The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982 Page: 463
497 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
this hemisphere. Cowboys, as they came to be known long after the
Spanish drove herds, were hired hands on horseback, and there is
much about these emerging American folk heroes, their ways and
habits, in this volume. Purists may argue if this constitutes "culture."
What this account does provide is a well-written narrative of the
techniques, the developing trends, the spread, and the significance of
cattle raising from 1494 to the close of the open range in the late nine-
teenth-century high plains country, with a brief epilogue that dis-
cusses the mystique of man and saddle in the day of mechanical buckers
in modern bars. In one volume, as the publisher advertises, one will
find portrayed the continuity of the cow in the Western Hemisphere
and the fate of that animal from the day of the early Spanish hide
hunters to lunch at modern McDonald's. During the centuries con-
sidered there were changes and variations in the cattle business, but
basically the scene was one of man, horse, and cow.
Of interest, in the light of recent praise for laissez-faire, is Dary's
comparison of the Hispanic and the later Anglo-American cattle fron-
tiers. Before the sixteenth century was out, he tells us, the Spanish
government exerted strict control over, and applied detailed regula-
tions to, Mexico's cattle domain. On the other hand, the Americans
worked in such a legal vacuum that they had to take the solution of
problems into their own hands and were, as a consequence, charged
with lawlessness and highhandedness. The author also has provided
some able discussions of the cattle business as pursued in Spanish Cali-
fornia as opposed to Spanish Texas. As he points out, the discovery of
gold in the former area exerted a considerable influence upon the di-
rection in which that area was to go, cattle raisers included.
The story of Texas cattle, of trail driving on the high plains, and the
establishment of "cow" towns in an arc across Kansas and later in
Nebraska and eastern Colorado, is a pretty well known story, one that
can be found in a number of readily available sources, but that does
not detract from Dary's efforts. His chapters on Ranch House culture
and Bunkhouse culture take the reader out of the run-of-the-mill ac-
counts of open-range days and direct him to the intended theme of
the book--cow-country culture.
Dary, a Kansas journalism professor fallen prey to the charms of
western history, has given us a neatly packaged and very well written
chapter in the American legend. Credit to his publisher, too, who
refrained from a blaring dust-jacket announcement that this work has
shattered old myths and has broken new ground. It hasn't. Author and463
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982, periodical, 1981/1982; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101208/m1/521/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.