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Davy Crockett: the truth
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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Davy Crockett: the truth
    Posted: 02-Sep-2011 at 19:19

Posthumously Davy Crockett is remembered as the king of the wild frontier: a hunter, Indian fighter, lawman, scout, and Alamo defender. He was reputed to have performed some amazing feats, including firing two bullets through the same hole, killing a bear with a Bowie knife, and singlehandedly defeating a fierce Creek chieftain.
Was the real Davy Crockett as badass as the legends claim? What is the truth about his life? And did he really wear a coonskin cap?
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Posts: 7392 		  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Sep-2011 at 19:54
When all else fails..as is applicable to the subject matter and ya want the  fairly objective eval go here:
 
 
But there are others..related to this legend...have at him.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2011 at 20:04

Thanks Centrix. I used to have an old comic book identical to this one which records Davy shooting the gun from a bandit's hand, surviving a raft accident, fighting Indians hand-to-hand, fighting off a Mexican assault with an empty musket, and using his Bowie knife to save the school bully from a bear
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Posts: 7392 		  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2011 at 20:15
That's an interesting portryal in the art work there Nick....it would indicate ole Davy in mortal combat with either a Comanche or Kiowa possibly a southern Cheyenne. Based on a generic 'look' of the native chest beadwork and or headdress. None of which he ever met to my knowledge.
 
Note also the tomahawks...the 'injun' is using the standard depiction of a 'trade' (the peen gives it away) while the intrepid Crockett uses what appears to be a native produced model.
 
The illustrators must have stayed up late watching John Ford movies.Big smile
 
otoh.. that rascal, if ya still had it, would probably be worth considerable now.
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2011 at 20:23
I wish i could find that comic. I don't know if my parents kept it after we moved house or threw it out. The Indian was supposed to be a Creek chieftain, though i'm not sure how accurate the costume is.
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Posts: 7392 		  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2011 at 20:41
It is not very accurate at all considering that was being worn 500-1000 miles from where the western most Creeks might have lived until removal.
 
But it is not your fault nor possibly even the illustrators. The idea, as we know, was to spark the mind, create the thrill of the adventure and sell the work.
 
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Sep-2011 at 20:47

Here's a photo of the chief's tomahawk. Note the built-in pipe bowl. Originally made of soapstone, by the 18th century the Indians were buying metal axe-heads from white traders
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Oct-2011 at 20:43
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Posts: 1188 		  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Nov-2011 at 17:01

We forever highly revere our David Crockett here in Texas.

Any man dying for Texas has a warm chamber in out hearts.
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Posts: 55 		  Quote Autie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Dec-2011 at 21:44

I believe David to be a reluctant warrior. When cornered or wronged I believe he could be as tough as anyone. However, I don't feel he was cast from the same mold as Travis and Bowie....especially Bowie, I believe he would gut you like a fish if you looked at him wrong. Oddly, Bowie has my personnal favorite of the three.
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2011 at 19:18
I think the opposite might be the case. Why would a cautious man volunteer for the suicidal mission of joining the outnumbered Alamo defenders? There's no doubt Davy was a warrior with a strong sense of right and wrong
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Posts: 1188 		  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2011 at 19:47
Crockett was 50 years old and no fighter in the sense of what we think one should be.
A nice image of his hunting prowess and marksmanship grew to make him
a celebrity much like a Chuck Norris.
He arrived in Texas in Jan. 1836 and signed up for as a volunteer for six months of duty
and was given about 4,000 acres as payment. As we all know, he would be dead in
three months.
Crockett was a talker, a story teller, a people person, he was no rabid red-eyed
fighter. He came to Texas to rebuild his personal fortunes and not to be a soldier
if he could avoid it.  
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Posts: 1188 		  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2011 at 19:50
Originally posted by Nick1986

I think the opposite might be the case. Why would a cautious man volunteer for the suicidal mission of joining the outnumbered Alamo defenders? There's no doubt Davy was a warrior with a strong sense of right and wrong

When Crockett arrived in San Antonio in early February, the fighting was over in Texas,
there were no Mexican troops in the state. The Alamo initially was not the death trap it
would later become.
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Posts: 55 		  Quote Autie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2011 at 20:40
Nick..I understand where you're coming from on it, but I agree with TJ. From what I have read David was rarely someone that would seek out a fight. A top notch hunter, but no warrior. 
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2012 at 19:09
Davy's own autobiography:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vl2-pBghhEEC&dq=davy%20crockett&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Posts: 1188 		  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31-May-2012 at 23:01
Crockett worked hard, and fast, to get out his autobiography, but 
he had help. Thomas Chilton of Kentucky helped him with spelling 
and the style the work was to have, but Mr. Crockett wanted the
spelling as he wrote it, "as I make no literary pretension."
 That was not to be. His publisher, Carey and
Hart of Philadelphia, took liberty to add more misspelled words, tone
down the Indian fights to make Mr. Crockett not look so violent.
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Jun-2012 at 19:11
Why were they reluctant to depict Davy as violent? He was a tough frontiersman who could hold his own against Indian braves and wild animals alike
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Posts: 1188 		  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jun-2012 at 03:11
Originally posted by Nick1986

Why were they reluctant to depict Davy as violent? He was a tough frontiersman who could hold his own against Indian braves and wild animals alike

I'm thinking they wanted to reach a larger audience and toning down the violent acts, would easily
make Crockett look more humane. 
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Posts: 7940 		  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jun-2012 at 20:09
His fighting prowess is one of the things modern readers admire. Does that mean tastes were different in the 1800s?
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Posts: 1188 		  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jun-2012 at 15:03
I'm just reporting what the authors of the book "Three Roads to the Alamo" wrote.
Political barameter is obviously way different then than today. I know it would make
no difference to me if the candidate went hunting or played chess.  I can see the
reader already knowing of Crockette's frontier exploits and not having to read the
bloody details of each event.
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