Book Review: These Were the Vaqueros
These Were the Vaqueros is a great book for anybody looking to learn more about life in Old California.
When I was a kid, the Back to the Future movies were popular. In the movies, one of the characters has a car that serves as a time machine. As a result, the characters can visit both the future and the past. Part of the movies’ success is probably partly due to people’s interest in time travel. Sometimes my students say, “Wouldn’t it be neat to go back in time?” It’s a great thought, and one I use to my advantage as their teacher.
Of course, the thing they haven’t yet grasped is just how easy it is to time travel. Lucky for us, we don’t need fancy time-traveling cars. Instead, we just need to open the pages of a good book. These Were the Vaqueros is one such book that can take you back in time.
I was first introduced to this book by a good friend of mine who was a career cowboy. One day, we got to talking the “old days,” and he brought up the book. I had never heard of it before, and the more he described it the more it caught my interest. His opinion was that it was a great book, and as a man with a life of experience, he could relate to the stories. After our conversation, I went ahead and bought the book. Needless to say, it has found a special place in my library.
These Were the Vaqueros was written by a man named Arnold Rojas. Rojas himself was a working vaquero. He knew personally the nature of cattle, horses, and the realities of ranch life. Although he was a vaquero by trade, Rojas also had an interest in history. Specifically, the history of the land he rode and the men he worked alongside. Rojas was born in the year 1896 in southern California. Once he grew into a young man, he was drawn to the ranches of the area. Here is where Rojas was situated in such a neat position. When Rojas was a young man, the old men he worked with had been young when the country was wide open. They rode, worked, and remembered the land before the fences. In other words, Rojas knew firsthand many men who lived the reality of Old California. Their stories captured his imagination and he was constantly trying to learn about that world. Fortunately for us, Rojas was also interested in preserving the stories he heard. These stories culminate in the book These Were the Vaqueros.
When I purchased the book, I expected it to be a thorough description of Old California’s history. I expected something like a colorful history book full of facts and stories combined to tell a broader history. Instead, I cracked the pages to discover this single book is actually a collection of short stories Rojas wrote throughout his life. Rather than one long story, These Were the Vaqueros is more like 100 short stories about this or that. Some of the stories are about history, some are about famous people, and some are about historic ranches. However, many of the stories are just stories from old-time vaqueros breaking horses, roping cattle, or the dangerous moments of everyday life. Some stories are serious, while others are humorous. These Were the Vaqueros offers a wide sweep of history about the reality of Old California in a way that no “history book” could hope to. While many of the stories warrant no book of their own, when taking them all into account, they really do make an excellent book.
As mentioned, people sometimes wish we had time machines to see the past. In many respects, a book like These Were the Vaqueros is just as good. Like I tell my students, a good historical source can be like sitting around the campfire listening to stories from an old-timer. The stories only become more real when you have shared the same experiences as those people. It’s like my cowboy friend. He understands horses, so he could relate to the stories in the book. He has chased wild cattle through the trees, so he can better imagine what those old vaqueros went through. Personally, I’ve started a fair number of colts and found several of the stories not only interesting but helpful as well. It’s these lessons that span the expanse of time that are some of the true gems of history.
If you’ve got experience with horse and cattle, or just want to learn more about the history of the West, I’d urge you to give These Were the Vaqueros a read. The short stories offer us a window to the past about how different life was in a time that really is not so distant.
