Sarfraz Manzoor, America's Forgotten Black Cowboys. BBC, Mar 22, 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768669
("the Hollywood portrayal of the Wild West is a whitewashed version of the reality. It is thought that about a quarter of all cowboys were black")
(b) The English, French, and German surname Austin is "a vernacular form of Latin Augustinus, a derivative of Augustus. This was an extremely common personal name in every part of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, owing its popularity chiefly to St Augustine of Hippo [under Roman rule in the present-day Algeria] (354–430), whose influence on Christianity is generally considered to be second only to that of St Paul."
Dictionary of American Family Names. By Oxford University Press.
(c) The English surname Pickett is ultimately from "a pet form of Pic" which is "derived from the root ‘sharp’, ‘pointed.’" (Think "pike" as a weapon.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_(weapon)
(d) For bulldogging ("a technique where he would jump from a horse on to a steer and take the animal down by biting on its lip"), see Steer wrestling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steer_wrestling