The most colorful and romantic legacy of American history is centered around the American Wild West and the cowboys that were center stage. By the early to mid 1800s, the western frontier was beginning to open wide to homesteading and pioneering. The first cattle drive in 1867 went from Texas to Abilene, Kansas, along the Chisholm Trail sparked the beginning of the cowboy legacy. The history of the cowboy, however, does not start in America.
The first cowboys were Spaniards with historic roots back to medieval Spain. With the import of Spanish cattle and horses these earliest settlers became the first cowboys in America. After the Mexican-American War in 1848, the southwestern US became a major trade route between America and Mexico, along the Santa Fe Trail. With the end of the Civil War in 1865 there were plenty of soldiers to fortify the west and reinforce the cowboy ranks. Cowboys were the herders of cattle and range riders, a lonesome profession. People back east began to cherish cowboy traditions, legends, stories and songs.
The darker side of the cowboy legacy were gunslingers, bounty hunters, cattle rustlers and horse thieves. The more sophisticated cowboy bad guys were the bank, stagecoach and train robbers, which thrived with the advancement of rail service into the western frontier. There is little doubt that sensational press over dramatized the cowboy, in both fact and fiction. By now the cowboy had a design template of man on a horse, saddle, saddle blanket, six shooter, lasso, chaps, boots and spurs, scarf, hat, campfire and a Springfield or Winchester rifle.
Cowboys and cowgirls still persist today. The modern rodeo was a cowboy invention born from busting horses and roping cattle as a part of life. Australia and other countries have their own similar cowboy legacies.
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