History
Published on Feb 09, 2016
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
THE CATTLE KINGDOM
Chapter 19 section 3
CREATING A CATTLE KINGDOM
Before the arrival of settlers from the United States , the spanish and the mexicans, set up cattle ranches in the southwest.
-Over the years, strays from these ranches, along with American breeds, grew into large herds of wild cattle. These wild cattle were known as longhorns, they roamed freely across the grassy plains of Texas.
-After the Civil War, the demand for beef increased. People in growing cities in the East needed more meat. Miners, railroad crews, farmers, and growing communities in the West added to the demand.
-The Texas longhorns were perfect for the commercial market. They couls travel far on little water, and they required no winter feeding.
TEXAS LONGHORN
-Then Texas ranchers began rounding up herds of longhorns. They drove the animals hundreds of miles north to railroad lines in Kansas and Missouri on trips called cattle drives.
-Jesse Chisholm blazed one of the most famous cattle trails. His route crossed rivers at the best places and passed by water holes.
-Ranchers began using the Chisholm Trail in 1867. Within five years, more than one million cattle had walked the road.
The Life of a Cowhand
Ranchers employed cowhands to tend their cattle and drive herds to markets.
-These hard workers rode alongside the huge herds in good and bad weather. They keep the cattle moving and rounded up strays.
-After the Civil War, veterans of the Confederate Army made up tje majority of the cowhands who worked in Texas. It is estimated that nearly one in three cowhands was either Mexican American or African American.
-American cowhands learned much about riding, roping, and branding from Spanish and Mexican vaqueros. The gear used by american cowhands was modeled on the tools of the vaqueros.
-Cowhands used the leather lariat to to catch cattle and horses. Their leather leggings where called chaps. Caps protected a rider's legs from thorny plants in the South.
-A cattle drive was hot, dirty, tiring, and often boring work. A cowboy's day could last for nearly 18 hours.
-Cowhands faced many dangers, including prairie dog holes, rattlesnakes, and fierce thunderstorms. They also faced attacks from cattle thieves who roamed the countryside.
-One of the cowhand's worst fears on a cattle drive was a stampede.
-Most cowhands did not work for themselves. Instead, they were hired hands for the owners of large ranches. For all their hard work, cowhands where fed, housed, and lucky to earn a $1 a day.
Untitled Slide
CHAPS AND LEATHER LARIAT
The Cow Towns
Cattle drives ended in cow towns that had sprung up along the railroad lines.
-In busy cow towns there is , dance halls, saloons, hotels, amd restaurants catered to the cowhands.
-Cow towns also attracted settlers who wanted to build stable communities where families could thrive. Doctors , barbers, artisans, bankers, a d merchants helped to turn cow towns into communities.
Religion was played an important role for the townspeople. Throughout the West, places of worship grew in number and membership.
COW TOWN
The Cattle Boom
In the 1870's ranching spread north from Texas and across the grassy plains.
-Cattle grazed from Kansas to present-day Montana. Ranchers had built a Cattle Kingdom in the West. They came to expect high profits.
-Ranchers let their cattle run wild on the open range. To identify cattle, each ranch had its own brand that was burned into a cow's hide.
-In the 1870's farmers began moving onto the range. Nature imposed limits on the cattle boom. After a time, there just was not enough grass to feed all the cattle that lived on the plains.
-Diseases such as "Texas fever" sometimes destroyed entire herds. Then, the bitterly cold winters killed entire herds of cattle too. In the summer, severe heat and drought dried up water holes and scorched the grasslands.
-Cattle owners began to buy land and fence it in. Soon, farmers and ranches divided the open range into a patchwork of large fenced plots. The Cattle Kingdom was over.
Key Terms
Cattle drive- herding and moving herds of cattle, usually to railroad lines.
Vaquero- Spanish or Mexican cowhand.
Cow town- settlement that grew up at the end of a cattle trail.
Reading focus
-What was the cattle kingdom?
- What was life like for a
cowhand?
- Why we're cow towns
important during the cattle boom?
THE END
By Carly Mancinone
