What does it mean to be a cowboy in the West?

In the early colonial era, settlers relied on Britain and European countries for clothing, and every inch was precious. In the process of continuous development to the western frontier of the United States, the rapid development of agriculture accompanied by industrial prosperity, so the rapid growth of the urban population, the United States in the 1880s, it is said that five-sixths of the population still live in the countryside, the lack of necessities of life, clothing is often simplified by the simple and more casual. In view of its superior quality, the gold rush era of jeans more and more popular miners, cowboys (Cowboy), railroad workers, lumberjacks and pioneers and other manual laborers, and even completely turned into their work clothes, become more valuable than the gold mine "uniform".

The word "cowboy" is actually of Spanish origin and is a direct translation of the Spanish word "vaquero". The word "Vaquero" was developed from the root word "vaca", meaning "cow", so "Vaquero Cowman" translates into English as "Cowboy". The earliest cowboys were the descendants of Europeans who came to live in the Americas. The English and French colonists who landed on the east coast of the United States were unfamiliar with Spanish animal husbandry, and began raising cattle only in pens. When the grass in the pen was eaten up by the cattle, the herd was driven to a new place where there was grass to continue herding. Such a cattleman is called a "driver" in English. The Spaniards were not like the colonizers of other colonies who came to escape political and religious persecution, they were aristocrats and adventurers, they were rigorous, intelligent, gentlemanly, bold, ambitious, adventurous, and liked to express themselves. ...... They integrated the essence of the "I Can They put the essence of "I Can" into "America Can". The way they raised their cattle was true pastoralism, putting them out on the open grasslands and the cowboys rode with them on horseback. The spirit of these Spaniards represents the traditional cowboy spirit. Inhabiting the countryside of New Mexico are such stubbornly traditional cowboys, descendants of the Spaniards who are found throughout the United States, and whose lineage and culture have been well preserved.

In 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico. In the war the Americans defeated the Mexicans and established the state of New Mexico. But very ironically, the cowboy culture of New Mexico completely conquered the United States. No other region has had such an important and far-reaching impact on the development of American cowboy culture as New Mexico.

In fact, cowboys were not as strongly heroic as the movies reflect. According to one cowboy expert, Lawn Taylor, cowboys in reality were farm workers on horseback who tended cows. They spent 12 to 14 hours a day outdoors, and their work was heavy, dangerous and poorly paid. Most cowboys had to find other work in the winter, but the 1865-1895 period was the heyday of the cowboy, when new methods of meat preservation, a dramatic increase in demand for beef, and the extension of railroads to most villages led to a boom in ranching in the southwestern United States. Grazing, ranching owners raised large herds of cattle in the West at low cost and then shipped them by rail to markets in the East. And cowboys ran cattle outdoors and shipped them to the nearest railroad.