CD016
King & Country
This standing Vaquero holds a rope in one hand and a ‘Winchester’ repeating rifle in the other.
This particular vaquero may even be a ‘Tejano’... A Texas – born cowboy / vaquero of Mexican parentage. He’s wearing a store-bought work shirt and locally-made leather ‘chaps’, with of course the large ‘bandanna’ and the very practical sombrero.
The Spanish word ‘Vaquero’ or the Portuguese ‘Vaqueiro’ is literally translated as a ‘horse-mounted livestock herder’ whose roots go all the way back to the Iberian Peninsula and then some time later to the one-time Spanish colony of Mexico. The Vaquero with his skills and practical knowledge of handling and herding cattle was to become the foundation for the North American cowboy.
By the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the great Cattle Drives many experienced ‘vaqueros’ found their services in high demand with the top trail bosses putting together teams of cowboys to drive the huge herds of Texas ‘Longhorns’ all the way up to the railheads in Kansas and beyond.