Past Is Prologue
In Celebration of Black Freedom, a Cowboy Story
Born a slave, Black cowboy Nat Love died a legend of the Old West
During Black History Month, I noticed a tweet go viral that pointed out how one in four cowboys were Black. No offense, y’all, but I thought this was common knowledge. Guess not.
So, to mark this Juneteenth, and to celebrate the freedom of Black Americans, I thought I’d lay out the story of Black cowboys, to expand and deepen our cultural memory, in the hopes that you add them to your picture of the Old West. It was a far more colorful place than those old-Hollywood, mayonnaise-and-white-bread Westerns portrayed.
The cowboy we’ll ride alongside in this big-sky story of the Old Black West is a legendary cattleman of them lonesome trails, the world’s first rodeo star, Nat Love. Ain’t that a hell of a name? But the dude’s nicknames were all just as sick. Deadwood Dick. Deadeye Dick. Red River Dick. For this story, we’ll call him Nat Love, ’cause if his momma named him Nat Love, I’mma call him Nat Love. His friends can call him Dick.
Nat Love was born in Tennessee on a particularly fertile plot of earth that stretches across the alluvial flood plains where water drains down from the Southern Appalachian mountains, a region of land…
