In my initial research on this figure, I kept finding links that referred to a quarter of all cowboys being black Americans, but not many actual sources. The Smithsonian has an article on the subject here.

I was able to find [another study](https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1046&context=esr) which again makes the claim that about 25% of all cowboys were black, but in reading the study repeatedly references other material which the study acknowledges is frequently inaccurate or lacks verifiable information.

There is a BBC article on the subject which made the 25% claim, yet that article has been partially corrected to say "there is some consensus on this estimate in the case of Texas, this would not hold true in other areas".

What are the actual figures? Can they be reliably estimated at all? What about the overall racial makeup of the frontier and of the cowboys, specifically? Were there any asian cowboys, or native American cowboys?