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Rodeos
| A Short History of the Rodeo Back in the 1800s ranchers became more plentiful and cattle had to be branded. The best way to do this was with a rope and a horse. The word "rodeo" comes from the Spanish root meaning "to surround." The Spanish conquistadores, who were superb horsemen trained the vaqueros (or cowboys) how to use their skills to manage herds of cattle. When Anglos from the US moved west in the 1840s they began to develop huge herds of cattle (40 years later, these ranches would become the property of the infamous "Cattle Barons"). They would hire the Mexican vaqueros to manage the herds. Eventually, they taught their skills to the Easterners, who became known as cowboys.
After the Civil War, the American cowboy came into his own. They would occasionally get together to prove their skill in impromptu competitions. Calf roping, bronco busting, and general horsemanship drew bets from the other cowboys after payday. Eventually crowds of bystanders would gather for these contests. More and more events were added to the competition. The high point of these contests was the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the early years of the 20th century. While not technically a rodeo, it helped to spark the country's imagination about the "Wild West."
Cowboys who began to make a pretty good living from the competitions decided to get together to form rodeo associations to standardize events. They formed annual rodeo events that have become traditions like the bowl games of college football. Rodeo has become a true sport with television contracts and a wide and varied audience. The largest rodeo in the United States today is the National Finals rodeo. For more than twenty years this rodeo "world series" has been held every December in Las Vegas, attracting more than fifty thousand visitors from all over the world. |