From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   George Kincaid wrote:   
      
   > So being a vaquero (looking after cattle) was a respectable job, but being a   
   > cowboy (in the old, thief sense of the word) wasn't. I imagine the   
   > English-speaking cattlemen learned their trade from the Spanish, and then   
   > adapted the techniques and gear for their own ranching. Interesting bit of   
   > culture contact there. I heard a little bit about that on Wild West Tech, a   
   > History Channel show. Words like rodeo and lasso are Spanish, too, right?   
   > The Spanish vaqueros would work for hacienda owners? I hope that's not too   
   > many questions--just got my curiosity piqued! ;)   
      
   The thief conotation was a hold-over from the first days of the Texas   
   Republic when men who rode down into South Texas to raid Mexican ranches   
   to steal cattle were called "cow boys". In American Revolutionary times,   
   the same term was used for similar folks, loyalists, if I recall correctly.   
      
   Somewhere I have a reference to the earliest published usages of "cow   
   boy" and "cowboy" as regular terms, without onus, for cattle workers.   
      
   There was a great difference in the situations of vaqueros in Mexico   
   under the hacienda system and freely employed vaqueros in Texas. The   
   hacienda system ran the operation like a big and very paternalistic   
   family of sorts. One was born on the hacienda of generational workers   
   attached to it. The hacienda paid for everything from birth to death,   
   but it was the "company store", and not unusual for one to inherit the   
   debt. Whether one was better off under the hacienda system or later as a   
   free and freely fired worker is a matter of judgment.   
      
   But yes. The Anglos who came to Texas learned to work cattle under the   
   local conditions from Mexicans. Working cattle in the "old states" was   
   quite different. In the eastern portion of Texas, Black cowboys   
   predominated. Mexican in the west. Texas stock law is still essentially   
   that of the early Spanish rules, brand law, dealing with estrays, etc.   
   The Texas & Southwest Cattle Raisers Association is the spiritual child   
   of the Spanish Mesta:   
   http://www.cowboymagazine.com/Roping.html   
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)