Nat Love

Nat Love was born in Tennessee in 1854. He lived during the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. He was a slave. His father was a foreman on the plantation and his mother was a cook. Although it was not common and was discouraged for slaves to learn how to read, Nat Love’s father taught him to read and write at an early age. After the civil war, Love’s parents became sharecroppers. 

After his father died, Love worked odd jobs and made money by breaking horses. Soon, he headed west to Dodge City, Kansas where he became a cowboy and drove cattle from different ranches. It was on one of these ranches that Love wrote his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love. He describes the town as “a typical frontier city, with many saloons, dance halls, and gambling house, and very little of anything else.”

In his book, Love describes his slave owner as kind and indulgent. However, he also calls slavery one of the largest evils that allows and justifies physical abuse, the separation of families, and was especially horrible to women who were subject to “the licentious wishes of the men who owned them.” 

In his book, Love describes the wild adventures he had as a cowboy, the fighting with Indians, the taming of horses, the drinks shared with Billy the Kid. 

He talked about being captured by Native Americans but being allowed to live because they had respect for his skill and identified with his heritage as many of the Indians were of mixed race. Love wrote that he stole a horse and escaped one night. He also claimed to have over fourteen gun fighting wounds. 

As he got older, Love began to understand the progress and develop that America would undergo. With the construction of the railroads, he sees that a cowboy’s job would soon become antiquated and die off. Love moved out to Denver and became a Pullman sleeping car porter in response.

Nat Love became one of the most famous black cowboys and heroes of the Old West and although parts of his story are questioned as being a bit exaggerated, his legacy gives us an idea of what it was like to live in the 19th century Old West. 

https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/natlove/summary.html