John Wayne, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Clint Eastwood — think of nearly any actor known for starring in classic Westerns and they have one thing in common: They’re all white. The popular narrative, however, doesn’t tell the full story. Historians estimate that as many as one in four American cowboys were Black, as many formerly enslaved African Americans found work on the ranches out West in the wake of the Civil War. What’s more, the cowboy culture didn’t even originate in the United States; it came from a style of ranching introduced by Spanish colonists in the 16th century and adopted originally in Mexico, where cattle ranchers and herders were known as “vaqueros.” By the late 19th century, as many as one in three cowboys were Mexican.