Nat Love 1854–1921

Name ______Class ______Date ______The American West Biography

Nat Love 1854–1921

WHY HE MADE HISTORY Born into slavery, Nat Love moved west as the country expanded. He became a cowboy at the height of the cattle drives and later wrote a book about his experiences.

As you read the biography below, pay attention to the jobs held by Nat Love. What do

these jobs reveal about the history of the country? “In My Fighting Clothes,” photographic In the decades after the Civil War, people continued illustration from Nat Love, Life and moving west. A new business came to dominate the Adventures of Nat Love. Los Angeles, CA.: s.n., 1907, p.112. Image courtesy economy of the Plains—cattle ranching. Cowboys of Documenting the American South worked cattle drives, and ranchers grew wealthy. (http://docsouth.unc.e.du), the Nat Love was a cowboy at the height of the cattle University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries drives. Nat Love was born in 1854, a slave on the Tennessee plantation owned by Robert Love. Nat Love described his master as a kind man. However, he was aware of the evils of slavery. In a 1907 autobiography, Love stated that the horrors described in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, were familiar to him. He had seen the same things in real life. Love’s family stayed on at the plantation after the Civil War. However, Love saw that, without unpaid labor, the place was beginning to fail financially. He also believed that life would be hard for former slaves who remained in the South. So, in 1869, Love headed west. Love became a cowboy. A photo from this time shows a long-haired, handsome, confident young man wearing a white hat, with a rifle in his hand and a saddle at his feet. As a cowboy, Love worked near Dodge City, Kansas, and on a huge ranch in Arizona. Love took part in numerous cattle drives, becoming an expert on the brands owners used to mark their cattle. He learned to speak Spanish on his trips to Mexico. A popular story of the time featured a gun-toting cowboy named Deadwood Dick. In his autobiography, Love claims that he was a model for this character. Love had participated in a rodeo in the town of Deadwood in the Dakota Territory in 1876. Love said he received the nickname after winning a contest in which he roped a mustang.

Love knew that the railroads spanning the North American continent would bring an end to the cattle drives and to the work of the cowboys. He thus took a job as a Pullman porter on the railroad, working for a number of years before setting in Los Angeles. There he wrote The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick,” by Himself. Many historians believe that this work is as much fiction as fact. However, it does tell the story of an African American who, at that time and that place in history, could live life beyond the bounds of racial prejudice.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN? 1. Recall What jobs did Nat Love hold in his life?

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______2. Infer How did Nat Love’s life parallel the history of the U.S. during his lifetime?

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ACTIVITY What was life like on the cattle drives of the old West for cowboys like Nat Love? Search libraries and Internet sites for folk songs from this period of history. Select a song or group of songs to share with the class. What do these songs tell you about life on the trail?