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Speaker 1: Well, who are you going to vote for?

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Speaker 2: You know, if you're going to vote for somebody to

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Speaker 2: represent you in the Tennessee Legislature, are you going to

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Speaker 2: vote for some fancy, you know, well dressed person or

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Speaker 2: are you going to vote for somebody that's a lot

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Speaker 2: like you. It's going to be able to spin yarns

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Speaker 2: and tell stories and make you laugh.

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Speaker 3: On this episode, we're naveled deep into the life of

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Speaker 3: America's first celebrity backwoodsman, David Crockett. To one hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty years after his death, people would call Davy. We've

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Speaker 3: learned there were four Crocketts known by America, the bear hunter,

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Speaker 3: the soldier, the politician, and the martyr at the Alamo.

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Speaker 3: We ended the last episode with Crockett leaving the military,

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Speaker 3: but today things get dicey. Crockett became America's first famous,

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Speaker 3: working class populist politician. We'll see his charm and wit

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Speaker 3: on the campaign stump, family tragedy, and business failures, and

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Speaker 3: see the pragmatic genius of the American Frontier flow through

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Speaker 3: his life. But ultimately we'll learn about Crockett's blunder. Don't

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Speaker 3: think for a minute that Crockett's shoe in for the

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Speaker 3: Bear Grease Hall of Fame.

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Speaker 4: Do you think he'll make it after this episode?

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Speaker 3: I'm certain you'll have a strong leaning, and I really

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Speaker 3: doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one.

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Speaker 5: Who else can you think of? Who's a famous politician

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Speaker 5: who came literally from the laboring class. It's Lincoln who

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Speaker 5: shares so much with David Crockett.

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Speaker 3: My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear

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Speaker 3: Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 3: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

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Speaker 3: story glory of Americans who lived their lives close to

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Speaker 3: the land, presented by FHF gear, American made, purpose built

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Speaker 3: hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged

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Speaker 3: as the place as we explore.

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Speaker 2: Celebrity at its core, in many ways is the fans

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Speaker 2: interpretation of that individual.

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Speaker 1: And so it is.

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Speaker 2: Impossible for anyone to live up to another person's interpretation

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Speaker 2: of who we are, and so we will never know

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Speaker 2: some of what motivated David Crockett. You know, also we

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Speaker 2: change throughout our lives. You know, we can't take a

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Speaker 2: human being and put them in one This person is

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Speaker 2: this because we evolve, we grow, we learn, we fail,

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Speaker 2: you know, And I think he was a great example

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Speaker 2: of somebody who did that, who just tried to figure

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Speaker 2: it out, you know.

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Speaker 1: But but he was, you know, he was.

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Speaker 2: Just he was just a fascinating, fine, interesting person in

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Speaker 2: a time where there wasn't you know, people were just

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Speaker 2: struggling to survive.

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Speaker 3: It seems like he would have been hard not to

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Speaker 3: like if you actually met him.

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Speaker 4: Crockett biographer R.

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Speaker 3: Scott Williams believes that Davy was America's first real celebrity,

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Speaker 3: and despite our exploration of his life, we'll never know

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Speaker 3: his full motivations.

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Speaker 4: Western culture has obsessed.

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Speaker 3: Over the fleeting fame of mortal men with the veracity

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Speaker 3: of an october squirrel horden Acrens. But I think the

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Speaker 3: pace has even increased in modern times. I'm certain since

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Speaker 3: our hunter gathered days as a species, we've looked for

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Speaker 3: leaders and warlords to look up to later in history, kings, chiefs, authors, artists.

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Speaker 3: But the global celebrity is a relatively new thing, and

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Speaker 3: it's gaining steam today with social media and television. Celebrities

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Speaker 3: are a dime a dozen, from sports players, race car drivers, actors, musicians,

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Speaker 3: to coondog breeders and world class trotliners.

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Speaker 4: That's a joke.

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Speaker 3: Celebrities are everywhere, but Crockett was surely America's first. He

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Speaker 3: had widespread name recognition in America and Europe and his lifetime.

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Speaker 3: People made money off his name, image, and likeness. They

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Speaker 3: wrote books and even had a Broadway play about him

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Speaker 3: in his lifetime. In my mind, his interaction with his

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Speaker 3: own fame characterizes him as a true celebrity. But I

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Speaker 3: think it's notable that the foundation of his identity and

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Speaker 3: fame was that he was a bear hunter. Don't forget that.

