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

By Nat Love

Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as

146 pp., 6 x 9, 43 halftones

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-3322-0
    Published: May 2017
  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-3323-7
    Published: May 2017
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-5436-0
    Published: May 2017

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A DocSouth Book, Distributed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library

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.

A DOCSOUTH BOOK. This collaboration between UNC Press and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library brings classic works from the digital library of Documenting the American South back into print. DocSouth Books uses the latest digital technologies to make these works available in paperback and e-book formats. Each book contains a short summary and is otherwise unaltered from the original publication. DocSouth Books provide affordable and easily accessible editions to a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers.

About the Author

Nat Love (1854–1921) was born on a plantation in Davidson County, Tennessee. After many years as a cow herder in the West, he retired to Los Angeles.
For more information about Nat Love, visit the Author Page.

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