The Undersung Black Cowboy Behind a Beloved ‘Lonesome Dove’ Character

Larry McMurtry wanted Lonesome Dove to upend the traditional western novel. But the book, which was published forty years ago this month, elicited a different reaction than he expected. “To the public at large, I had produced something nearer to an idealization,” he later wrote. “Instead of a poor man’s inferno, filled with violence, faithlessness, and betrayal, I had actually delivered a kind of Gone With the Wind of the West, a turnabout I’ll be mulling over for a long, long time.”McMurtry did, though, upset tradition in one respect: Joshua Deets, one of the book’s most beloved characters, was likely the first Black cowboy many readers had ever heard of. That’s a shame, given that Black cowboys played a major role in the history of…

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