MEXICO CITY — Few figures occupy as prominent a niche in U.S. lore as the American cowboy, that embodiment of rugged individualism celebrated in dime novels, vintage radio, TV and Hollywood blockbusters.
But recent musings from Secretary of State Marco Rubio have fueled a sometimes-acrimonious debate — mostly on social media — about the origins of the tall-hatted buckaroo who, with the help of a trusty steed and a six-gun, helped tame the West.
At the Munich Security Conference this month, Rubio stated that the “entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West” was “born in Spain.”
Hurling an indignant riposte was one of the Florida Republican’s ideological antagonists, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who declared: “I believe that Mexicans and the descendants of African enslaved peoples would like to have a word on that.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with Bloomberg Television at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Feb. 14.
(Alex Kraus / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On social media, respondents were not hesitant to take sides.
“That tradition was born in present-day Mexico and southern Texas, and it is not Spanish,” said one person on X.
Wrote another: “Andalusian cowboys prove Marco Rubio right and respond to Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Even roping cattle came from Spain.’”
In a sense, experts say, Rubio, Ocasio-Cortez and their defenders are all correct — though their accounts tell only a part of the story.
It was indeed the Spanish, and Portuguese, who, in the 16th century, introduced horses and cows, species then nonexistent in the Americas.
But the New York lawmaker is also on track: The cowboy tradition evolved in a direct line from the singular innovations of Mexican vaqueros. Their varied ranks included people of European, Indigenous and mixed-race origins.
Nonetheless, the Mexican vaquero is largely erased from popular U.S. depictions of the cowboy. Traditional western dramas were more likely to depict vaqueros as bandits than hard-working ranch hands whose contributions were fundamental to the American West.
“The American cowboy, our great national folk hero, is recognized around the world as a symbol of our country,” the late Jim Hoy, a renowned cowboy historian, told Texas Highways magazine. “Cowboys as we know them, however, would never have come into existence without the vaquero.”
But as Rubio said, cowboy lineage can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula — as far back as the late medieval era, before Spain as a nation even existed. Moorish horse breeds were crossed with native stock to create a sturdy and agile beast for managing cattle. The horse also proved indispensable in the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521.
However, once Hernán Cortés triumphed, the conquistadors went from waging war — vanquishing the Aztecs — to the project of subjugating Indigenous holdouts and building a self-sustaining territory loyal to the crown. Among the many tasks: managing ever-multiplying multitudes of cattle.
Nonnative livestock — not just horses and cows but also donkeys, pigs and sheep — thrived in the vast grasslands, plains and deserts of the New World. The animals’ abrupt arrival transformed entire ecosystems, cultures and economies.
“You get to the Americas, and the place is giant,” said Eric D. Singleton, a curator at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. “You have a new environment, and you develop new techniques and new things within that environment to make it hospitable.”
The topography, weather, cultures and other factors were drastically distinct from Old World norms, so managing cattle required something beyond the skill sets of Andalusian herders.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
The job of refining techniques of riding and roping — while modifying gear and apparel — largely fell to the resourceful vaqueros, from the Spanish word vaca for cow.
“The vaquero had to reinvent techniques and strategies in a completely new context,” said Héctor Medina Miranda, a Mexican anthropologist and author. “This wasn’t just copying the Spanish. It involved a whole new approach.”
The Mexican cowboys became adept at everything from calving to branding to overseeing the kind of long-distance cattle drives that later became a staple of the western.
It was the vaquero who developed the initial incarnations of the so-called Western saddle, with its distinctive “horn,” used both as a grip and for securing ropes.
Centuries later, Spanish-origin terminology persists: words such as “corral,” “lasso,” “bronco,” “lariat” (la reata) and “chaps” (chaparreras). The term mesteño, meaning stray or wild, became, in cowboy-speak, mustang — that legendary, free-roaming denizen of the high plains.
Even “10-gallon hat” — hardly big enough to hold a gallon — probably had Mexican origins. One theory is that the moniker emerged from a cowpoke misinterpretation of the Spanish word galón, for braided hat-bands. A hat with a crown large enough to support 10 bands became a 10-gallon hat.
Bull-riding, still a staple on the U.S. rodeo circuit, originated in the vibrant vaquero tradition of charreadas — contests showcasing participants’ skills with horses, ropes and livestock. Charreadas remain a mainstay throughout Mexico and in Mexican American communities north of the border.
“The vaqueros didn’t cross the border,” said Medina Miranda. “The border crossed on top of them.”
El Charro, that indomitable expert horseman (or -woman) donning a wide-brimmed hat and embroidered jacket and trousers, still commands a pivotal role in Mexican culture. The charro is far from a modest vaquero, but a venerable caballero (gentleman) who has mastered the wrangling artistry of the frontier.
To this day, charrería is Mexico’s national sport. The charro figure, long celebrated in cinema and music, is as much an embodiment of manhood and culture in Mexico as the cowboy is in the United States. The late Vicente Fernández, the beloved actor and Grammy-winning maestro of the mariachi and ranchera genres, was affectionately known as “El Charro de Huentitán,” after his hometown in Jalisco.
Ocasio-Cortez was right about something else. African Americans and immigrants also helped create the cowboy tradition. Adding to the diverse mix were hired hands from tribes such as the Comanche, Cheyenne and Apache, who became unrivaled horse whisperers long before settlers arrived on their lands.
Like many illustrious figures, the cowboy turns out to be a more nuanced individual than the often one-dimensional representations of the silver screen. Before John Wayne and Gary Cooper, there were the noble vaqueros of Mexico, myth-makers in their own right.
“I equate the cowboy with what the medieval knight is to Europe, what the samurai is to Japan,” Singleton said. “It’s our mythology.”
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
