Bose Ikard [SEP] date of death
Bose Ikard
Bose Ikard (ca. 1840s–1929) was an African American cowboy who participated in the pioneering cattle drives on what became known as the Goodnight–Loving Trail, after the American Civil War and through 1869. Aspects of his life inspired the fictional character Joshua Deets, the African-American cowboy in Larry McMurtry's novel Lonesome Dove.
Life and career.
Bose Ikard was born into slavery around 1847 or in 1843 in Summerville, Noxubee County, Mississippi. He lived with his master's family prior to
cattle drivers Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. When Goodnight and Loving's African American guide Bose Ikard died, Goodnight carved a wooden grave marker for him, just as Call does for Deets. Upon Loving's death, Goodnight brought him home to be buried in Texas, as Call does for Augustus. (Goodnight himself appears as a minor but generally sympathetic character in this novel, and more so in the sequel, "Streets of Laredo", and the prequels "Dead Man's Walk" and "Comanche Moon".