Teamster

{{Short description|Worker driving draft animals or trucks}}

{{For|the labor union|International Brotherhood of Teamsters}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}

File:Oktoberfest-Pferdegespann.jpg in Munich, Germany ]]

File:Lydia Vargo and Teamster with delivery wagon - DPLA - 2b644e8eacb6fdb8384ddd529b469786.jpg {{circa|1920}}]]

A teamster in American English is a truck driver; a person who drives teams of draft animals; or a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a labor union. In some places, a teamster was called a carter, the name referring to the bullock cart.{{cite news |url = http://www.sundaytimes.lk/140209/sunday-times-2/how-kotelawala-snr-got-young-brother-in-law-killed-84856.html |first = Jayantha |last = Gunasekera |newspaper = The Sunday Times |location = Sri Lanka |title = How Kotelawala (Snr) got young brother-in-law killed |date = 9 February 2014 }} {{wiktionary|teamster}}

Originally the term teamster meant a person who drove a team, usually of oxen, horses, or mules, pulling a wagon,{{OEtymD|teamster}} replacing the earlier teamer.{{cite web |url = https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=teamster |title = teamster, n. |work = OED Online |publisher = Oxford University Press |date = December 2020 |access-date = 11 February 2021 }}

This term was common by the time of the Mexican–American War (1848) and the Indian Wars throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries on the American frontier.

Another name for the occupation was bullwhacker, related to driving oxen. A teamster might also drive pack animals, such as a muletrain, in which case he was also called a muleteer or muleskinner. Today this person may be called an outfitter or packer.{{cite book |last = Shemanski |first = Frances |year = 1984 |chapter = Mule Days Celebration |title = A Guide to Fairs and Festivals in the United States |publisher = Greenwood Press |location = Westport, Connecticut |page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=SYScSu_rkD0C&pg=PA15 15] |isbn = 0-313-21437-9 }}

In Australian English, a teamster was also called a bullocker or bullocky{{citation needed|date=June 2023}} and was sometimes used to denote a carrier.{{cite news |title = The Late Mr. T. Williams |url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104351363 |access-date = 21 June 2023 |publisher = Adelong and Tumut Express |date = 29 March 1912 }}

From the Revolutionary War at least through World War I, United States Army enlisted personnel responsible for transporting supplies by wagon and for the upkeep of those draft animals were called wagoners.{{cite web |title = The American Revolutionary War (1776) |url = http://www.transchool.lee.army.mil/museum/transportation%20museum/revolutionary.htm |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150311215425/http://www.transchool.lee.army.mil/museum/transportation%20museum/revolutionary.htm |url-status = dead |archive-date = 11 March 2015 |publisher = U. S. Army Transportation Museum |access-date = 22 May 2017 }}