where were the first cowboys from?

Question

ok we have a bet going on. A friend of mine from florida says cowboys were orginally from florida and they were called crackers. I say cowboys were from tenn. or kentucky or somewhere but not florida. so do u know where the orginal cowboys were from

Answer 1

I would do some actual historical research but I can tell you that the first cowboys came from the deep south (florida does not count). After the Civil War, many Southerners were left without a country (even though the union was preserved) and so moved westward to start anew. Mostly these cowboys came from states neighboring Texas such as Louisiana, Arkansas and yes Tennessee. But do some research to confirm this.

Answer 2

Long before cattle or cowboys first appeared in the American West, men were herding livestock in Spanish Mexico. Conscripted by wealthy Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century, these Native American vaqueros became spectacular riders and ropers as they mastered the art of cow herding. Three hundred years later, they taught the inexperienced settlers of the American West how to round up cattle, bring down a steer, and break a wild bronco. It was from the vaqueros that cowboys derived their distinctive clothing, saddles, and lingo -- words like lasso, dally, and buckaroo. But it is the cowboy whose fabled reputation we remember, while the vaquero has all but disappeared from history.

Answer 3

Neither of you wins the bet. Cowboys were simply men who came from the eastern states, travelling in the hopes of making their fortunes in the west. They came to the west without wives, families or other relatives who would have kept them from doing, "stupid guy stuff." They were from Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Connecticut. But there were definitely more southerners. Many southern men went west after the Civil War, due to dissilusionment from the war and/or having lost everything, including property and family. So in a way, you're both right.

Answer 4

On Montauk, Long Island, New York ,Deep Hollow Ranch bills itself, credibly, as “the oldest cattle ranch in the U.S.A.” A cattle drive, from as far west as Patchogue, 70 miles away, ended in its green pastures in 1658. Cattle have been ranched on this particular property since that time. Not a region where one would expect the American "Cowboy" to have one of his places of origin.

Answer 5

Australia really had the first cowboys and then Florida.

Answer 6

The Spaniards brought horses and settled in New Spain (now Mexico). They traveled into what is now Texas and spread out from there.

Answer 7

Mexico.