Milam County Historical Commission - Milam County, TX
Statue of Ben Milam at Milam County, TX Courthouse
Old Junior High School Building, Rockdale, TX
Milam County Courthouse - Cameron, TX
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Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
                     Freed Slaves Helped Shape the American Wild West
                                  by Patricia Benoit
                         Temple Daily Telegram - July 21, 2014

                               BACKROADS - BLACK COWBOYS


Hispanic “vaqueros” brought the cattle industry to Texas, but freed slaves helped tame
the Wild West. Texas’ black cowboys helped to define and refine cowboys’ mythic images
for generations. Milam County’s Charley Willis and Temple’s Ellis Miller are good
examples.

This summer is the season of cowboys and trains at the Temple Railroad and Heritage
Museum.

The museum presents two traveling exhibits this summer, “Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas
Cowboy” and “Hell on Wheels: Union Pacific Railroad Towns in Wyoming,” on display until
Aug. 2, 2014.

“New studies show the largest numbers of African-Americans herding cattle worked in Texas
— one-third of all black cowboys in 1890 and two-thirds in 1910,” said Alwyn Barr, Texas
Tech history professor who specializes in black studies. “Their jobs ranged from breaking
wild horses to serving as cooks. Life on ranches and drives seemed to involve less
discrimination than in more settled areas. Yet blacks seldom became foremen, although a
few rose to be trail bosses.”

Bell County produced its own brand of cattle punchers thanks to the expertise of blacks.
A rare exception was Miller, who died in December 1935 in Temple. Unusual for the Jim
Crow times, the Temple Daily Telegram gave him a two-column obituary at the top of the
page. The Telegram described him a “slave-time Negro,” more than 100 years old and
well-liked in the community.

Before he moved to Temple in about 1910, Miller joined the earliest trail rides in
1870-71, becoming such a trusted employee for his cattleman boss that he was allowed to
handle financial arrangements. The veteran of the Texas-Kansas trails is buried in an
unmarked grave in Hillcrest Cemetery.

Miller’s Temple employers thought so highly of him that they buried him with their family
in what was then an all- white section of Hillcrest.

Miller is mentioned in Massey’s book, “Black Cowboys of Texas,” but his grave is still
unmarked.

The term “cowboy” was found in the English language by 1725; some say it was a direct
translation of the Spanish word vaquero.

However, Sara Massey in her book “Black Cowboys of Texas” (Texas A&M Press, 2000) posits
a different origin.

Reaching back into 19-century writings and folklore, she suggests that the name “cowboy”
may have actually become in common usage during antebellum days among slave owners.
“Boy” was a frequent term referring to grown black men.

Thus, a grown slave would be called “house-boy”; “cow-boy” referred to those who tended
livestock. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, freed slaves began working on the trail
drives.

“Cow-boy” was quickly accepted for all drovers.

No matter the name’s origins, black cowboys were essential to the success of Texas’
cattle industry.

During the Confederate years, Gov. Francis Lubbock viewed the use of whites in cattle
driving as wasteful; thus, he encouraged their replacement with slaves to increase
enlistment.

This gave slaves increased incentive and skills to stick with herding. Thus, significant
numbers of blacks went on the great cattle drives originating in the Southwest in the
late 1800s.

Born as a slave in Milam County in 1850, Charley Willis went to work on the Morris Ranch
near Bartlett after emancipation. There he spent the next 20 years off and on, breaking
horses and any other neces- sary cow punching. In 1871, at age 21, he rode with one of 10
herds driven north to Wyoming from Georgetown — a 2,000- mile horseback trip. That year
more than 600,000 head of cattle marched northward from Texas.

Any good cattleman knew that longhorns are quick to stampede unless within earshot of
human voice. So, drivers would “sing” to their herds to calm them.

“Some trail bosses didn’t like to hire a fellow who couldn’t sing,” Wayne Gard wrote in
“The Chisholm Trail” (University of Oklahoma Press, 1954).

“We boys would consider it a dull day’s drive if we didn’t add at least one verse. On
bad, dark nights the cowboy who could keep up the most racket was the pet of the bunch.”

Willis returned to Texas, singing trail tunes, especially the oldest traceable version of
the song “Goodbye Old Paint.” Family tradition suggests that he wrote the song.

It’s possible. Sometime around 1885, Willis taught the song to Bartlett ranch hand Jesse
Morris, adding a mouth harp accompaniment. Morris became quite an accomplished musician
even though he continued working on ranches throughout Texas.

Willis and his family finally settled in Davilla in Milam County, where he died and is
buried.

Others copied, revised and rearranged “Old Paint” over the years, few aware of its
origins.

Morris throughout his life gave unwavering credit to Willis.

In 1942, folk music collector John Lomax recorded Morris’s performance for the Library of
Congress Archive of Folk Song.

Later released on the Archive of Folk Culture album “Cowboy Songs, Ballads and Cattle
Calls from Texas,” the song epitomized the long days and lonesome nights of the cattle
trails.

The rest was cowboy history.

pbenoit@tdtnews.com







.

All Credit for this article
goes to Patricia Benoit 
and the
Temple Daily Telegram