In a weekend of high-profile speeches across the Atlantic, a historical debate has erupted between Republican Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the literal and cultural roots of the American cowboy.
The disagreement centers on whether the foundational elements of Western ranching—horses, rodeos, and the cowboy archetype—are truly European imports or the products of indigenous and enslaved peoples.
Speaking before the Munich Security Conference, Rubio positioned the United States as a direct cultural descendant of Europe, framing the American identity through waves of continental migration.
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“Our first colonies were built by English settlers, to whom we owe not just the language we speak but the whole of our political and legal system,” Rubio said. He further credited various European ethnic groups with shaping the American landscape, noting that “our frontiers were shaped by Scots-Irish—that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster” and that the “midwestern heartland was built by German farmers and craftsmen.”
The specific point of contention arose when Rubio turned his attention to the Spanish influence on the Americas.
“Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos—the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West—these were born in Spain,” Rubio stated.
He used the address to emphasize a “shared cultural heritage” between the U.S. and Europe, characterizing the nation as “always a child of Europe.”
Representative Ocasio-Cortez, speaking shortly after at a TEDx event at the Technical University of Berlin, took direct aim at Rubio’s historical framing. She characterized his narrative as an exclusionary “appeal to western culture” that overlooked the contributions of non-European populations.
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“My favorite part was when [he said] that American cowboys came from Spain,” Ocasio-Cortez said during her presentation. “And I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African enslaved peoples would like to have a word on that.”
Historical records generally support the fact that horses were not native to the Americas at the time of European contact; they were reintroduced to the continent by Spanish explorers.
Most historians note that Hernán Cortés brought the first 16 horses to Mexico in April 1519. Following the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish established breeding farms and ranches to expand their livestock.
While indigenous populations and enslaved people were instrumental in the labor and evolution of ranching culture—eventually acquiring horses through trade, theft, and alliances—the biological and structural origins of the ranching system trace back to Spanish settlers.
Rubio’s speech, however, focused on the broader lineage of American icons. “Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns’ names all across the Mississippi Valley,” he said.
While Ocasio-Cortez argued that the “word” of indigenous and enslaved people provides a necessary counter-perspective to the European-centric narrative, the physical introduction of the horse remains a documented milestone of the Spanish colonial era.
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