Reviews for In the Days of the Vaqueros: America's First True Cowboys

The average rating for In the Days of the Vaqueros: America's First True Cowboys based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-07-30 00:00:00 Toshirou Ogata Arguably the twentieth century's most distinguished nonfiction author for kids, Russell Freedman wrote on topics ranging from world history to the natural sciences, but a subject he returned to repeatedly was the old American West. Children of the Wild West (1983), Indian Chiefs (1987), Buffalo Hunt (1988), and The Life and Death of Crazy Horse (1996) are a few of his titles in this vein, and In the Days of the Vaqueros: America's First True Cowboys (2001) was his final book to delve into that era of American history. Centuries before cowboys roamed the United States, emissaries from Spain landed in the New World and created the conditions for cowboy culture to arise. After conquistadores eliminated the Aztec Empire, settlers imported large numbers of livestock from Spain to Mexico, and ranches sprang up across the land. Indians who lived in the territory were expected to work as ranch hands, herding cattle and wild horses over a radius of hundreds of miles. They had little choice but to obey the wealthy Spanish colonists. Prestigious encomenderos rose to prominence, men who depended on the Indians'called Vaqueros'to maintain their ranches for them. The vaquero became a disciplined professional, skilled at tracking down horses and livestock across frontier wilderness. They were peóns, in lifelong debt to their encomendero bosses with no means to build independent financial security. Full cattle roundups started on the Mexican frontier in the early 1500s, rodeos that saw thousands of cattle be branded for use by ranch owners. Vaqueros invented tools to make their dangerous herding work easier. Desjarretaderas, or hocking knives, were used for slaughtering cattle, but vaqueros eventually turned instead to the la reata, a term anglicized over time to become "lariat." Vaqueros could toss the knotted rope to snare cattle rather than pierce them with a hocking knife. Though he rarely received adequate pay for the risks of his job, the vaquero didn't complain about his lot in life. Spanish influence on Mexico expanded in the 1700s. Hacienda ranch estates were owned by wealthy, powerful hacendados. These men lived in homes featuring the finest luxuries available in the New World, but the vaqueros who labored for them remained poor. With no economic mobility to speak of, vaqueros passed their profession from one generation to the next, training their children to ride before they could speak. In 1821 Mexico declared independence from Spain, and large swaths of land became available to Mexican citizens throughout the northern part of the country and what would later be California. Rancho estates in California used vaquero labor, and theirs were said to be the world's finest riders. In both California and Mexico, vaqueros evolved a practical, iconic dress code for dealing with long months on the dusty trail herding livestock. Over a lifetime of service, vaqueros developed a bowlegged walk from sitting in the saddle all day, but if you saw one on a horse, his graceful movements were peerless. Disrespected though they often were by their bosses, vaqueros were masters of their profession. Life on the range wasn't all hardship. Vaqueros engaged in lighthearted sporting contests to put their skills to the test, and took pride in proving themselves the best among their brethren. Tailing bulls, riding bucking broncos, and other rodeo games were the height of entertainment for vaqueros. The men gathered around campfires on starry nights to swap ghost stories, a tradition that persists to this day. Life as a vaquero remained unchanged for hundreds of years, until land wars eventually resulted in large portions of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and other regions being ceded to the United States. Americans hired vaqueros to come work the land and teach them their time-honored techniques. The cowboy era in the U.S. came into its own with the advent of railroad travel, which enabled ranchers to ship cattle as far as the Eastern Seaboard, a previously inaccessible market. For a few decades at the end of the nineteenth century, cowboy culture flourished in the U.S., but modern inventions gradually phased most of them out of the workforce. The cowboy was now of more nostalgic than practical value. From the 1500s on, vaqueros had established a dynamic, easily romanticized culture, a legacy that would never disappear. Their self-reliance and earthy wisdom made it possible for man and horse to become successful partners on the wild frontier. In the Days of the Vaqueros is less emotional than Russell Freedman's signature works of juvenile nonfiction, but offers a lot of detail about this era of Mexican-American history. Every human culture that rises eventually declines, but the age of the vaquero lasted longer than the Spanish conquistadores could have anticipated. By celebrating the flexible disposition and physique of the vaquero, we remind ourselves that we, too, can thrive even if society discounts our value. I might rate In the Days of the Vaqueros two and a half stars; it's not one of Russell Freedman's best, but it fills in gaps in the American consciousness regarding cowboys and where they came from. Because of that, the book will always be relevant.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-08-03 00:00:00 Matthew Mahalchick I always enjoy reading and learning from Russell Frredman. And I really like the illustrations/pictures!