The above is sparse so I will provide a bit more detail:
The Merriam-Webster Book of New Word Histories
MAVERICK: In south Texas in the middle of the 19th century lived a lawyer, Samuel A.
Maverick [[1803-1870]], who was to have his name immortalized because of some cattle that happened to come into his possession. He was not a cattleman himself, but a client of his gave him 400 head of cattle in lieu of a $1200 debt.
Maverick had no use for the cattle, and so left them in the care of one of his men. The cattle were never branded and were allowed to roam at will. Inclined to take advantage of this situation, neighboring cattlemen burned their own brands on the strays, which were then herded with their own. Although
Maverick eventually sold his depleted herd, the term ‘
maverick’ to designate any unbranded cattle caught on and spread throughout the West.
By 1890 the term had acquired the transferred sense ‘a rootless wanderer.’ American travelers abroad carried this sense of ‘
maverick’ with them, and the British were quick to adopt the useful appellation. . . . . .About the same time, ‘
maverick’ was applied to a member of a group who refused to accept one or more of the policies espoused by that group. Political mavericks have bolted their parties, religious mavericks have been tried for heresy, and intellectual and artistic mavericks have set independent courses of pursuit, refusing to be ‘branded’ with restrictive or conformist labels. . . . [m-w.online: “Samuel A.
Maverick died 1870 America pioneer in Texas who did not brand his calves”(1867)]
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Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
MAVERICK: Texas lawyer Samuel Augustus
Maverick (1803-70) reluctantly became a rancher in 1845 when he acquired a herd of cattle in payment for a debt.
Maverick, a hero who was imprisoned twice in the war for independence from Mexico, eventually moved his cattle to the Conquistar Ranch on the Matagorda Peninsula, 50 mile from San Antonio. But he was too involved in other activities to prove much of a rancher. When in 1855 he sold out to A. Toutant de Beauregard, their contract included all the unbranded cattle on the ranch. Since careless hired hands had failed to brand any of
Maverick’s calves, Beauregard’s cowboys claimed every unbranded animal they came upon as a ‘
Maverick.’ So, apparently, did some of
Maverick’s neighbors. Though Sam
Maverick never owned another cow, his name soon meant any unbranded stock, and later any person who holds himself apart from the herd, a nonconformist. All the standard sources give Texan Sam
Maverick as the eponym behind this word.[[
The Oxford New Dictionary of Eponyms, Historical Allusions & Eponyms by Auchter, and many others tell a similar detailed story and others such as
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Rawson's
Wicked Words, Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories, etc. give more abbreviated versions]]
But John Gould in, in
Maine Lingo(1975), credits a Sam
Maverick who “was already settled on an island in the harbor when the Puritans came in 1630 to establish Boston.” Therefore, he “became the only Bostonian permitted to vote without church affiliation” and was considered an ‘oddball,’ ‘a stray,’ his fame spreading through New England. Gould claims the “use of ‘
maverick’ for an unmarked log in a Maine river precede the meaning of an unbranded calf on the western plain by many years.” A good story that may be true, but no specific, dated sources or quotations are given, although Gould says his
Maverick “is mentioned often in early Boston records.” Could this be a rare, perhaps unprecedented case of two eponyms independently becoming the same word?
note: [[ ]] denotes info inserted into direct quotes
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The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins
MAVERICKS got their name from an early Texas rancher named Sam
Maverick, who either (a) rounded up all strays and gave them his own brand or (b) let his own calves run unbranded so that many neighboring ranchers branded his cattle with their brands, the story is told both ways, so take your choice.
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It is pretty clear to me that Morris, whose research was all pre-1970, was unaware of the facts unearthed some 30 years later by etymologist Robert Hendrickson (author of the
Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins) – that any rebranding was done by Beauregard, the purchaser of
Maverick’s ranch.
Exactly how it was determined in those days which unbranded cattle were on and which were off
Maverick’s ranch is not clear to me. Texas cattlemen (as opposed to those damnable sheep farmers) were, I think, vehemently opposed to fences (sheep vs. cattle controversy) to say nothing of the fact that there weren’t much wood on the prairie, stone was too labor-intensive, barbed wire wasn’t commercially available, and global positioning systems were not yet in vogue! In fact, sounds like a Catch-22 situation. Round up all the unbranded cattle you own, but you got no fences and you got no GPS, so the only way you know for sure they’re yours is by the brand! (<:)
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Ken G – May 9, 2003
Reply from Ken Greenwald (Fort Collins, CO - U.S.A.)
