Editing Vaquero (section)

===16th to 19th centuries===
[[File:Horses and traditions3.jpg|thumb|Modern child in Mexican parade wearing modern day ''charro'' attire on horse outfitted in vaquero-derived equipment including wide, flat-horned saddle, bosalita and spade-type bit, carrying [[romal]] reins and reata]]

The Spanish tradition evolved further in what today is [[Mexico]], and the [[Southwestern United States]]. Most ''vaqueros'' were men of [[mestizo]], and [[mulatto]] origin while most of the ''hacendados'' (ranch owners) were ethnically [[Spanish people|Spanish]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stern |first1=Peter |title=People of Color in the Spanish Borderlands: Accommodation and Resistance |journal=The Community Heritage in the Spanish Americas: Selected Papers and Commentaries from the November 1991 Quincentenary Symposium |date=1999 |pages=139–147 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=txu.059173006242426&seq=289&q1=Vaqueros+Mulattoes |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gonzalez |first1=Juan |title=Harvest of Empire A History of Latinos in America: Second Revised and Updated Edition |date=2022 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |isbn=9780143137436 |page=49 |edition=Second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KCxiEAAAQBAJ&dq=mulatos+vaqueros&pg=PA49 |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=French |first1=Laurence |last2=Manzanárez |first2=Magdaleno |title=NAFTA & Neocolonialism: Comparative Criminal, Human & Social Justice |date=2004 |publisher=University Press of America |location=Lanham, Maryland |isbn=9780761828907 |page=86 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ozF1Yg-c4MC&dq=mulatos+vaqueros&pg=PA86 |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030816071325/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0814_030815_cowboys.html Haeber, Jonathan."Vaqueros: The First Cowboys of the Open Range." ''National Geographic News''. August 15, 2003. Web page accessed September 2, 2007].</ref> 

The vaqueros in  New Spain (Colonial Mexico) in the 16th century were mostly Mulattoes and Blacks,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Guillot |first1=Carlos Federico |title=Negros Rebeldes y Negros Cimarrones: Perfil afroamericano en la historia del Nuevo Mundo durante el siglo XVI |date=1961 |publisher=Librería y Editorial El Ateneo |location=Buenos Aires |page=92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fuMWAAAAYAAJ&q=a+cargo+exclusivo+de+vaqueros+negros, |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cobo |first1=Bernabé |title=Historia del Nuevo Mundo |date=1890 |publisher=Imp. de E. Rasco |location=Sevilla |page=360 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1KosAAAAYAAJ&q=vaqueros%20negros%20indios%20mulatos |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=González Jácome |first1=Alba |last2=Amo Rodríguez |first2=Silvia del |title=Agricultura y Sociedad en México |date=1999 |publisher=Plaza y Valdés Editores |location=Mexico City |isbn=9789688565759 |page=168 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEbPXMoXm2QC&dq=mulatos+vaqueros&pg=PA168 |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Novelo |first1=Victoria |title=La tradición artesanal de Colima |date=2005 |publisher=Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes |location=Mexico |isbn=970692177X |page=30 |edition=First |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w6I5VsEczfYC&q=Vaqueros%20negros%20mulatos |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sluyter |first1=Andrew |title=Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500-1900 |date=2012 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300183238 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=saxnUDq1NFcC&dq=acosta+not+only+mentioned+blacks+in+that+account&pg=PT19 |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=García de León |first1=Antonio |title=El Mar de los Encuentros |journal=Anales del Caribe del Centro de Estudios del Caribe |date=1992 |issue=12 |pages=43–57 |doi=10.1163/9789004430945_CASA_adc-12 |url=https://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/cuban-periodicals-cultural-magazines-published-by-casa-de-las-americas-1960-2009/anales-del-caribe-issue-12;casaanalesdelcaribeadc012 |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pinson |first1=Jerald |title=Ancient DNA reveals an early African origin of cattle in the Americas |url=https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/ancient-dna-reveals-an-early-african-origin-of-cattle-in-the-americas/ |website=Florida Museum |date=8 August 2023 |publisher=University of Florida |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref> with the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous]] also taking part. By the 1570’s, though,  mulattoes and blacks had become the overwhelming majority, especially the former, as a result from the high mortality rate of the [[Amerindian|Natives]] in Mexico due to European and African diseases and war, according to a Mexican Mesta ordinance.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stern |first1=Peter |title=People of Color in the Spanish Borderlands: Accommodation and Resistance |journal=The Community Heritage in the Spanish Americas: Selected Papers and Commentaries from the November 1991 Quincentenary Symposium |date=1999 |pages=139–147 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=txu.059173006242426&seq=289&q1=Vaqueros+Mulattoes |access-date=20 August 2024}}</ref> The ordinance, dated March 5th, 1576, states:<ref>{{cite book|last1= Montemayor y Cordova de Cuenca|first1=Juan Francisco de|title=Recopilacion de algunos Mandamientos y Ordenanzas del Gobierno de esta Nueva España|date=1787|publisher=Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros|location=México|page=16|edition=Volume 1|url= https://archive.org/details/recopilacionsuma0000unse/page/n223/mode/2up?q=Mulatos|access-date=27 July 2023}}</ref> <blockquote>“Don Martin Enriquez &c. Inasmuch as by the older cattle breeders of this New Spain it has been reported to me that all the cattle ranching, as well as the branding, collecting and removing the steers for the butcher shops, and doing the rodeos, was almost universally done by Mulattos, and since there began to be cattle, and cattle ranching, they had never received more than twelve, fifteen, twenty, and at most up to twenty-five or thirty pesos a year; and that for the last two years now, as there had been a high mortality of Indians who also helped in the said cattle ranching, the said Mulattos had demanded higher wages, and asked for fifty, eighty, one hundred, and even two hundred pesos, and they did not want to continue working if they were not given the said wages. . .” </blockquote>

