? I would think cowboy could have still been popularised in the slavery context despite not having been coined especially for it.
- Cenk 3y ago
- theultdev 3y ago[flagged]
- infecto 3y agoSurprising because I know quite a few Texans that do enjoy Texas Monthly. Please share some facts. Edit: Happy to be wrong, I am sure the magazine has change over the years, it is an old publication but I always found it to be actually pretty "left" if you will especially regarding Texas politics. Again I have not read all of the publication so who knows but the magazine in my timeline has always been fairly critical of the government taking out apart the public schools and other related themes.
- actionfromafar 3y agohttps://time.com/6072141/alamo-history-myths/ https://time.com/6072141/alamo-history-myths/
- infecto 3y agoWhat specifically about it? The problem with using the Alamo as an example is for too long of a damn time Texas was teaching these myths in the public school system. That example feels more systemic than the specifics of the modern TM publication being race baiting trash.
- actionfromafar 3y agoI just meant that TM is hardly alone in questioning the old Alamo myth. I guess that makes Time race baiting trash in the views of some.
- theultdev 3y agoWhich point of view is the myth? I guess it depends on the number of outlets repeating it? And yes it does to answer your question about Time Magazine, one in the same really. At one point Time Magazine was a good publication, not in the last decade though. (in my opinion incase that needs to be stated)
- ramesh31 3y agoImportant to remember just how close we really are to slavery. It's not ancient history by any means. The last living child of an American slave just died a few years ago. And we still have living memory of people born in slavery; the African Americans who marched in the 50s and 60s grew up with stories of slavery from their grandparents. This is crucial to understanding race relations in the US.
- Aloha 3y agoAgreed. This article sorta outlines the complexity of slavery too. Yes, flat out chattel slavery was a dehumanizing system. It also created a legacy of complex family relationships that as often as not bridged race - and leave those families still intertwined today - this is something white america has not yet really begun to grapple with. That complex history of slavery is something that we as a nation are still grappling with today.
- Anechoic 3y agoImportant to remember just how close we really are to slavery. It's not ancient history by any means. Absolutely. My grandmother's grandmother was a slave. It's still hard for me to wrap my hand around the fact that I knew and talked to someone that new a slave. (yes, I know modern-day slavery exists, I'm speaking in context of US chattel slavery)
- mattpallissard 3y ago> responded by whupping the offender in a fistfight, which apparently instilled respect in his adversary. Improbable as it seems, the two men developed a friendship. Is this improbable? It's common enough to be a trope. I've had it happen twice. One of my co workers had words with me and promptly knocked me on my ass. We became friends while he helped me off the ground. A drunk once got lippy with me and said "you won't hit me". Naturally, that forced my hand. Soon thereafter he became one of the best friends I ever had. This can't be uniquely American, right?
- ambrozk 3y agoJebe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebe) became one of Ghenghis Khan's top generals after shooting the Khan's horse out from under him in battle. Heart recognizes heart.
- mattpallissard 3y ago> Heart recognizes heart This is a good line.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- philwelch 3y agoYeah, that line also struck me as somewhat silly. Even in the days of outright dueling, this was known to happen. If you study the life of Andrew Jackson (who frankly comes across to any modern American as an absolute psycho), he had several duels throughout his life, and while many of them ended in Jackson killing his opponent, he also befriended many of his surviving dueling opponents. It was fairly common for a duel to end with both parties intentionally missing the other with their pistols, and it was probably safer for everyone involved for the fistfight to replace the duel as a ritual test of bravery and honor, though even that is on the decline.
- dadjoker 3y agoI wonder if he ever demanded "reparations", like so many "activists" today.