Quote:
Originally Posted by kilroy
It seems the origin is a bit more... muddy.
Prior to the name change to Rough Riders they were simply the Ottawa Football Club and adopted the Rough Riders moniker on September 9th 1897, which lines up neatly with Roosevelt's exploits in the Spanish-American War. It should be noted that Roosevelt's regiment disbanded about 6 days later and that the unit was extremely popular and regularly featured in media sources of the time.
It seems no one knows for certain (the original documents for the name changes were lost for both teams) why BOTH Ottawa and Saskatchewan adopted Rough Riders as their name, but in Ottawa's case, there is simply no evidence of any connection with logging history or any local history prompting the name change. Heck, they even briefly adopted the name Ottawa Senators in the mid-twenties and won two Grey Cups with that name.
For Saskatchewan, it's seems plausible and quite likely that the name is connected with the Northwest Mounted Police, but there's no concrete evidence to support this.
CBC's A Not-So-Brief History of Ottawa Football web page has this to say on the origin of the Ottawa Rough Riders name (although without any proof):
"The Ottawa Football Club is renamed the Ottawa Rough Riders and adopts red and black uniforms to honour the Canadian Regiment fighting in the Spanish-American War."
However, there's a major problem with this, namely that there was no Canadian Regiment in the Spanish-American War.
As far as I can tell, there's zero evidence (besides anecdotal) of any connection of the Ottawa Rough Riders with Ottawa's logging history. Heck, I can't even find any concrete evidence that term Rough Riders was ever used as a name for log drivers at all. I can only find mentions by modern sports fans on forums referring to the Ottawa CFL franchises, past and future.
The best anyone can say for certain is that the origin of the Ottawa Rough Riders name has been lost to history. |
I concur.
First of all, the guys taking the logs down to market in the spring time were known as drivers, not riders. In the days before automobile drivers (and back-seat riders), logs were driven down water streams and rivers during the annual spring drive by drivers, hence the french names "la drave" (drive) and "les draveurs" (drivers).
It matters not whether the horseriders were rough-shaven, rough-looking or riding on rough terrain. The fact is that they were mostly French and Spanish half breeds along with former US Civil War soldiers and deserters, as well as free-spirited guys with maybe a criminal past or having deserted their wives and kids who roamed the wild unchartered west of the continent from Texas to western Canada, then known as Rupert's Land. .
They were free souls who travelled alone, or in small groups or larger groups, who could shoot from the hip while riding hard. They possibly lived in groups with squaws and could be hired for protection as well as for aggression, especially when ranch boundaries and cattle ownerships were involved. Their horses were very likely tamed wild horses that they captured and broke down. They may have been involved with supplying horses to the North West Mounted Police because these had originally brought horses along when they rode the newly-built CPR line to Manitoba during the 1885 Riel Rebellion. Maybe 5-10 years later, "rough riders" probably helped to round up and tame new horses for the Mounties.
Teddy Roosevelt hired some of them as mercenaries and they mostly came from Texas and other new states like Colorado and Arizona. New Mexico and most of California was still Spanish land, just like Cuba. These guys were not very useful because their horses were left behind in Florida. The US cavalry used sabres, not guns. The black US battalions did most of the shooting (and getting killed).
There may not be any documented evidence as how the Rough Riders Football Team got their name but I suspect that reading the local newspapers on the late 1890's may give evidence that the name "Rough Riders" was a popular and possibly of a "daring, rough and adventurous" kind.
The tell-tale early logo of a cowboy riding a bucking horse is possibly evidence that Hollywood's 1920's version of a "cow-boy" (e.i. looking after cows) was possibly then (1900) just plainly known and referred to as a "rough rider".
Anybody willing to read the Citizen's archives between 1895 to 1900?
Prev
Linear Mode
