by On to the Alamo: Col. Crockett's Exploits;Adventures in Texas
Crockett himself owned a few slaves, as did many small farmers in the Southwest, but he seems never to have been an ardent champion of pro-slavery during a time when advocates for abolition were beginning to make themselves heard. Smith, being from Philadelphia, could hardly have been unaware of the controversy. Because of its Quaker heritage the city had early on become a center for anti-slavery activities: both Ben Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush were presidents of the first anti-slavery society founded in America (1775), and Pennsylvania had been among the first states to abolish slavery (in 1780).
In his speech given aboard a Mississippi steamboat in chapter six of Exploits and Adventures, Crockett maintains that because he is in “a slave-holding state,” to avoid being lynched he should declare that “I am neither an abolitionist nor a colonizationist [i.e., a proponent of sending freed slaves to Africa], but simply Colonel Crockett of Tennessee, now bound for Texas.” But then he proceeds to raise a toast to “the abolition of slavery,” quickly clarifying his sentiments by maintaining that “there are no slaves in the country more servile than the [Democratic] party slaves in Congress.” Beyond this rhetorical trick, there is scant mention in Smith’s book of the slavery controversy.
Thimblerig’s vivid account of Natchez, “where nigger women are knocked down by the auctioneer, and knocked up by the purchaser,” and “where the poorest slave has plenty of yellow boys [mulatto children], but not of Benton’s mintage,” raised the specter of miscegenation, a source of ribald humor in the South and righteous indignation in the North. The reference is also to Missouri’s Senator Thomas Hart Benton’s championing of hard currency: the slang term for gold coins was “yellow boys” (“yaller boys” in Huckleberry Finn). Here as elsewhere in Smith’s book Crockett’s derisive reference to Benton was inspired by the Missouri Democrat’s support of President Jackson’s attack on the National Bank.
Though among Smith’s dramas was The Eighth of January, a melodrama celebrating the Battle of New Orleans and produced the year that Jackson became president, we may assume that the author was a Whig. He may even have been one of those “Young Whigs” of Philadelphia who gave Crockett his new rifle, mention of which is made in his Narrative, when in fact that valuable weapon was left at home. Most northern Whigs remained equivocal on the issue of slavery for fear of offending the southern Democrats to the point of secession, and Smith is no exception. Still, his Whig bias is chiefly shown by his frequent echoes of Crockett’s attacks on prominent Democrats in his autobiography and in the spurious Tour.
The speech the colonel gives attacking Van Buren is in the spirit of the biography of “Old Kinderhook” credited to Crockett, and his discontent with politics in general is echoed throughout, either directly in his “advice” to political candidates, or indirectly by allusion and figures of speech. Shackford declares that Smith’s book was in no way “related to the political exploitation of Crockett … but was instead a publisher’s exploitation of his name and fame in a literary type of sham” (281). And yet, the heavy Whig bias, though perhaps used by Smith to make his hoax convincing, most certainly kept the anti-Jackson spirit very much alive, an unintentional irony as we shall see.
As anti-Mexican propaganda, the spurious diary supported the expansionist cause, and was therefore a different political use of Crockett—a posthumous commemoration of his martyrdom gauged to arouse hatred of Santa Anna and sympathy for Texan independence. As Parrington long ago pointed out, the political exploitation of Davy Crockett came in three stages: “The exploitation of Davy’s canebrake waggery, the exploitation of his anti-Jacksonian spleen, and the exploitation of his dramatic death at the Alamo” (II: 173). In 1836 and thereafter, the greatest exponents of territorial expansion in the United States were southern Democrats, who sought to extend the agrarian frontier and thereby enlarge the slavery system. Whigs, by contrast, tended to oppose expansion, less because of the slavery issue than because they feared the lure of free land would reduce the pool of white factory workers. The leaders of the movement to make Texas an independent republic, like Sam Houston and Stephen Austin, were Democrats, and Houston in particular was a friend of Andrew Jackson. At least in private the president approved of the war for Texan independence, counting on eventual annexation by the United States. As a result, Smith’s book as a political document is divided against itself, expressing Whiggish hostility toward the Democratic party while championing the Democratic cause of Texan freedom from Mexican rule, meaning among other things the right to keep slaves.
The issue becomes even more complex if one accepts Shackford’s argument that the defenders of the Alamo were commanded by anti-Jackson Democrats, Colonels James Bowie and William B. Travis, who had been sent to San Antonio by General Houston with orders not to defend but to destroy the fort. Other accounts maintain that the two colonels were sent to determine whether or not the fort could be held, but whatever the truth, Houston’s strategy was the Fabian tactic used by George Washington, which was to retreat until the advancing enemy had extended itself too far, then attack—precisely what happened later at the battle of San Jacinto, resulting in the capture of Santa Anna.
Defying the odds (and perhaps Houston’s authority), Colonels Bowie and Travis decided to hold the Alamo against thousands of Mexican troops with a garrison of 185 men, some of whom were incapacitated by illness. Perhaps, as Shackford maintains, in joining the defenders of the Alamo Crockett was expressing his fierce hatred of Jackson—though no one doubts the sincerity of his desire for Texan independence. Moreover, Crockett must have realized that any political future he might have in Texas would be enhanced by his participation in the revolution.
