By definition, a maverick is a “lone dissenter” who “takes an
independent stand apart from his or her associates” or “a
person pursuing rebellious, even potentially disruptive policies or
ideas.” The word maverick has evolved in the English language
from being the term for an unbranded stray calf to a label given to
a nontraditional person to a more extreme “uncontrollable
individualist, iconoclast, unstable nonconformist.” The word has
grown into an adjective (“he made a maverick decision”) and
become a verb (mavericking or mavericked). Of all the words that
originated in the Old West and survive to the present day, author
Lewis Fisher notes, maverick has been called the least understood
and most corrupted. But where did the word come from? The word’s
definition is still such a mystery that Merriam-Webster lists it in
the top 10 percent of its most-looked-up words. All of the origin
stories agree it had something to do with Samuel A. Maverick and
his cattle, but from there things go amok rather quickly. Was Sam
Maverick a cattle thief? A legendary nonconformist who broke the
code of the West by refusing to brand his calves? A Texas rancher
who believed branding cattle was cruelty to animals? A runaway from
South Carolina who branded all the wild cattle he could find and
ended up with more cattle than anyone else in Texas? Samuel A.
Maverick was a notable landholder and public figure in his own
time, but his latter-day fame is based on the legend that he was a
cattle rancher. No amount of truth-telling about maverick seems to
have slowed the tall tales surrounding the word’s origination.
Maverick: The American Name That Became a Legend is a whodunit, a
historical telling of the man who unwittingly inspired the term,
the family it’s derived from, the cowboys who embraced it as an
adjective meaning rakish and independent, the curious inquirers
intrigued by its narrative, and the appropriators who have borrowed
it for political fame. Texas historian (and secondhand Maverick by
marriage) Lewis Fisher has combed through Maverick family papers
along with cultural memorabilia and university collections to get
at the heart of the truth behind the far-flung Maverick legends.
Maverick follows the history of the word through the “Maverick
gene” all the way to Hollywood and uncovers the mysteries that
shadow one of our country’s iconic words. Taken as a whole, the
book is a fascinating portrayal of how we form, use, and change our
language in the course of everyday life, and of the Maverick
family’s ongoing relationship to its own contributions, all seen
through the lens of a story featuring cowboys, Texas Longhorns,
rustlers, promoters, movie stars, athletes, novelists, lawyers,
mayors, congressmen, and senators—to say nothing of named
maverick brands ranging from Ford cars and air-to-ground missiles
to computer operating systems, Vermont maple syrup, and Australian
wines. Ironically, given its literal meaning as unbranded, maverick
is a brand name that helped shape the history of the American West
and represents the ideal of being true to oneself.
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