The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick"

Public-domain ebook

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick"

Name: The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick"
Author: Nat Love

by Nat Love

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Language: en3,054 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

West (U.S.) -- Biography Love, Nat, 1854-1921 African American cowboys -- West (U.S.) -- Biography Cowboys -- West (U.S.) -- Biography F590.3

In: Biographies·Adventure·History - American

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #21634.

About this book

The work is an autobiographical memoir of Nat Love, the African‑American cowboy who earned the nickname “Deadwood Dick” on the western range. In his own words the author opens by promising a frank, unembellished record of his life, from the plantation where he was born into slavery in 1854 through the Civil War, emancipation, and a succession of frontier jobs as a Texas cowboy, cattle driver, and scout. The chapter headings listed in the front matter map a life that moves from “Slavery Days” and “The War” to “Roping Contest,” “Deadwood, S.D.,” and later to railroad service, giving a clear sense of the book’s scope as a chronological chronicle of personal adventure and the broader transformation of the American West.

Love’s narrative voice is direct and conversational, reflecting the oral storytelling tradition of a 19th‑century frontiersman. The prose mixes vivid recollections of childhood mischief, brutal slave‑holding realities, and the rough‑and‑tumble exploits of cattle drives and Indian encounters. Readers who enjoy first‑person frontier histories, especially those interested in the seldom‑told perspectives of black cowboys and the social context of post‑Civil‑War western expansion, will find this memoir both informative and engaging.

Who appears in this book

Nat LoveTall African‑American cowboy, dark skin, weathered face, wide‑brim hat, denim shirt, leather chaps, 1870s frontier attire

The opening · free to read

While many things contained in this record happened many years ago, they are as fresh in my memory as if they happened but yesterday. I have tried to record events simply as they are, without attempting to varnish over the bad spots or draw on my imagination to fill out a chapter at the cost of the truth. It has been my aim to record things just as they happened, believing they will prove of greater interest thereby; and if I am able to add to the interest and enjoyment of a single reader I will consider myself well repaid for the time and labor of preparing this history.

To my playmates of my boyhood, who may chance to read this I send greetings and wish them well. To the few friends, who assisted myself and widowed mother in our early struggles, I tender my sincerest thanks, and hope they have prospered as they deserve. For those who proved our enemies, I have no word of censure. They have reaped their reward.

To that noble but ever decreasing band of men under whose blue and buckskin shirts there lives a soul as great and beats a heart as true as ever human breast contained--to the cowboys, rangers, scouts, hunters and trappers and cattle-men of the "GREAT WESTERN PLAINS," I extend the hand of greeting acknowledging the FATHER-HOOD of GOD and the BROTHERHOOD of men; and to my mother's Sainted name this book is reverently dedicated.