Black Ranching Frontiers in Atlantic History, 1493–1900

Following the introduction of cattle into the Caribbean in 1493, open-range ranching proliferated in a series of frontiers across the grasslands of the Americas through the nineteenth century, establishing novel social and environmental relations with consequences that persist to the present. While historians have long recognized that Africans and Afro-descendants were involved in the establishment of those ranching frontiers, the emphasis has been on their labor rather than creative participation. Now material culture and other primary sources that complement archival documents have begun to reveal a fuller understanding of their roles. This presentation provides an overview of recent contributions in this area of research: for example, the invention by black cowboys in New Spain of the practice of lassoing cattle from horseback. It then explores the research frontier in this area, including ongoing research on the use of fire to manage tropical rangelands in the Greater Caribbean; and the use of the coleo, meaning to ride up behind fleeing cattle on a horse and grab their tails to flip them on their sides, in some parts of the Americas. Such contributions were critical to the expansion of open-range cattle ranching throughout the Americas, consequent environmental transformations, and changing social relations.