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

A True History of Slavery Days, Life on the Great Cattle Ranges and on the Plains of the "Wild and Woolly" West, Based on Facts, and Personal Experiences of the Author

Nat Love

• Publisher: UNC at Chapel Hill Library
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781469633220
• eBook ISBN: 9781469633237
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Nat Love's memoir Life and Adventures of Nat Love is one of the only firsthand accounts of an African American cowhand in the western United States from this period. Love and his parents were owned by planter Robert Love, and after Emancipation, his parents remained on Love's plantation as sharecroppers while Nat left and headed west. He found work as a cowboy, first on the Duval Ranch in the Texas panhandle, then on the Gallinger Ranch in southern Arizona. Love's narrative details his many adventures and exploits, such as being captured and shot by Pima Indians, who eventually spared his life because they sympathized with his plight as a black man. In Deadwood, Dakota Territory, he entered a rodeo, winning $200 and the nickname Deadwood Dick, a reference to a literary character from a dime novel of the day. Published in 1907, the Life and Adventures of Nat Love would help to make Love a black folk hero of the Old West.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• About This Edition
• Summary
• Preface
• Contents
• Chapter I. Slavery Days; the Old Plantation; My Early Foraging; the Stolen Demijohn; My First Drunk
• Chapter II. The War; the Rebels and the Yankees; I Raise a Regiment; Difficulty in Finding an Enemy; Ash Cake; Freedom
• Chapter III. Raising Tobacco; Our First Year of Freedom; More Privations; Father Dies; “It Never Rains but It Pours;” I Become the Head of the Family; I Start to Work at One Dollar and Fifty Cents a Month
• Chapter IV. Boyhood Sports; More Devilment; the Rock Battles; I Hunt Rabbits in My Shirt Tail; My First Experience in Rough Riding; a Question of Breaking the Horse or Breaking My Neck
• Chapter V. Home Life; Picking Berries; the Pigs Commit Larceny; Nutting; We Go to Market; My First Desire to See the World; I win a Horse in a Raffle; the Last of Home
• Chapter VI. The World is Before Me; I join the Texas Cowboys; Red River Dick; My First Outfit; My First Indian Fight; I Learn to Use My Gun
• Chapter VII. I Learn to Speak Spanish; I Am Made Chief Brand Reader; the Big Round-up; the 7XL Steer; Long Rides; Hunting Strays
• Chapter VIII. On the Trail; a Texas Storm; Battle with the Elements; After Business Comes Pleasure
• Chapter IX. Enroute to Wyoming; the Indians Demand Toll; the Fight; a Buffalo Stampele; Tragic Death of Cal Surcey; An Eventful Trip
• Chapter X. We Make a Trip to Nebraska; the “Hole in the Wall Country;” a Little Shooting Scrape; Cattle on the Trail and the Way to Handle Them; a Bit of Moralization
• Chapter XI. A Buffalo Hunt; I Lose My Lariat and Saddle; I Order a Drink for Myself and My Horse; a Close Place in Old Mexico
• Chapter XII. A Big Mustang Hunt; We Tire Them Out; the Indians Capture Mess Wagon and Cook; Our Bill of Fare Buffalo Meat without Salt
• Chapter XIII On the Trail with Three Thousand Head of Texas Steers; Rumors of Trouble with the Indians; at Deadwood, S. D.; the Roping Contest; I Win the Name of “Deadwood Dick;” the Shooting Match; the Custer Massacre; We View the Battlefield; Government Scouts; at Home Again
• Chapter XIV. Riding the Range; the Fight with Yellow Dog’s Tribe; I am Captured by the Indians and Adopted into the Tribe; My Escape; I ride a Hundred Miles in Twelve Hours without a Saddle; My Indian Pony; “Yellow Dog Chief;” the Boys Present Me with a New Outfit; in the Saddle and on the Trail Again
• Chapter XV. On a Trip to Dodge City, Kan.; I Rope One of Uncle Sam’s Cannon; Captured by the Soldiers; Bat Masterson to My Rescue; Lost on the Prairie; the Buffalo Hunter Cater; My Horse Gets Away and Leaves Me Alone on the Prairie; the Blizzard; Frozen Stiff
• Chapter XVI. The Old Haze and Elsworth Trail; Our Trip to Cheyenne; Ex-Sheriff Pat F. Garret; the Death of Billy the “Kid;” the Lincoln County Cattle War
• Chapter XVII. Another Trip to Old Mexico; I Rope an Engine; I Fall in Love; My Courtship; Death of My Sweetheart; My Promised Wife; I Must Bear a Charmed Life; the Advent of Progress; the Last of the Range
• Chapter XVIII. The Pullman Service; Life on the Rail; My First Trip; a Slump in Tips; I Become Disgusted and Quit; a Period of Husking; My Next Trip on the Pullman; Tips and the People Who Give Them
• Chapter XIX. The Pullman Palace Sleeping Car; Long Trips on the Rail; the Wreck; One Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin; a Few of the Railroads Over Which I Have Traveled; the Invalids and the Care We Give Them
• Chapter XX. The Tourist Sleeping Car; the Chair Car; the Safeguards of Modern Railroading; See America, Then Let Your Chest Swell with Pride that You are an American
• Chapter XXI. A Few of the Railroad Men Under Whom I Have Served; George M. Pullman; the Town of Pullman, Ill.; American Railroads Lead the World; a Few Figures
• Chapter XXII. A Few Reminiscences of the Range; Some Men I Have Met; Buffalo Bill; the James Brothers; Yellowstone Kelly; the Murder of Buck Cannon by Bill Woods; the Suicide of Jack Zimick