WHEN you hear the word "cowboy," what comes to mind: A weathered face beneath a wide-brimmed hat with the glint of a revolver at high noon?
Cowboys were typically the stars of Western movies, a genre popularised between the 1940s and 1960s. The plots vary, but most times the themes include big showdowns between a bunch of cowboys, revenge quests, the tension between law and lawlessness, just to name a few.
But what if none of that is actually real?
Were cowboys actually outlaws like in the movies?
VERDICT:
FALSE
Contrary to popular belief, cowboys were not the typical vigilantes you'd see in movies. They were mostly ranch or farm owners, so really, they most likely had a rake in hand rather than a gun. Most cowboys were more focused on daily chores and cattle drives than on picking a gun fight.
However, there was a small handful that actually fit the myth. Take King Fisher. He was a real cowboy who became a gun-slinging vigilante, running his own lawless territory in the Nueces Strip, a no-man's-land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande in south Texas. Rumour has it he killed three horse thieves with their own guns. He was just the exception, not the rule.
All those famous Westerns were really just another Hollywood myth.
References:
https://www.history.com/articles/7-myths-american-west
https://historycollection.com/15-myths-about-cowboys-that-hollywood-got-totally-wrong/
https://www.britannica.com/art/western
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/fisher-john-king
https://catalog.dallaslibrary.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=3.1033.0.0.6&pos=8&cn=3401885
