Black cowboys have long been a part of the culture of the American West, though you wouldn't know that if your knowledge of cowboys stems mainly from movie Westerns. The real-life truth is that, after the Civil War, when the Wild West really began to flourish, somewhere around 25 percent of all cowboys were Black.

Black cowboys in the American West accounted for up to an estimated 25% of cowboys "who went up the trail" from the 1860s to 1880s and substantial but unknown percentage in the rest of the ranching industry, estimated to be at least 5,000 workers according to recent research.

In the 1870s and 1880s, as many as 25 percent of the 35,000 cowboys in the Old West were black cowboys. Freed slaves headed west to find their fortunes among cattle ranches and rows of crops.

And though African-American cowboys don’t play a part in the popular narrative, historians estimate that one in four cowboys were black. The cowboy lifestyle came into its own in Texas, which had been cattle country since it was colonized by Spain in the 1500s.

The earliest evidence of African Americans as cattle herders (cowboys) in North America can be traced back to colonial South Carolina, where stock grazers from what is now Senegal in West Africa were specifically brought to that colony because of their unique skills.