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er,” the word “cowboy” was known in the colonies by 1670. Irish fieldhands may have brought it, for the term occurs in Irish balladry of 1,000 years ago.
Cattle were known in the New World 160 years before 1670. Small sharp-horned Andalusian cattle and fine-bred Barbary horses came to Mexico with Spanish conquistadors within 30 years after Columbus sighted Hispaniola. Coronado took cattle north of the Rio Grande in 1540. It was prophetic, perhaps, that the first white man to cross Texas was Cabeza de Vaca, whose name meant “Head of a Cow.”
Hube Spanish haciendas spread cattle slowly north on the grassy Mexican tablelands. Herds ran wild and multiplied. Half-wild vaqueros—“cowboys” —rounded them up U> burn or cut the hidalgo’s brand on the calves. Spanish Vocabulary
From these Mexican vaqueros, Scottish and English frontiersmen drifting into what is now Texas learned their trade and forged a cattle kingdom. Their animals, their tools, even their words were Mexican: mustang, sombrero, poncho, corral, bronco, adobe, vigilante, vamoose, stampede. But no market existed for Texas cattle. All possible selling points were too far away. Herds grew larger still. Then came the California gold rush and the crossing of the contin
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