It was in the state of Texas that the cowboy lifestyle came into its own. The state’s vast lands had been populated with cattle since it was colonized by Spain in the 1500s. By the 1800s, millions of cattle grazed there, making cattle farming a “bountiful economic and cultural phenomenon,” according to author Katie Nodjimbadem.

Images depicted in movies and television shows of these cattle ranchers (cowboys) have mostly been of white Americans. Although Black cowboys “don’t play a part in the popular narrative, historians estimate that one in four cowboys were Black,” Nodjimbadem wrote. One  of them was William Pickett (ca. 1870–1932), who became a cowboy after completing the fifth grade.
Records show that Pickett was born in 1870 in western Williamson County.

As a young boy he’d watched herder dogs subdue huge steers by biting their upper lips. At around age 10, he decided to do the same but by using his own technique. After perfecting a unique way of steer wrestling -or bulldogging– and roping and riding he began performing stunts at public events.

Steer wrestling, a rodeo event during which a mounted cowboy (or bulldogger) races alongside and then tackles a full-grown steer, was invented by Pickett. If a cowboy is experienced, he can wrestle a steer to the ground in five to eight seconds. Standing at only five feet, seven inches tall and weighing 145 pounds, Pickett used his signature move to grab a steer by its horns, twist its neck, and bite it on one lip.

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The 500–600-pound animal would then fall backward, allowing Pickett to pull it to the ground.
Once the steer was on its side with all four of its feet pointing in the same direction, Pickett was done. This rapidly became a popular contest at cowboy events, later becoming a standard of contemporary rodeo. Bulldogging however, has since been modified to reduce danger to the steer.

By 1903, Pickett’s career had taken off. This success spurred Dave McClure, an event promoter, to dub Pickett the “Dusky Demon” and bill him as the “most daring cowboy alive.” 

According to Texas history writer Lori Grossman, the term ‘dusky’ was “intended to disguise Pickett’s ethnicity whenever white cowboys shied from appearing on the same program as an African-American man.”

Pickett competed in rodeos large and small, yet amassing a significant record as a competitor was impossible. Although Blacks had not been officially barred from most contests, he was often billed as a Native American or not identified as Black.

The Wild West’s heyday quieted after World War I. Pickett’s show, the 101 Ranch Wild West Show, where he had been a headliner for 26 years, closed down in 1931. He died the following year after a horse kicked him in the head.

Forty years after his death, Pickett became the first black honoree in the National Rodeo Hall of fame. In 1989, he was enshrined in the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.

Versions of Pickett’s bulldogging are still performed by rodeo athletes today.

Christy Price

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