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El Vaquero, America’s First Cowboy performed by Angel Vigil 
HISTORY ALIVE 2024 – Through the Looking Glass – Image or Truth? Hear their stories in their own words.
El Vaquero, the Spanish colonial cowboy, is a true American hero. He was the first cowboy to ride the open ranges and sleep under the stars. El Vaquero is a composite character based upon traditional vaquero stories and histories. His story is the living history of the origins and development of traditional cowboy practices in the American West. As El Vaquero talks about his clothing, tools and life-ways, a clear picture emerges identifying his traditional Spanish practices as the source of the daily activities of today’s ranch workers. His stories illuminate the contrasts between the romanticized Hollywood depiction of the cowboy with the realities of the working cowboy. With stories as diverse as the tedious, dust-filled miles on the trail, to the lonely beauty of a star-lit night riding herd as he sings to slumbering cattle, to the stark, death-filled panic of a stampede, El Vaquero gives a first hand account of what it was like to make both myth and history.
Actor Angel Vigil is retired as Chairman of the Fine and Performing Arts Department and Director of Drama at Colorado Academy in Denver. He is an award-winning author, performer, stage director and teacher and a Colorado Heritage Artist storyteller who has performed throughout the nation at festivals, schools and art centers. He has been a featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee as well as other storytelling festivals. His specialty is the oral traditions of the Hispanic Southwest. Angel is the author of six award-winning books on Hispanic and Western culture and arts and a member of the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Chautauqua program for whom he has created five historical characters: El Vaquero, El Conquistador, Tezcatlipoca, Manuel de Lisa and Mariano Medina.
Complete details at the Greenville Chautauqua website.