He did not, however, set out from Tennessee with the aim of raising volunteers for the war with Mexico, as Smith (and John Wayne) would have it. Only after arriving in Nacogdoches did Crockett resolve to join the revolution, swearing to support a provisional government—famously adding the word “republican” to the oath. But if in joining Bowie and Travis at the Alamo Crockett was inspired chiefly by his hatred of Jacksonian Democrats, the defeat of the Americans by Santa Anna not only validated but strengthened Sam Houston’s strategy. Thus the martyrdom of the Alamo defenders was an unintended blessing for the cause of Texan independence: when Houston’s soldiers attacked the Mexican forces at San Jacinto, they were inspired by the cry, “Remember the Alamo!”
Smith includes in his last chapter an account of the manner of Crockett’s death, the one of five that puts Santa Anna in the worst light possible, a story that Bill Groneman has traced to a New York newspaper story for July 9, 1846. It was apparently copied, with some revisions, into Smith’s book, which actually ends with an account of the merciless butchery of the American soldiers under Colonel Fannin near Goliad. These stories of Santa Anna’s cruelty appeared while he was still held prisoner, and may have been a bid for the Mexican general’s execution, but once again Houston took the wisest course, setting Santa Anna free in hopes of gaining Texan independence. Moreover, the most popular and long-lived version of Davy Crockett’s death was printed in the Crockett Almanack for 1837 (composed in 1836), which is included here in an appendix, for most celebrants of the myth preferred that their hero had not surrendered but died fighting to the last.
Thus Teddy Roosevelt acknowledges that “some say that when Crockett fell from his wounds, he was taken alive, and was then shot by Santa Anna,” but TR clearly favored the story that “old Davy Crockett” was the last man alive at the Alamo, and that he died facing “his foes with his back to the wall, ringed around by the bodies of the men he had slain” (86, 87). Constance Rourke likewise, who may have read Hamlin Garland’s edited version of Smith’s narrative, which left out the final chapter, insists that despite the story told “in later years” about Crockett’s capture and execution, he “was not taken prisoner,” but died “fighting bitterly … in the thickest of the swift and desperate clash” (219-20). On the other hand, perhaps the most effective account is the one in Crockett’s fictional
diary, which ends with the words “No time for memorandums now.—Go ahead!—Liberty and independence for ever!” The best response to questions for which there are no exact answers is silence.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Blair, Walter. “Six Davy Crocketts.” Southwest Review, 25 (1940), 443-62.
———. Tall Tale America: A Legendary History of Our Humorous Heroes. New York: Coward-McCann, 1944.
Crockett, David. A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee. A Facsimile Edition with Annotations and an Introduction by James A. Shackford and Stanley J. Folmsbee. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1953.
Dorson, Richard M. America in Legend: Folklore from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.
———, ed. Davy Crockett: American Comic Legend. New York: Rockland Editions, 1939. (See also Dorson’s “The Sources of Davy Crockett: American Comic Legend.” Midwest Folklore 8 [1958], 615-24.)
Hauck, Richard Boyd. Crockett: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Kilgore, Dan. How Did Davy Die? College Station, Texas: Texas A & M Press, 1978.
Lofaro, Michael A. Davy Crockett’s Riproarious Shemales and Sentimental Sisters: Women’s Tall Tales from the Crockett Almanacs (1835-1856). Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2001.
———, ed. Davy Crockett: The Man, the Legend, the Legacy, 1786- 1986. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1985.
Lofaro, Michael A. and Joe Cummings, eds. Crockett at Two Hundred: New Perspectives on the Man and the Myth. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1989.
Meine, Franklin J., ed. The Crockett Almanacs: Nashville Series, 1835-1838. Chicago: The Caxton Club, 1955.
Paulding, James Kirke. The Lion of the West: A Farce in Two Acts. Edited by James N. Tidwell. Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 1954.
Rourke, Constance. Davy Crockett. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934.
Shackford, James Atkins. David Crockett: The Man and the Legend. Edited by John B. Shackford. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1956.
TEXTS CITED IN THE INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
Davis, Richard Harding. The West from a Car Window. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1892.
Garland, Hamlin, Introduction. The Autobiography of David Crockett. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923.
Groneman, Bill. Eyewitness to the Alamo. Revised edition. Plano: Woodware Publishing: Republic of Texas Press, 2001.
Kelsey, D. M. Our Pioneer Heroes and their Daring Deeds … Explorers, Renowned Frontier Fighters, and Celebrated Early Settlers of America, from the Earliest Times to the Present. Profusely Illustrated. Philadelphia: G. O. Pelton, 1883.
McCullough, B. W. The Life and Writings of Richard Penn Smith, with a Reprint of His Play, “The Deformed.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1917.
Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975.
Nofi, Albert A. The Alamo and the Texas War for Independence: September 30, 1835-April 21, 1836. Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Combined Books, 1992.
Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920. 3 volumes. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927, 1930.
Remini, Robert V. The Life of Andrew Jackson. New York: Harper & Row, 1994.
