When Indians Became Cowboys: Native Peoples and Cattle Ranching in the American West

In When Indians Became Cowboys, Peter Iverson traces the rise and fall of individual and tribal Indian cattle industries on the northern plains and in the Southwest during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For the Indian rancher, raising cattle was both an economically viable way of life and a culturally rewarding career. Such a lifestyle was not encouraged, however, by the Indian Bureau, which recommended farming, rather than ranching, for the reservations. Ranching thus became a new means of resisting, adapting, and living - for remaining Native. In a new preface for this edition, Iverson relates recent events on Indians and ranching.