Bill Pickett

 Cowboys intended to train their sons to be profession, but Bill Pickett seems to have picked up cowboy ways in partnership with his brothers. He was born in Travis County, TX, about 30miles northwest of
Austin on December 5, 1870 and was second oldest in his family of 13 children. His father, Thomas Jefferson Pickett, was a former slave, and his mother Mary Pickett was part Cherokee Indian .His family moved to
Austin when he was a baby where he attended school until fifth grade. School was poor for blacks back then. As a young man he always found work doing odd jobs such as breaking horses, driving cattle to the market, branding stock, and patrolling the huge ranches in Texas and Oklahoma.By the time he was 18 his family moved to
Taylor, TX there he was able to become a ranch hand and help support his siblings. 

     In the 1880s five of the Pickett brothers joined and opened their own stock business in Taylor TX. Their job was to break wild horses. One day Bill woke up and found he was blind and it might have been from bronco busting or from an infection he caught. By that time he was married and was responsible for several children. The ailment persisted for a year and then one day it disappeared.          

        Bill was famous for his rodeo abilities. His first manager was a man by the name of Lee Moore.Moore was the first to take Bills demo out of
Texas into states such as Kansas, and Oklahoma. In 1903 he signed on with Doug McClure, he gave Bill the nickname the Dusky Demon.

     1n 1905 Will Rogers introduced Bill to Zack Miller an owner of 101 ranches in Bliss,Oklahoma. Miller was looking for talent to fill his roster of the Wild West show.Miller persuaded Bill to come to the ranch and perform in the show; he was promised a full time job off season. This began the longest most fruitful partnership in history of Wild West shows.

     Bill Pickett died on April 2, 1932, after being kicked in the head by a half wild horse. He was buried outside the boundaries of the 101 ranch in a cemetery.

     Bill did not come from a tribe because he was a Blackman. If he had been a white man he would have been inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. He was finally named in the hall of fame as of 1971, 40 years after his death.

I got my information from Google and New Book of Knowledge.