What did the cowboys do in the western expansion?

Answer 1

The "cowboy" did not yet exist during the period of the western expansion.

They came into existence later after the Chicago meatpacking industry was set up to supply New York and other east coast cities restaurants with beef by refrigerated railcars and went out of existence when the railroads expanded their lines to reach the various western cattle ranches. The cowboys were responsible for the cattle drives; from branding newborn calves on the open range so they could be identified later and rounded up later, to rounding up the widely dispersed cattle on the open range and identifying the ones owned by their employer by the brand, to driving the cattle from the open range to the nearest railhead for shipment east to the slaughterhouses and meatpacking companies, to selling the cattle for the best price possible, to helping load the cattle into cattle cars on the train. The cowboys skills and clothing were largely derived the Mexican vaqueros employed by the large Mexican rancheros and quite a few of the early cowboys in the US were spanish speaking vaqueros hired from Mexico.