Tales of Previous West cowboys usually conjure up evocative photos of rodeos, cattle ranches and wild gunfights — stereotypes popularized by Hollywood on the silver display. Sadly, some Previous West historical past is much less well-known.
Do you know that 1 in 4 cowboys was Black?
A particular exhibition on the Witte Museum goals to color a clearer image of what cowboy tradition was actually like, particularly by the lens of African American historical past.
Ronald Davis, curator of American Historical past on the Witte Museum, joins Robert Rivard on the bigcitysmalltown podcast to speak about Black Cowboys: An American Story, an exhibition that explores the lives of the free and enslaved Black males, girls and kids who labored on Texas ranches on the flip of the twentieth century.
The exhibition is “forcing folks to reimagine what they understood the cowboy to be,” Davis says. “The cowboy was an inclusive determine” that grew to become iconic throughout the historical past of Texas and the American West.
Nonetheless, “in making [the cowboy] an iconic determine it looks as if there have been sure narratives faraway from the story.” The Witte is dedicated to sharing these untold tales.
The particular exhibition has acquired overwhelmingly optimistic suggestions as its been on show beforehand on the Fort Price Museum of Science and Historical past and the Nationwide Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma. It gives African American guests to see themselves in historical past and connects trendy traditions with the previous.
“There’s a robust custom of Black cowboys, particularly as you go East of San Antonio into Fort Bend County, Liberty County … elsewhere like out in Victoria as nicely,” Davis says, talking of present day rodeo circuits that concentrate on Black cowboys.
“These folks perceive their heritage and their historical past… They hint their lineage again to enslaved cowboys.”
The Witte will deepen the dialog of Black historical past in Texas throughout the upcoming 2024 Convention on Texas referred to as Ode to Juneteenth: Slavery in Texas. Co-presented in partnership with the San Antonio African American Neighborhood Archive and Museum (SAAACAM) and the Smithsonian, the convention is an opportunity for the local people to speak overtly about slavery and from a humanistic perspective.
Whereas there have been students within the early twentieth century writing on the subject, Davis says that the examine of slavery in Texas is younger. “A few of the social historical past features of Texas slavery doesn’t actually get began till the [1980s].”
Davis tells Rivard that “it was essential to do a convention that centered the enslaved expertise in Texas” specializing in the what it was wish to be moms, fathers and households below these circumstances.
Panels on the convention will cowl many subjects together with slavery by artwork, the historical past of black resistance, enslaved cowboys, state jail farms, struggles of runaway slaves and the legacy of Juneteenth.
There’s a lot to discover about Texas’ historical past and “we perceive as an establishment that that is info we would like all Texans to know, all Individuals to know, so we perceive our previous higher.”
Ode to Juneteenth: Slavery in Texas will happen on Dec 5 and 6 on the Witte Museum. Tickets and a schedule of occasions can be found right here.
Black Cowboys: An American Story is now open and runs by Feb. 9, 2025. For extra info, go to the Witte Museum web site.