By the late 16th century, with the growth of the [[Mestizo]] population, Mestizos and Mulattos had become the bulk of the Vaquero population. In “''Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions''” (1629), Spanish Priest Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón explained the distinct geographic, environmental and cultural circumstances of Mexico and the racial composition of Vaqueros:<ref>{{cite web|last1=Ruiz de Alarcón |first1=Hernando |title=Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres gentilicias que hoy viven entre los indios naturales de esta Nueva España |url=https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/tratado-de-las-supersticiones-y-costumbres-gentilicas-que-hoy-viven-entre-los-indios-naturales-de-esta-nueva-espana--0/html/cf187f38-7e62-49f7-bcf3-71d3c710fe4e_2.htm |website=Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes |access-date=7 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ruiz de Alarcón |first1=Hernando |title=Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions that Today Live Among the Indians Native to this New Spain, 1629 |date=1629 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=0-8061-2031-2 |page=67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xf9nQ2roM6EC&q=Herds |access-date=7 July 2023}}</ref>
<blockquote>“Since in this land it is so necessary, so common and so easy for every kind of people to ride on horseback, because all the land is very rough, the settlements are very far apart, the roads lack provisions, and horses and other beasts exist in large quantities and along with this there are many herds of cattle where large quantities of Mulattos, Mestizos, Indians and other vile people work as vaqueros; […] and although the majority of those in this occupation of vaquero are mestizos or mulattos, even so I make mention here of this because Indians also take part […]”</blockquote>
In [[Santa Fe de Nuevo México]], however, both [[Hispanos of New Mexico|Hispano]] and [[Puebloans|Pueblo]] people owned land and livestock.<ref name="Vigil 1999 p.">{{cite book | last=Vigil | first=A. | title=Enduring Cowboys: Life in the New Mexico Saddle | publisher=New Mexico Magazine | year=1999 | isbn=978-0-937206-58-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D00UAAAAYAAJ | access-date=June 12, 2021 | page=}}</ref>

Those early Vaqueros in the 16th century, whether slave or free, lived on a cattle estancia and worked for a single cattle baron for most of their lives. But towards the end of that century, in the [[Bajío]] region and in the Kingdom of [[Nueva Galicia]], the largest cattle ranching region of all New Spain, a new type of Vaquero began to appear. Called “Hombres de fuste” (saddle-tree men), “Vagamundos” (drifters, vagabonds, nomads), and “Forajidos” (outlaws), these Vaqueros roamed the Mexican countryside on horseback going from village to village, estancia to estancia, working for the highest bidder.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chevalier |first1=Fraçois |title=Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Hacienda |date=1970 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |page=112 |isbn=9780520016651 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NOLN844Z2IAC&q=Harquebus%20fuste |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> They were superior horsemen and spent their entire lives on horseback. Many were runaway black or Mulatto slaves, others dabble in the crime of “abigeato” (cattle rustling), among other crimes. They carried weapons such as an [[arquebus]], desjarretadera (hocking lance), [[sickle]], and knives. Spanish priest and auditor Gaspar de la Fuente warned of the existence of these outlaw nomadic Vaqueros in a report to the King, dated April 1st, 1603 in [[Guadalajara]]: <ref>{{cite book |last1=Chevalier |first1=François |title=La formation des grands domaines au Mexique |date=2006 |publisher=Karthala |location=Paris |isbn=9782845867772 |page=432 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fjVgynR84FAC&q=Jarretaderas |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Chevalier |first1=François |title=Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Hacienda |date=1970 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |page=113 |isbn=9780520016651 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NOLN844Z2IAC&q=scythes |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> <blockquote>“The number of Mestizos and Mulattoes has grown so much in these realms, and so have the excesses and crimes that they commit every day, striking terror to the heart of the population, who is unable to do anything about it, because as Vaqueros, they ride on horseback with desjarretaderas and scythes, and they gather in gangs and nobody dares to confront them. His Majesty would remedy this by ordering that none of the aforementioned be able to carry such a weapon (under penalty of death) in a town or in an uninhabited place if it is not on the appointed days that they are cattle hunting, and in the company of their boss . . .”</blockquote>
In another description, in a letter dated April 20th, 1607, by Spanish priest and lawyer Luis Ramírez de Alarcón, states:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Medina Miranda |first1=Héctor |title=Vaqueros míticos Antropología comparada de los charros en España y en México |date=2020 |publisher=Gedisa |location=Mexico |isbn=9788417835583 |page=236 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xvrXDwAAQBAJ&q=Forajida |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Chevalier |first1=François |title=Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Hacienda |date=1970 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |page=113 |isbn=9780520016651 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NOLN844Z2IAC&q=300%20Harquebuses%20scythes%20desjarretaderas%20 |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Román Gutiérrez |first1=José Francisco |title=SITUACION DE LA ORDEN FRANCISCANA EN NUEVA GALlCIA A PRINCIPIOS DEL S. XVII. |date=1991 |publisher=Deimos |location=Madrid |isbn=8486379121 |page=1186 |url=https://dspace.unia.es/bitstream/handle/10334/1853/29Román.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref> <blockquote>“In the Royal mining town of Zacatecas and towards the north, it fills up with Black, Mestizo and Mulatto outlaws, all of them Vaqueros, and they cannot be captured and be punished because they have light horses and protection from the estancieros […] these people are agile, robust and grow in their generation and multiply too much, and one can very well expect trouble, because […] there are men that gather 300 horsemen from these outlaws to work as vaqueros, and most are well armed with strong [[Buff coat|cueras]], arquebuses, scythes, desjarretaderas and other weapons”</blockquote>