Cowboy+Life

The Life of a cowboy entailed long work and long lonesome hours. A cowboy worked ten to fourteen hours a day on a ranch and fourteen hours or more on a trail. They were alert at all times for dangers that might harm or upset the herds. Some of the cowboys had been as young as 15. The cowboys were expert riders and ropers. __**Longdrive-**__ The longdrive was a overland transport. The longdrive often lasted three months. A typical drive included one cowoy for every 50 to 30 head of cattle. A cook went along and helped set up camp and he drove the chuck wagon. A wrangler also went along and helped with the extra horses. The longdrive was when they had took beef cows up north so they could put them on the railroads and and transport them east, west or farther north so they could be transported faster. During the Longdrive, the cowboy was in the sattle from dusk til dawn. They slept on the ground and bathed in rivers.
 * __[|cowboy] Life__**__-__

__**Longhorns-**__ Were sturdy, short-tempured breeds accustomed to the dry grasslands to the dry grasslands of southern spain. Spanish settlers raised longhorns for food and brought horses to use as work animals and transportations.

__**Round Up-**__ The Cowboy's season began witha spring roundup, which the cowboy and other hands from the ranch herded all the longhorns they could find on the open range into a large corral. They Kept the herd penned there for several days, until the cattle were so hungry that they preferred grazing to running away. The Cowboys then sorted through the herd, claiming the cattle that were marked with the brand of their ranch and calves that still needed tto be branded. After the herd was gathered and branded, the trail boss chose a crew for the longdrive.

__**Growing Demand for beef-**__ After the civil war, the demand for beef raised, due tot he rapidly growing cities. The chicago union stock yards opened in 1865, and by spring 1866, the railroads were running regularly through Sedalia, Missouri. From Sedalia, Texas ranchers could ship their cattle to Chicago and markets throughout the East. They found the route to Sedalia in 1866 presented several obstacles; including thunderstorms and rain-swollen rivers. Some herds then had to be sold at cut-rate prices, others died of starvation.

__**End of the Open Range-**__ Almost as quickly as cattle herds multiplied and ranching became big business, the cattle frontier met its end. Overgrazing of th land, extended bad weather, and the invention of barbed wire were largely responsible. Between 1883 and 1887 alternating patterns of dry summers and harsh winters wiped out whole herds.


 * __Spanish Influences on Cowboys-__** The cowboy's way of life came frim the first Spanish ranchers in Mexico. The Cowboy's clothes, food, and vocabulary were heavily influenced by the mexican people. The Mexican //Rancho// became the American Ranch. They became known as cowboy's from the spanish people.

http://members.aol.com/cmurphy93/Cowboys2/__ Danzer, Klor de Alva, Krieger, Wilson, and Woloch,__ The Americans,__ McDougal Littel, 2006.**
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