USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Mexico’s native cowboys were called vaqueros, which comes from the Spanish word vaca (cow). Vaqueros were hired by ranchers to tend to the livestock and were known for their superior roping, riding and herding skills.

Detailed explanation-2: -Vaqueros were proverbial cowboys-rough, hard-working mestizos who were hired by the criollo caballeros to drive cattle between New Mexico and Mexico City, and later between Texas and Mexico City.

Detailed explanation-3: -While classic Westerns have cemented the image of cowboys as white Americans, the first vaqueros were Indigenous Mexican men. “The missionaries were coming from this European tradition of horsemanship. They could ride well, they could corral cattle, ” says Rangel.

Detailed explanation-4: -Vaqueros had been herding and driving cattle and wild horses for hundreds of years by the time they became part of the Texas ranching landscape. The vaqueros were so renowned for their skills that rancher Richard King traveled to Mexico in 1854 to recruit entire vaquero families to manage his herds.

Detailed explanation-5: -"Vaquero” is the name for a Mexican cowboy and the likely term that evolved into the Anglo word for cowboy, “buckaroo."