Copied from the Graham Leader (Online)
Black Cowboys
Friday, March 06, 2009
By Gay Schlittler Storms
Danger and hardship awaited those who ventured on the Texas frontier.
Despite the risks, half a million black men, women and children moved to Texas and Oklahoma. They came to the
Lone Star State because they enjoyed far more freedom than in other parts of the country. And black cowboys
suffered from less discrimination than other occupations, said Kenneth W. Porter, author and buffalo soldier re-enactor.
Five thousand black men helped drive cattle up the Chisholm Trail after the Civil War. Some had come West as slaves
and were roping and branding cattle before they became free men. Others came after emancipation, looking for a free
life where skill counted more than skin color. The usual trail crew of eight often included two black cowboys. On the
cattle drive, these cowboys had to work harder and longer than anyone else to gain respect from the rest of the
cowhands. Blacks were usually called upon to do bronco busting or wrangling, The horse wrangler had to prepare
fresh horses for all the cowboys and find new grazing spots every evening.
Sometimes he had to care for 60 horses in an outfit. Blacks knew if there was an outlaw horse to be broken or an
extra night watch, it was their job. Jim Fowler, a black cowboy who rode the Goodnight-Loving Trail, felt he was
assigned the worst job. He had to shoot the calves in the morning that had "dropped" or were born during the night.
When an old cowboy could no longer ride 12 hours in the saddle, he often became the camp cook.
Unlike most jobs for blacks outside Texas, cowboys were not discriminated against in wages. Likewise, black and
white cowboys slept in the same shack or under the same blankets as other cowboys. Fights between black and white
cowboys were rare. However, black cowboys suffered racism once they arrived in town. Bartenders made them sit at
one end of the bar, they were not allowed to solicit white prostitutes, and whites called them derogatory names.
Even though Texas black cowboys earned respect and enjoyed freedom on the range, it was rare that they moved up
to a position as foreman or trail boss. Jim Perry was an all-around cowboy, cook and fiddler who worked on the XIT
ranch. He once remarked: "If it weren’t for my damned old black face, I’d have been boss of one of these divisions long
ago."
One exception was Addison Jones, who was range boss of a South Texas ranch with all-black cowboy hands.
Black or white, cowboys were ordinary men doing ordinary skills to earn a living. Their lives were far more tedious and
lonely than full of the adventures pictured in westerns. Cowboys tended the cattle herd and ate dust all the way to
market. Going into town and kicking up their heels was a fraction of the way they spent their days. Black cowboys such
as Bill Pickett, Nat Love and Addison Jones earned colorful reputations.
An exceptional cowboy was Bose Ikard, who worked for Charles Goodnight, prominent Texas rancher. Goodnight
and Oliver Loving opened up one of the most heavily traveled cattle trails from Belknap to Fort Sumner, N.M. The
exacting Goodnight demanded the highest standards from his hands including no "cussing" — a tall order around
hundreds of Longhorns. (Goodnight’s personality inspired Tommy Lee Jones’ Captain in Woodrow Call.) Goodnight
trusted Ikard "farther than any living man." He considered Ikard his "detective, banker and everything else in Colorado,
New Mexico and the other wild country I was in."
When Ikard died, Goodnight honored him with a granite marker that stands today in Weatherford, where he was
buried. The epitaph reads: "Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty
or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid
behavior."