The Bronco Buster is an icon of American art that glorifies what was in reality a sordid history—the violent conquest by the US government of lands in the American West inhabited by Native Americans for centuries. Both histories and myths that record the “winning of the West”—the central narrative in defining the American nation—typically omit the thousands of Black men who rode the trails and drove millions of cattle, significantly contributing to the history of the frontier. After the Civil War, many freedmen, as well as some born free, sought new opportunities working for Western cattle companies. The number of Western cowboys reached its peak in the 1880s, and it is estimated that one out of every four cowboys during the nineteenth century was Black.