Willie M. "Bill" Pickett (December 5, 1870 - April 2, 1932) was a cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

 and rodeo

Rodeo

Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...

 performer.
Pickett was born in the Jenks-Branch community of Travis County, Texas

Travis County, Texas

As of 2009, the U.S. census estimates there were 1,026,158 people, 320,766 households, and 183,798 families residing in the county. The population density was 821 people per square mile . There were 335,881 housing units at an average density of 340 per square mile...

. He was the second of 13 children born to Thomas Jefferson Pickett, a former slave, and Mary "Janie" Gilbert. Pickett had 4 brothers and 8 sisters. The family's ancestry was African, white and Cherokee

Cherokee

The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

 Native American.
Pickett attended school through the fifth grade, after which he took up hard ranching work.