What is a cowboy?
A: A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North
America.
Traditionally he does this on what?
A: On horseback.
The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century
arose from what?
A: The vaquero traditions of northern Mexico.
A subtype, called a wrangler specifically does what?
A: Tends the horses used to work cattle.
In addition to ranch work, some cowboys work for or
participate in what?
A: Rodeos.
"Cowboy" was first used in print by whom?
A: Jonathan Swift in 1725.
The term was used in the British Isles from 1820 to
1850 to describe what?
A: Young boys who tended the family or community cows.
By 1849 "cowboy" had developed its modern sense as a
what?
A: An adult cattle handler of the American West.
"Cowhand" appeared in 1852, and "cowpoke" in 1881,
originally restricted to whom?
A: The individuals who prodded cattle with long poles to load them onto
railroad cars for shipping.
Names for a cowboy in American English include what?
A: Buckaroo, cowpoke, cowhand, and cowpuncher.
"Cowboy" was used during the American Revolution to
describe what?
A: American fighters who opposed the movement for independence.
Claudius Smith, an outlaw identified with the Loyalist
cause, was called what?
A: The "Cow-boy of the Ramapos" due to his penchant for stealing oxen,
cattle and horses from colonists and giving them to the British.
In the Tombstone, Arizona, area during the 1880s, the
term "cowboy" or "cow-boy" was used pejoratively to describe men who what?
A: Who had been implicated in various crimes.
One loosely organized band was dubbed "The Cowboys” and
profited from what?
A: Smuggling cattle, alcohol, and tobacco across the U.S.–Mexico border.
Black cowboys in the American West accounted for up to
what percentage of workers in the range-cattle industry from the 1860s to
1880s?
A: 25 percent.
By the 1880s, the expansion of the cattle industry
resulted in a need for additional what?
A: Open range.
Prior to the mid-19th century, most ranchers primarily
raised cattle for what?
A: For their own needs and to sell surplus meat and hides locally.
While Texas contained vast herds of what?
A: Stray, free-ranging cattle available for free to anyone who could round
them up.
By 1866, cattle could be sold to northern markets for
as much as $40 per head, making it what?
A: Potentially profitable for cattle, particularly from Texas, to be herded
long distances to market.
In 1867, where was a cattle shipping facility built?
A: At Abilene, Kansas, and it became a center of cattle shipping, loading
over 36,000 head of cattle that year.
The route from Texas to Abilene became known as what?
A: The Chisholm Trail, after Jesse Chisholm, who marked out the route.
By 1877, the largest of the cattle-shipping boom towns,
Dodge City, Kansas, shipped out how many head of cattle.?
A: 500,000.
Cattle drives had to strike a balance between what?
A: Speed and the weight of the cattle.
While cattle could be driven as far as 25 miles (40 km)
in a single day, they would what?
A: Lose so much weight that they would be hard to sell when they reached the
end of the trail.
On average, a herd could maintain a healthy weight
moving how miles per day?
A: About 15 miles per day.
Such a pace meant that it would take how long to travel
from a home ranch to a railhead?
A: As long as two months.
How long was the Chisholm trail?
A: It was 1,000 miles (1,600 km) miles long.