I do not know how this fits in, but his accented English is going to be strange and persistent.
Since he grew up before social services, and in an era where village atheists were quite rare, he will quickly go to a church for help.
I’m not sure what happens then. But the cowpoke, coming from a more spiritual era, may try to convince the minister of the truth. And the minister may not be as certain it is all a lie as those of little faith in this thread.
I know this doesn’t get to how to make the cowpoke a recognized American. Can an immigration attorney help?
If an 1870 Philadelphian, I think he will self-diagnose himself as bring insane. Then he would walk to 48th and Haverford Avenue – Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane Men’s Division – find it is still there, at least as a physical building, start knocking on doors. and be desperately disappointed at how far it is from what he expects (mostly now a school for troubled teens, and with mental health offices on campus asking about health insurance). They might send him to a homeless shelter where he would experience severe culture shock and perhaps soon be really insane.
As for identification and having to prove nationality, this was not part of American life in 1870 except, maybe and inconsistently, for voting. The formality required in getting a job would be yet more culture shock.
If he can overcome intense loneliness and culture shock enough to check out different churches, eventually I think he’ll find one that can help. I hope. There is risk of him being drawn, through homelessness, into a criminal underworld where identity need not be established.
3 kinds of homeless. Those who have lost a job or can’t get by on minimum wage. they will likely find a way back up sooner or later and live as best they can. Those who have serious addiction problems and have descended to a life of petty crime to feed their habit. And finally, those who have assorted mental issues, cannot cope with the complexities of modern life (or perhaps reality). These are the ones like the fellow who randomly attacked the car of my wife’s coworker with a shovel at an intersection while screaming incoherently. Sadly, society began closing institutions that looked after these types decades ago, leaving them out on the street to cope (or not). Whether that was preferable to dealing with Nurse Ratched is a separate debate.
The latter two, by appearance and behaviour, are more identifieable. My point was that or cowpoke time traveller, if he has any smarts, will quickly manage to distinguish himself from the latter two classes and more likely fit into the first class. He will find some sort of job, somewhere to live, and carry on.
There are plenty of people in America with unusual accents who get by.
The problem ICE will have should they try to deport him, is proving what country he is from. You cannot just deport someone, you have to know their country of origin, and alo satisfy that country that this is one of their citizens. There are a number of illegal migrants that the USA cannot deport because the other country does not believe they are citizens.
They will likely release him, rather that house him without any hope of ever finding his country of origin.
I suppose nowadays they can do a DNA test. What is the usual country of origin of 1840’s cowpokes? I assume it’s a mix of DNA from the British Isles, assorted northern European places, and perhaps some indigenous ancestry. that won’t help ICE narrow it down. Plus, presumably at that level of generational separation, they will only find distant relatives and reach a dead end trying to associate him with any specific current family tree. His Y chromosome will tie him to a particular lineage, but there are no unaccounted-for males of his apparent age. Sill more bizarre if he had children before he went “poof” and so is closely related to a particular extended family. “you’re a relative of Bob and Ted, who have only a grandfather in common…”
Perhaps that will give them the best clue he’s right… “how can anyone be related to all these distant families at once?”
Regional accents were more pronounced in 1870 due to so many people never traveling far from their place of birth. Some still used thee and thou exclusively. I recall reading that civil war soldiers sometimes had a hard time understanding each other. If our cowpoke ever succeeded in convincing someone of the truth, other than with DNA, that someone might be an expert in regional American speech.
If the cowpoke was a civil war veteran, or a formerly enslaved person who moved far away after bring freed (as many did), a bit of language homogenization would have already occurred. But a white woman might be almost unintelligible:
Yes, altho some people conflate #2 & 3 , and add “those few who like being homeless, it is their lifestyle”.
But this is why it is impossible to “solver the homeless problem” since there is more than one homeless problem.
When I was a city commissioner we did some work and studies, and we did come up with some things for #1 (which turned out to be almost all single Mothers).
Free Job training
Proper interview outfits or work clothes.
Childcare
and once a job is acquired, and grant to pay the security deposit , etc on an Apartment.
The drug addicted or the mentally ill are not so easy.
And I read a survey that one American in 10 would have issues establishing their citizenship. You cant just deport everyone that cant prove they are a citizen.
Let’s say a well-meaning scientist wants to believe the time traveller’s story. Could they do some kind of biological test that would indicate that they lived (most of) their entire life before the advent of atomic / nuke testing and the release of other radioactive materials into the atmosphere?
I’ve heard that salvagers like to cut up and resell metal from ships built before WWII (found on the bottom of the ocean) because this metal is less radioactive than stuff made after WWII ended. And useful for some special applications.
Is there some sort of analogous test on human bodies that would be significantly different for those who lived after WWII compared to those who lived before?
Perhaps also…nutrition and its effects on their growth of bones and teeth? A lifetime of no fluoride on teeth, fewer vitamins, etc.
As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
As discussed above, our subject could reasonably pass for someone raised in a remote (and probably fundamentalist) community. Poorly educated, weird accent, archaic social mannerisms, rural skills from a bygone age.
Someone presenting in modern society like this and rambling about having somehow appeared here from the past would need to present something extraordinary to make one believe they weren’t just someone so raised. Maybe they got expelled from the community and are suffering from some form of PTSD.
Using someone like this to prove time travel is going to be a huge stretch. Random crazy guy versus known physics. We already have enough random crazy guys claiming weird physics. Another isn’t going to get far.