History Main / CattleBaron

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/{{Australia}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/australia2.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:'King' Carney surveys a map of his domain]]

!!Examples

[[folder: Comicbooks ]]

* One ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' comic book (''Barbed Wire On the Prairie'' - 1967) had one of these as a BigBad, trying to crush an independent farmer. However, he is [[HeelFaceTurn redeemed by the end]], with both him and his fellow cattle barons being shown that both cattle and farming will be an important part of the future.

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Charles Goodnight, a RealLife CattleBaron, appears as a heroic character in several of Creator/JTEdson's novels.
** Goodnight also makes a brief but important appearance near the end of Larry [=McMurtry=]'s ''Streets of Laredo''

[[folder: Live-Action Television ]]

[[folder: Music ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In the Literature/WhateleyUniverse, superpowered mutant Fantastico comes from a family of Texas cattle barons.

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

[[AC:Comicbooks]]

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:Literature]]
* The protagonist's dead sister's husband, James, in ''Sisters'' by Lynn Cheney (yes, ''that'' Lynn Cheney). He's of the foreign variety, definitely autocratic, and really hates homesteaders (though none of this is necessarily seen as a bad thing, and he's certainly not the antagonist).

[[AC:Live-Action Television]]
* ''Doña Bárbara'' is the Latin American (in fact, Venezuelan) take on this trope, and a female one, to boot.
** In fact, whenever wealthy people from "El Llano" (the Venezuelan flatlands) appear in ''[[SoapOpera Telenovelas]]'' they tend not only to represent this trope, but reference ''Doña Bárbara'' in a way or another.

[[AC:Music]]
* "Class of '57" by Music/TheStatlerBrothers: One of the classmates, John (in the final verse) is one of these ("''John is big in cattle''" … ).

[[AC:Video Games]]
* Heck Gunderson of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' is a brahmin baron (brahmin being two-headed mutated cows of post-apocalyptic America). Unsurprisingly, he's also earned his power via cutthroat tactics and forcing other ranchers off their land at gunpoint. One sidequest deals with one of the ranchers whose land he stole who wants revenge.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

* Heck Gunderson of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', though to be technical he's actually a Brahmin Baron (Brahmin being two-headed mutated cows of post-apocalyptic America). Unsurprisingly, he's also earned his power via cutthroat tactics and forcing other ranchers off their land at gunpoint. One sidequest deals with one of the ranchers whose land he stole who wants revenge.
** The NCR having a fair number of these is actually a minor plot point in Fallout 2: in the plot-apocalyptic wastes of western America, ''food'' is one of the most important things to have. The NCR's economic strength is built on the back of its dominance of the brahmin market, so the brahmin barons are one of the more important groups in the NCR. The mostly sympathetic senator Roger Westin is one of them.
** Their disproportionate power in the NCR is brought up again in ''New Vegas'', as they're able to get away with trying to provoke a mostly peaceful village of supermutants to attack first because they suspect they've been killing their Brahmin.

* Pete Thornton appears as one in the two ''Series/MacGyver'' [[CowboyEpisode dream episodes]] set in the WildWest: "Serenity" and "[=MacGyver=]'s Women".

* The Rich Texan from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. He's also an Oil Baron.

* Heck Gunderson of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', though to be technical he's actually a Brahmin Baron (Brahmin being two-headed mutated cows of post-apocalyptic America). He's also a CorruptCorporateExecutive who earned his power via cutthroat tactics and forcing other ranchers off their land at gunpoint.

* John Chisum was an actual Cattle Baron during the 1870s/1880s. He was portrayed by Creator/JohnWayne in ''Film/{{Chisum}}'' and Creator/JamesCoburn in ''Film/YoungGuns 2''.

* Charles Goodnight, a RealLife CattleBaron, appears as a heroic character in several of JTEdson's novels.

* John Chisum was an actual Cattle Baron during the 1870s/1880s. He was portrayed by JohnWayne in ''Film/{{Chisum}}'' and Creator/JamesCoburn in ''Film/YoungGuns 2''.

* JohnWayne's characters in ''Film/RedRiver'' and ''Film/{{Chisum}}''.

* "Class of '57" by TheStatlerBrothers: One of the classmates, John (in the final verse) is one of these ("''John is big in cattle''" … ).

* JohnWayne's character in ''Film/RedRiver''.

* John Chisum was an actual Cattle Baron during the 1870s/1880s. He was portrayed by JohnWayne in ''Chisum'' and Creator/JamesCoburn in ''Film/YoungGuns 2''.

** In fact, whenever wealthy people from "El Llano" (the venezuelan flatlands) appear in ''[[SoapOpera Telenovelas]]'' they tend not only to represent this trope, but reference ''Doña Bárbara'' in a way or another.

* Pete Thornton appears as one in the two ''Series/MacGyver'' dream episodes set in the WildWest: "Serenity" and "[=MacGyver=]'s Women".

A CattleBaron is the {{Rancher}} writ large. Instead of owning one regular-sized ranch, the Cattle Baron will own several ranches, possibly in more than one state, or a county-sized one with many thousand head of cattle. He (or very rarely she) will be one of the wealthiest people in the territory or state, and one of the biggest employers.

* Creator/PatrickStewart's character in ''The King of Texas'', a Western version of ''Theatre/KingLear''.
* Spencer Tracy's character in ''Broken Lance'', also a western version of ''King Lear''.
* JohnWayne's character in ''RedRiver''.

* In the WhateleyUniverse, superpowered mutant Fantastico comes from a family of Texas cattle barons.

* Parodied by Andy Griffith in the film ''RustlersRhapsody''; the narrator notes how you never actually see any of his cattle, just hear them mooing occasionally in the background.

* John Chisum was an actual Cattle Baron during the 1870s/1880s. He was portrayed by JohnWayne in ''Chisum'' and James Coburn in ''YoungGuns 2''.

* A variation on this is John Huston's character in ''{{Chinatown}}'', a Land Baron.

* A rare benign protagonist example would be Ben Cartwright from ''{{Bonanza}}''.

* "Class of '57" by TheStatlerBrothers: One of the classmates, Ray (in the final verse) is one of these ("''Ray is big in cattle''" … ).