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Who were the first cowboys in history?
Executive summary
Historical scholarship and recent scientific studies converge on one clear point: the archetype of the “first cowboy” is not a lone white American figure invented on the 19th‑century range. Indigenous horsemen trained by Spanish colonists (the vaqueros of Mexico), enslaved Africans and Afro‑Caribbean herders, and Spanish/European traditions all contributed to early cattle‑herding practices in the Americas [1] [2] [3]. New genetic work on early cattle bones even suggests African cattle and enslaved African herders played a formative role in the earliest American ranching economies [3].
1. Vaqueros: the clearly documented ancestors of the American cowboy
Spanish ranching methods brought to the Americas in the 1500s produced a horse‑mounted cattle‑working class in what is now Mexico long before the U.S. “Old West” era. History traces the vaquero—an expert horseman who herded cattle and used the lasso—back to Indigenous Mesoamerican men trained by Spaniards after 1519; scholars and museums link the later U.S. cowboy directly to these vaquero practices [1] [4]. Mexican vaquero culture is explicitly identified as “the original cowboys” in reporting and cultural history, and commentators note popular histories and Hollywood often omitted or erased that Mexican origin [2] [1].
2. Enslaved Africans and Afro‑Caribbean workers: new research reshapes the timeline
Archaeogenetic research of 400‑year‑old cattle bones has prompted historians to reconsider who tended the earliest herds in the Americas. That study argues cattle with African genetic signatures arrived earlier than thought and that herding innovations—horsemounted herding and use of the lariat—were practiced in Mexico and the Caribbean at times when many of the laborers were enslaved Africans or Afro‑Caribbean people; some researchers state this evidence “changes the whole perspective” on cowboy origins [3]. Popular science and news outlets summarized the claim that the “first cowboys” in the Americas were often Black and from Mexico/the Caribbean [5] [6].
3. Multiple roots: Spain, European medieval traditions, and regional adaptation
Longer historical lines also connect cowboy skills back to Spain. European pastoral practices from northern Spain, transferred to the New World by colonists, supplied equipment, techniques and vocabulary that blended with Indigenous and African practices to form regional cowboy cultures over centuries [7] [8]. Encyclopedias and cultural museums emphasize that cowboy culture is a hybrid, evolving differently across terrains and populations [8] [4].
4. Black cowboys in U.S. history: documented 19th‑century presence
By the 19th century, African Americans were a sizable and visible presence among cowboys—some born into slavery and others free—particularly in Texas and on major cattle drives post‑Civil War; Texas historic handbooks and museum projects document Black cowboys’ long participation and subsequent efforts to recover their public recognition [9]. These accounts do not contradict vaquero or Spanish roots; rather, they show continuity and diversification of who worked on the range.
5. How historians and scientists disagree or add nuance
Not all accounts emphasize the same origin story. Traditional narratives—especially popular U.S. frontier mythology—elevated a white, Anglo image of the cowboy and often minimized Mexican, Indigenous, and Black roles [2] [10]. Scientific studies emphasizing African cattle lineages and enslaved labor prompt historians to revise timelines and center actors previously marginalized; critics in some outlets push back, arguing earlier European and Hispaniolan cattle economies predate the 17th‑century framing, a debate reflected in public commentary on these studies [6] [3].
6. What available sources do not settle
Available sources do not provide a single, uncontested “first person” or group that can be labeled universally as the first cowboy. They also do not establish precise numbers of people from each group involved in the very earliest herding communities—rather, the record supports a multiethnic, multi‑regional emergence of cowboy practices (not found in current reporting). Sources likewise do not claim that any single culture invented every element of cowboycraft; the evidence points to blended technologies and skills spreading among Indigenous, Spanish, African and Caribbean peoples [1] [3] [4].
7. Bottom line for readers
The simplest, evidence‑based answer: cowboy traditions in the Americas grew from Spanish vaquero systems transplanted in the 1500s, adapted by Indigenous laborers, and significantly shaped by enslaved Africans and Afro‑Caribbean workers whose roles recent genetic studies highlight; by the 19th century the iconic U.S. cowboy arose from that mixed inheritance [1] [2] [3] [9]. Readers should view the “first cowboy” as a cultural formation with multiple origins rather than a single founder.