The triumphant true story of the native Hawaiian cowboys who crossed
the Pacific to shock America at the 1908 world rodeo championships
Oregon Book Award winner * An NPR Best Book of the Year *
Pacific Northwest Book Award finalist * A Reading the West Book
Awards finalist
"Groundbreaking. ... A must-read. ... An essential addition." --True
West
In August 1908, three unknown riders arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, their
hats adorned with wildflowers, to compete in the world's greatest rodeo.
Steer-roping virtuoso Ikua Purdy and his cousins Jack Low and Archie
Ka'au'a had travelled 4,200 miles from Hawaii, of all places, to test
themselves against the toughest riders in the West. Dismissed by whites,
who considered themselves the only true cowboys, the native Hawaiians
would astonish the country, returning home champions--and American
legends.
An unforgettable human drama set against the rough-knuckled frontier,
David Wolman and Julian Smith's Aloha Rodeo unspools the fascinating
and little-known true story of the Hawaiian cowboys, or paniolo, whose
1908 adventure upended the conventional history of the American West.
What few understood when the three paniolo rode into Cheyenne is that
the Hawaiians were no underdogs. They were the product of a deeply
engrained cattle culture that was twice as old as that of the Great
Plains, for Hawaiians had been chasing cattle over the islands' rugged
volcanic slopes and through thick tropical forests since the late 1700s.
Tracing the life story of Purdy and his cousins, Wolman and Smith delve
into the dual histories of ranching and cowboys in the islands, and the
meteoric rise and sudden fall of Cheyenne, "Holy City of the Cow." At
the turn of the twentieth century, larger-than-life personalities like
"Buffalo Bill" Cody and Theodore Roosevelt capitalized on a national
obsession with the Wild West and helped transform Cheyenne's annual
Frontier Days celebration into an unparalleled rodeo spectacle, the
"Daddy of 'em All."
The hopes of all Hawaii rode on the three riders' shoulders during those
dusty days in August 1908. The U.S. had forcibly annexed the islands
just a decade earlier. The young Hawaiians brought the pride of a people
struggling to preserve their cultural identity and anxious about their
future under the rule of overlords an ocean away. In Cheyenne, they
didn't just astound the locals; they also overturned simplistic thinking
about cattle country, the binary narrative of "cowboys versus Indians,"
and the very concept of the Wild West. Blending sport and history, while
exploring questions of identity, imperialism, and race, Aloha Rodeo
spotlights an overlooked and riveting chapter in the saga of the
American West.
