Black cowboys

Pupils will understand the geographical and historical landscape in which cowboys lived by looking at a map of America and identifying the Midwestern area. Through images and text, pupils will explore the specific experience of Black cowboys. Pupils will explore the reasons as to why the Black cowboy narrative has been excluded and debunk myths around the Black cowboy by looking at statistics. Therefore, despite popular culture omitting the presence of Black cowboys, the very term was introduced to describe the presence of Black ranch workers in the southern states of America. It is thus questionable whether only a quarter of cowboys were Black or whether issues with language, definition and ultimately discrimination has meant that many Black cowboys were not counted in the statistics of the time and actually a larger number were present in history. Unsurprisingly, Black cowboys experienced a lot of racism at the time; for example, being barred from restaurants and hotels.