Cattle Industry Analysis

What I found interesting in this section was the origin of “cowboy,” which I usually see in Hollywood movies and novels, and because of extensive treatment of cattle drives in fiction and film, the cowboy became the worldwide iconic image of the American West. Through this section, I learned Spanish word “vaquero,” which was the English translation of “cowboy” and that means a person who managed cattle while mounted on horseback. I researched the history of cattle industry in California, how people developed the economy in Cattle Drive era. In this journal 2, also I further studied their cultural difference between California cowboy and Texas cowboy which drew my attention as well. I am going to focus on Cattle Drive section in this journal.
Generally, a single cattle drive includes 3,000 head of cattle, and a crew of about 10 cowboys, who had three horses with them. They led the herds of cattle to market. Millions of cattle were brought from Texas to railheads in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska for shipments, then transported to California or cities in east. Cowboys took shifts to watch and take care of the cattle 24 hours every day, leading them to the route in the midday and watching them at night-time to prevent cattle from run away and keep theft away from them. The crew included a cook in a wagon, who was respected by other crew; also he took a role of a sort of doctor. He supervised medical equipment and was in charge of health management of the crew and cattle. The group also had a horse wrangler, who was typically a young cowboy with lower social states.
What was the origin of cattle drives? During the 16th century, Spanish settlers brought horses and cattle to the Americas, as well as their technique of the livestock industry to Mexico, where they called New Spain back then, and the Southwestern United States. Due to the environmental, cultural, and geographic situations of Mexico, Spain’s livestock traditions were gradually converted to fit the new land. The arrival of horses in the Americas was especially meaningful because horses rapidly propagated and became crucial to the success of the Spanish and later settlers from
In the Spanish colonial period in 16th century, the Spanish vaquero arrived and took care of young, non-domesticated horses in California. Back then, the California vaquero did not leave the ranch where they had grown up, and they were regarded to be very skillful. On the other hand, they style of Texas vaquero was more nomadic; single itinerant cowboy traveled from ranch to ranch. In addition, California allowed more effective pasturage system due to the weather and geography difference. In addition, cattle markets in California were opened by individual region, which did not need hundreds of miles cattle drive to