Florida Cracker Cowboys.
Yeehaw! This weeks podcast was about the Florida Cracker Cowboys. Who are the cracker cowboys, you may ask? Well they originated in South West Florida right around the end of the Civil War. Most of these cowboys were Civil War veterans who were looking for something to do. It started off with them rounding up stray cattle, and they went to a place called Punta Rosa to sell these cattle to Cuba. What's ironic is that these cattle were descendants from the cattle that were brought over by early Spanish colonists (Killmer, n.d., 11:30) These cowboys were n amed "crackers" for two reasons: They'd eat cracked cornmeal often and because of the whips they'd use. (Killmer, n.d., 11:30). As seen in the photo above, they used whips to round up their cattle. These whips were their trademark, along with their dogs. They relied on dogs so much that they created their own breed, called Cracker Cur (pictured below). A man named Jake Summerlin was named &qu
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