Cowboy steak
On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page cowboy steak from the article title. A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks.
The cowboy has deep historic roots tracing back to Spain and the earliest European settlers of the Americas. Over the centuries, differences in terrain and climate, and the influence of cattle-handling traditions from multiple cultures, created several distinct styles of equipment, clothing and animal handling. The English word cowboy has an origin from several earlier terms that referred to both age and to cattle or cattle-tending work. The English word cowboy was derived from vaquero, a Spanish word for an individual who managed cattle while mounted on horseback. Vaquero was derived from vaca, meaning “cow”, which came from the Latin word vacca. By 1849 “cowboy” had developed its modern sense as an adult cattle handler of the American West.
Variations on the word appeared later. Cowhand” appeared in 1852, and “cowpoke” in 1881, originally restricted to the individuals who prodded cattle with long poles to load them onto railroad cars for shipping. Today, “cowboy” is a term common throughout the west and particularly in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, “buckaroo” is used primarily in the Great Basin and California, and “cowpuncher” mostly in Texas and surrounding states. Equestrianism required skills and an investment in horses and equipment rarely available to or entrusted to a child, though in some cultures boys rode a donkey while going to and from pasture. Because of the time and physical ability needed to develop necessary skills, both historic and modern cowboys often began as an adolescent. If not crippled by injury, cowboys may handle cattle or horses for a lifetime.
Cowboy” was used during the American Revolution to describe American fighters who opposed the movement for independence. In the Tombstone, Arizona, area during the 1880s, the term “cowboy” or “cow-boy” was used pejoratively to describe men who had been implicated in various crimes. The origins of the cowboy tradition come from Spain, beginning with the hacienda system of medieval Spain. The arrival of horses was particularly significant, as equines had been extinct in the Americas since the end of the prehistoric ice age. Horses quickly multiplied in America and became crucial to the success of the Spanish and later settlers from other nations.
As English-speaking traders and settlers expanded westward, English and Spanish traditions, language and culture merged to some degree. The arrival of English-speaking settlers in Texas began in 1821. Black cowboys in the American West accounted for up to 25 percent of workers in the range-cattle industry from the 1860s to 1880s, estimated to be between 6,000 and 9,000 workers. By the 1880s, the expansion of the cattle industry resulted in a need for additional open range.
Thus many ranchers expanded into the northwest, where there were still large tracts of unsettled grassland. Texas cattle were herded north, into the Rocky Mountain west and the Dakotas. Large numbers of cattle lived in a semi-feral or a completely feral state on the open range and were left to graze, mostly untended, for much of the year. In many cases, different ranchers formed “associations” and grazed their cattle together on the same range. In order to find young calves for branding, and to sort out mature animals intended for sale, ranchers would hold a roundup, usually in the spring. A roundup required a number of specialized skills on the part of both cowboys and horses.
A large number of horses were needed for a roundup. Each cowboy would require three to four fresh horses in the course of a day’s work. Horses themselves were also rounded up. Informal competition arose between cowboys seeking to test their cattle and horse-handling skills against one another, and thus, from the necessary tasks of the working cowboy, the sport of rodeo developed. Prior to the mid-19th century, most ranchers primarily raised cattle for their own needs and to sell surplus meat and hides locally.
There was also a limited market for hides, horns, hooves, and tallow in assorted manufacturing processes. The first large-scale effort to drive cattle from Texas to the nearest railhead for shipment to Chicago occurred in 1866, when many Texas ranchers banded together to drive their cattle to the closest point that railroad tracks reached, which at that time was in Sedalia, Missouri. Farmers in eastern Kansas, afraid that Longhorns would transmit cattle fever to local animals as well as trample crops, formed groups that threatened to beat or shoot cattlemen found on their lands. Cattle drives had to strike a balance between speed and the weight of the cattle.
Usually they were taken shorter distances each day, allowed periods to rest and graze both at midday and at night. On average, a single herd of cattle on a drive numbered about 3,000 head. To herd the cattle, a crew of at least 10 cowboys was needed, with three horses per cowboy. Cowboys worked in shifts to watch the cattle 24 hours a day, herding them in the proper direction in the daytime and watching them at night to prevent stampedes and deter theft.
