The Beginning of Cowboys

    Many English speaking traders as well as settlers traveled west. But before the Mexican-American War that took place in 1848, New England merchants traveled by ship to California often encountering both Hacendados and vaqueros. American traders traveled along the Santa Fe Trail had many contacts with vaquero life. These early encounters led to the change in lifestyle and language. Vaquero traditions later merged with English cultural traditions and thus produced what we know today as the “Cowboy”. Cowboys showed up in the west around 1821 in the state of Texas and they worked as ranchers and were often used to drive cattle west. Before the mid- 19th century, ranchers mostly raised cattle for their own benefit to sell meat as well as hides locally.