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 traveled nearly four thousand miles from Hawaii 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, retuning home champions and American legends. 

What few understood when the three paniolos rode into Cheyenne was that the Hawaiians were no underdogs. They were the product of a deeply engrained cattle culture. Hawaiians had been chasing cattle over the islands’ rugged volcanic slopes and through thick tropical forests since the late 1700’s. 

The hopes of all Hawaii rode on the three riders’ shoulders during those dusty days in August 1908. The United States had forcibly annexed the islands just a decade earlier.

The young Hawaiians brought the pride of a people struggling to preserve their cultural identify and anxious about their future under the rule of overloads an ocean away. In Cheyenne, they didn’t just astound the locals; they also overturned simplistic thinking about cattle country and the very concept of the Wild West.