Recently, the state legislature designated the ranching community of Hebbronville, Jim Hogg County as the "Vaquero Capitol of Texas". The House resolution authored by State Representative Juan Escobar and passed concurrently by the House and Senate firmly establishes Hebbronville as the cultural center of the state's historical Vaquero culture.

This recognition did not come any too soon, since the story of these skilled horsemen of South Texas and Northern Mexico is passing into history and his culture is in danger of being forgotten.

To help preserve the vaquero's heritage and honor the working vaqueros of the past and present, Hebbronville community leaders organized the Vaquero Festival Association.

The South Texas community's award-winning Vaquero Festival is now held in Hebbronville each year on the first weekend in November.

For many years, Hebbronville was the largest rail shipping point of cattle in the nation and the 1913 Jim Hogg County courthouse grounds and nearby streets that constitute the community's historic district make an appropriate location for this cultural and heritage gathering.

The fun weekend event features a vaquero parade, cocineros (ranch cooks) and their chuck wagons, many food booths, regional music, street dances, sports events and games including an authentic ranch rodeo. Also featured are educational programs and the invitational Vaquero Art and Photo Display.
Vaquero families from across South Texas are provided a central area on the festival grounds to display family artifacts, archives and photo albums.

In the late1980s, acclaimed documentary producer, Hector Galan of Austin, brought his film crew to Hebbronville to record some of the last of the working vaqueros. Several of the individuals documented and interviewed were considered the top skilled vaqueros and caporales, known as los vaqueros completos. Galan's award-winning documentary," Vaquero-The Forgotten Cowboy", demonstrates that it was the vaquero and his culture, which passed on the cattle-handling skills and horsemanship that established the Cowboy as the iconic figure of the American West. Hebbronville's Vaquero Festival Association continues to offer the noted documentary in both DVD and VCR format.

Hebbronville's annual Vaquero Festival honors and celebrates the entire South Texas ranching hierarchy of the past and present, including the Patron (ranch owner or operator), the Mayordomo (ranch manager), the Caporal ("straw boss"), the Segundo (assistant "straw boss") and of course, the working Vaqueros.

Other important members of the corrida, also recognized, are the Cocinero or Cocinera (the corrida's cook), the Papaloteros (windmill crews), and the Cerqueros and Corraleros (builders of stout fences and cattle pens).

C.W. Hellen's grandchildren, Bill and Dianne Hellen
(now Mrs. Dianne Hellen Schrab, owner of Dana Hellen Ranch) with
his long-time respected Caporal, Rafael "El Badillo" Garza. circa 1945.

In one of the Texas classic books, "A Vaquero of the Brush Country" authors Young and Dobie, explain that the term Vaquero was originally applied to only Spanish or Mexican cowboys. But from an early day, Texans, especially those near the border, have used the word without reference to race or ethnic origin. Thus, the authors say, in one corrida, or outfit might have been found Vaqueros of Hispanic, Negro or Anglo ethnicity.

Traditionally, along the border, true Vaqueros have been recognized as only those with the very best "top-hand" skills of horsemanship, roping and cattle-handling, far exceeding the abilities of the common "cowhand", "cowpuncher", or just plain "cowboy".

These superior vaquero's skills along with his unique cultura were acquired over hundreds of years by the mounted cattle-herding mestizos (an ethnic mixture of natives and spaniards) of the huge cattle-grazing empires or haciendas of Spanish northern Mexico.

The vaquero's heritage has not been fully or well recorded, but one theory of his origin reaches back to the time of the 16th century conquest of Mexico by the Spaniard Hernan Cortez.

Unable to defeat the powerful Mexica of the Aztec Empire alone, Cortez forged an alliance between his small army of conquistadores and the indigenous Tlaxcalans.
The Tlaxcalans, an advanced nation of warriors, had been oppressed by the more numerous Mexica for centuries and were at constant war with them. This allied army, so important in the history of Mexico, eventually secured the riches of Nueva España for the glory of Cortez' conquistadores and the King of Spain. In gratitude, Cortez was able to secure special privileges for the Tlaxcalans from the Spanish court.

The Tlaxcalans, declared full citizens of Spain, now were exempt from tribute and, most importantly, exempt from the cruel system of repartimientos and encomienda (enslavement and forced labor). Unlike other conquered natives, the Tlaxcalans were permitted to legally use horses and weapons. They were Christianized and educated, learning agricultural and manufacturing skills from the priests. The Tlaxcalans were declared elite land-owning Hidalgos and maintained their own government and royal system of leadership, apart from most other Spanish colonists.

The Tlaxcalans organized highly developed, self-sufficient communities able to feed and defend themselves. They were in high demand as advance colonists on the northern frontier and were well entrenched by the mid-1700s in the regions of Saltillo, Monterrey and other north-central settlements of la frontera.

The war-like Tlaxcalans formed self-defense forces called Companias Volantes (flying squadrons) to pursue and chastise the raiding Chichimecas, Apaches and the other displaced nomadic and savage Indios Barbaros that preyed on the roads and colonies of the northern frontier. The services of these Companias Volante were often requested by other colonies of Northern Mexico and this concept of specially organized, well-mounted and armed community defenders was ultimately adopted, over a hundred years later, by colonizers such as Texas empressario Stephen F. Austin, whose "ranging companies" are considered the foundation of the famed "Texas Rangers".

When, over two centuries after the conquest, Spanish nobleman, don Jose de Escandon was awarded the franchise to colonize the new province of Nuevo Santander, he chose some of his colonists from the still culturally independent, Tlaxcalan farming and ranching communities. The Tlaxcalans and other north central Mexico pioneers were known for their ability to defend themselves from the raids of the nomadic Indios Barbado, which by the mid-1700s, likely included the fierce Comanches of the northern plains. This allowed Escandon to avoid the expense of Spanish soldiers and fort-like presidios to defend his new colonists, thus giving him the advantage over others in securing colonization rights to the rich, little explored grass lands of northern Mexico and the Llanos Mesteños or Mustang Plains of what is now South Texas.

Over the centuries, these colonists, through intermarriages, formed a powerful mestizaje (ethnic mixture) that dominated the livestock-grazing frontiers of Northern Mexico and South Texas. Many of these stalwart Tejanos that settled north of the Rio Bravo earned large Spanish, and subsequently, Mexican grants of land. Their lands and cultura formed the basis of today's ranching industry.
It stands to reason that the blood of this proud culture runs in the veins of the Vaquero families of South Texas and is a heritage to be honored and celebrated by their descendants.

Charles W. "Bill" Hellen
Hebbronville, Texas