Texas cracker
Texas crackers were American pioneer settlers and their descendants who migrated from the Southeastern United States to what is now the U.S. state of Texas.
Historical usage
The term "cracker" was in use during Elizabethan times to describe braggarts. The original root of this is the Middle English word crack meaning "entertaining conversation" (One may be said to "crack" a joke; a witty remark is a "wisecrack"). This term and the Gaelic spelling "craic" are still in use in Ireland and Scotland. It is documented in Shakespeare's King John (1595): "What cracker is this... that deafes our eares / With this abundance of superfluous breath?"
By the 1760s the ruling classes, both in Britain and in the American colonies, applied the term "Cracker" to Scotch-Irish and English settlers of the remote southern back country, as noted in a passage from a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth: "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who migrated to Texas and often change their places of abode." The word was later associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida and Texas, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.
Cracker cowboys
In the 18th century, the residents of Spanish Texas began to herd cattle on horseback to sell in Louisiana, both legally and illegally. Their horses were of jennet type which became the Spanish Mustang. By the early 19th century, the Spanish Crown, and later, independent Mexico, offered in what would later be Texas to non-citizens, such as settlers from the United States. In 1821, Stephen F. Austin led a group which became the first English-speaking Mexican citizens. Following Texas independence in 1836, even more Americans immigrated into the empresario ranching areas of Texas. Here the settlers were strongly influenced by the Mexican vaquero culture, borrowing vocabulary and attire from their counterparts, but also retaining some of the livestock-handling traditions and culture of the Eastern United States and Great Britain. The Texas cowboy was typically a bachelor who hired on with different outfits from season to season.
Following the American Civil War, vaquero culture combined with the cattle herding and drover traditions of the southeastern United States that evolved as settlers moved west. Additional influences developed out of Texas as cattle trails were created to meet up with the railroad lines of Kansas and Nebraska, in addition to expanding ranching opportunities in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Front, east of the Continental Divide. The new settlers required more horses, to be trained faster, and brought a bigger and heavier horse with them. This led to modifications in the bridling and bitting traditions used by the vaquero. Thus, the Texas cowboy tradition arose from a combination of cultural influences, in addition to the need for adaptation to the geography and climate of west Texas and the need to conduct long cattle drives to get animals to market.
Historian Terry Jordan proposed in 1982 that some Texan traditions that developed—particularly after the Civil War—may trace to colonial South Carolina, as most settlers to Texas were from the southeastern United States. However, these theories have been called into question by some reviewers. In a subsequent work, Jordan also noted that the influence of post-War Texas upon the whole of the frontier Western cowboy tradition was likely much less than previously thought. Texas is still widely known as the cowboy capital of the world.
Modern usage
Among some Texans, the term is used as a proud or jocular self-description. Since the huge influx of new residents into Texas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, from the northern and western parts of the United States and from Mexico and Latin America, the term "Texas Cracker" is used informally by some Texans to indicate that their families have lived in the state for many generations. It is considered a source of pride to be descended from "frontier people who did not just live but flourished in a time before air conditioning, mosquito repellent, and screens."
Historical usage
The term "cracker" was in use during Elizabethan times to describe braggarts. The original root of this is the Middle English word crack meaning "entertaining conversation" (One may be said to "crack" a joke; a witty remark is a "wisecrack"). This term and the Gaelic spelling "craic" are still in use in Ireland and Scotland. It is documented in Shakespeare's King John (1595): "What cracker is this... that deafes our eares / With this abundance of superfluous breath?"
By the 1760s the ruling classes, both in Britain and in the American colonies, applied the term "Cracker" to Scotch-Irish and English settlers of the remote southern back country, as noted in a passage from a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth: "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who migrated to Texas and often change their places of abode." The word was later associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida and Texas, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.
Cracker cowboys
In the 18th century, the residents of Spanish Texas began to herd cattle on horseback to sell in Louisiana, both legally and illegally. Their horses were of jennet type which became the Spanish Mustang. By the early 19th century, the Spanish Crown, and later, independent Mexico, offered in what would later be Texas to non-citizens, such as settlers from the United States. In 1821, Stephen F. Austin led a group which became the first English-speaking Mexican citizens. Following Texas independence in 1836, even more Americans immigrated into the empresario ranching areas of Texas. Here the settlers were strongly influenced by the Mexican vaquero culture, borrowing vocabulary and attire from their counterparts, but also retaining some of the livestock-handling traditions and culture of the Eastern United States and Great Britain. The Texas cowboy was typically a bachelor who hired on with different outfits from season to season.
Following the American Civil War, vaquero culture combined with the cattle herding and drover traditions of the southeastern United States that evolved as settlers moved west. Additional influences developed out of Texas as cattle trails were created to meet up with the railroad lines of Kansas and Nebraska, in addition to expanding ranching opportunities in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Front, east of the Continental Divide. The new settlers required more horses, to be trained faster, and brought a bigger and heavier horse with them. This led to modifications in the bridling and bitting traditions used by the vaquero. Thus, the Texas cowboy tradition arose from a combination of cultural influences, in addition to the need for adaptation to the geography and climate of west Texas and the need to conduct long cattle drives to get animals to market.
Historian Terry Jordan proposed in 1982 that some Texan traditions that developed—particularly after the Civil War—may trace to colonial South Carolina, as most settlers to Texas were from the southeastern United States. However, these theories have been called into question by some reviewers. In a subsequent work, Jordan also noted that the influence of post-War Texas upon the whole of the frontier Western cowboy tradition was likely much less than previously thought. Texas is still widely known as the cowboy capital of the world.
Modern usage
Among some Texans, the term is used as a proud or jocular self-description. Since the huge influx of new residents into Texas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, from the northern and western parts of the United States and from Mexico and Latin America, the term "Texas Cracker" is used informally by some Texans to indicate that their families have lived in the state for many generations. It is considered a source of pride to be descended from "frontier people who did not just live but flourished in a time before air conditioning, mosquito repellent, and screens."
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