Roosevelt, Theodore, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Hero Tales from American History. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, National Edition, Vol. X. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926.
Schlesinger. Arthur M. Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1945.
Slotkin, Richard. The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890. New York: Atheneum, 1985.
———. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1992.
Note on the Text
This edition of Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas has been set from the original edition of 1836, published by Carey and Hart of Philadelphia under the name “T.K. and P.G. Collins,” a fictitious firm. All peculiarities of grammar and spelling have been preserved as intrinsic to the pretext of Crockett’s authorship. We have added to Richard Penn Smith’s title the words “On to the Alamo,” in order to provide a clue to the contents, which would have been obvious to readers in 1836 but less so to a modern-day audience.
COL. CROCKETT’S
EXPLOITS AND ADVENTURES
IN TEXAS:
WHEREIN IS CONTAINED
A FULL ACCOUNT OF HIS JOURNEY FROM TENNESSEE TO THE RED
RIVER AND NATCHITOCHES, AND THENCE ACROSS
TEXAS TO SAN ANTONIO;
INCLUDING
HIS MANY HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPES;
TOGETHER WITH
A TOPOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL
VIEW OF TEXAS.
Say, what can politicians do, When things run riot, plague, and vex us ?
But shoulder flook, and start anew, Cut stick, and GO AHEAD in Texas ! ! !
THE AUTHOR.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
[RICHARD PENN SMITH]
THE NARRATIVE BROUGHT DOWN FROM THE DEATH OF
COL. CROCKETT TO THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO,
BY AN EYE-WITNESS.
PHILADELPHIA:
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS.1
1836.
DAVID CROCKETT.
PREFACE. 1
Colonel Crockett, at the time of leaving Tennessee for Texas, made a promise to his friends that he would keep notes of whatever might occur to him of moment, with the ulterior view of laying his adventures before the public. He was encouraged in this undertaking by the favourable manner in which his previous publications had been received: and if he had been spared throughout the Texian struggle, it cannot be doubted that he would have produced a work replete with interest, and such as would have been universally read. His plain and unpolished style may occasionally offend the taste of those who are sticklers for classic refinement; while others will value it for that frankness and sincerity which is the best voucher for the truth of the facts he relates. The manuscript has not been altered since it came into the possession of the editor; though it is but proper to state that it had previously undergone a slight verbal revision; and the occasional interlineations were recognised to be in the handwriting of the Bee hunter,2 so frequently mentioned in the progress of the narrative. These corrections were doubtless made at the author’s own request, and received his approbation.
This worthy and talented young man was well known in New Orleans. His parents were wealthy, he had received a liberal education, was the pride and soul of the circle in which he moved, but his destiny was suddenly overshadowed by an act in which he had no agency, but his proud father in a moment of anger turned his face upon him, and the romantic youth, with a wounded spirit, commenced the roving life which he had pursued with success for four or five years. His father recently found out the great injustice that had been done his proud spirited son, recalled him, and a reconciliation took place; but the young man had become enamoured of Texas, and a young woman at Nacogdoches, and had already selected a plantation in Austin’s colony,3 on which he intended to have settled in the course of the coming year. The following letter will explain the manner in which the manuscript was preserved, and how it came into my possession:—
San Jacinto, May 3, 1836.
My dear friend,—
I write this from the town of Lynchburg, on the San Jacinto, to inform you that I am laid up in ordinary at this place, having been wounded in the right knee by a musket ball, in the glorious battle of the 20th ultimo. Having some friends residing here, I was anxious to get among them, for an invalid has not much chance of receiving proper attention from the army surgeons in the present state of affairs. I send you a literary curiosity, which I doubt not you will agree with me should be
laid before the public. It is the journal of Colonel Crockett, from the time of his leaving Tennessee up to the day preceding his untimely death at the Alamo. The manner of its preservation was somewhat singular. The Colonel was among the six who were found alive in the fort after the general massacre had ceased. General Castrillon,4 as you have already learned, was favourably impressed with his manly and courageous deportment, and interceded for his life, but in vain. After the fort had been ransacked, these papers were found in the Colonel’s baggage, by the servant of Castrillon, who immediately carried them to his master. After the battle of San Jacinto, they were found in the baggage of Castrillon, and as I was by at the time, and recognised the manuscript, I secured it, and saved it from being cast away as worthless, or torn up as cartridge paper. By way of beguiling the tedious hours of my illness, I have added a chapter, and brought down a history of the events to the present time. Most of the facts I have recorded, I gathered from Castrillon’s servant, and other Mexican prisoners. The manuscript is at your service to do with as you please, but I should advise its publication, and should it be deemed necessary, you are at liberty to publish this letter also, by way of explanation.
With sincere esteem, your friend,
Charles T. Beale.
To Alex. J. Dumas Esq., New Orleans.5
The deep interest that has been taken, for several years past, in the sayings and doings of Colonel Crockett, has induced me to lay this last of his literary labours before the public, not doubting that it will be read with as much avidity as his former publications, though in consequence of the death of the author before he had revised the sheets for the press, it will necessarily be ushered into the world with many imperfections on its head, for which indulgence is craved by the public’s obedient servant,