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Speaker 3: On the last episode, we talked about Crockett's childhood, first marriage,

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Speaker 3: and his time in the Creek War. I'd argue this

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Speaker 3: was the most formative part of his life. Crockett married

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Speaker 3: Polly Finley in eighteen oh six he returned from the war,

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Speaker 3: and in eighteen fourteen he wrote, after his arrival home,

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Speaker 3: though I was only a rough sort of backwoodsman, they

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Speaker 3: seemed mighty glad to see me. He was talking about

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Speaker 3: his family, however little the quality folks might suppose it for,

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Speaker 3: I do reckon. We love as hard in the backwood

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Speaker 3: country as any people in the whole world.

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Speaker 4: That's good. He loved Polly.

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Speaker 3: But in eighteen fifteen tragedy struck, and we see our

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Speaker 3: man expressing perhaps the most iconic expression of humanity, grief.

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Speaker 3: So Crockett returns back to Polly in eighteen fourteen. Then

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Speaker 3: tragedy strikes when she dies. Yeah, soon after he returned.

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Speaker 5: And this was a truly traumatic loss. He had children,

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Speaker 5: he didn't like farming. His business affairs were not in

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Speaker 5: good order. He had lost his wife, beautiful, young Irish,

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Speaker 5: she married in her teens, he was only twenty. And

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Speaker 5: it's on the frontier.

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Speaker 3: Here's Crockett's account of Polly's death in his own words

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Speaker 3: from his autobiography. But in this time I met with

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Speaker 3: the hardest trial whichever falls to the lot of men, death,

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Speaker 3: that cruel leveler of all distinctions, to whom the prayers

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Speaker 3: and tears of husbands and even the helpless infancy are addressed.

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Speaker 3: In vain entered my humble cottage and tore from my

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Speaker 3: children an affectionate mother and from me a tender, loving wife.

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Speaker 3: It is the scene long gone by, and one which

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Speaker 3: you would suppose I had almost forgotten. Yet when I

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Speaker 3: turned my memory back on it, it seems as but

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Speaker 3: the work of yesterday. It was the doing of the Almighty,

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Speaker 3: whose ways are always right, though we sometimes think they

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Speaker 3: fall heavy on us, and as painful as is even

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Speaker 3: Yet at the remembrance of her sufferings and the loss

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Speaker 3: sustained by my little children and myself, yet I have

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Speaker 3: no wish to lift up the voice of complaint. I

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Speaker 3: was left with three children. The two oldest were sons,

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Speaker 3: the youngest a daughter, and at that time a mere infant.

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Speaker 3: It appeared to me at that moment that my situation

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Speaker 3: was the worst in the world. Death the cruel leveler

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Speaker 3: of all distinctions. Polly was twenty six years old. Crockett

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Speaker 3: wore his heart on his sleeve. Perhaps the most mysterious

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Speaker 3: phenomenon of human life is that it ends. Death must

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Speaker 3: be one of the most written about, feared, and explored

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Speaker 3: occurrences in existence. The reaction of the living to death

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Speaker 3: is something that interests us all. I suspect the curiosity

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Speaker 3: is instinctual, and we're hoping to learn how to respond

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Speaker 3: to what we know is coming, this inevitable crisis that

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Speaker 3: no man's mind, money, good looks, or wit can circumnavigate death.

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Speaker 3: Human death is really a wild concept, almost unbelievable. In death,

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Speaker 3: we see the greatest picture of the dual nature of

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Speaker 3: human life. It's both spiritual and physical. The essence of

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Speaker 3: a human departs their physical body in a peculiar, untraceable moment,

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Speaker 3: characterized more by what is gone than by what remains.

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Speaker 3: The lifeless corpse, once occupied by the energy of life

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Speaker 3: and governed by the inexplicable architecture that built the body,

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Speaker 3: now begins to be disassembled back into its individual physical elements,

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Speaker 3: redistributing the matter of the human body back into the

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Speaker 3: chemical cycles of the earth. Death is wild. This small

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Speaker 3: window into Crockett's response to death is endearing, but also

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Speaker 3: shows us his pragmatism, which people on the frontier had

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Speaker 3: to have. So here's what he did very quickly.

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Speaker 5: So he had to do something, and he knew there

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Speaker 5: was a widow not too far away, Elizabeth Patton, who

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Speaker 5: also had kids. He was very young. Also, he goes

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Speaker 5: to see her and they actually get married. She's a

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Speaker 5: very different kind of person from him.

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Speaker 1: It's a very.

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Speaker 5: Practical, hard working, realistic. They say opposite to tract, and

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Speaker 5: I guess they do something.

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Speaker 3: It almost sounds like, kind of like a transactional thing too,

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Speaker 3: And from the mouth of Crockett in his autobiography, he

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Speaker 3: just basically says, my wife died soon enough, I realized

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Speaker 3: I needed a new wife, my kids needed a new mother.

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Speaker 3: And there was a widow down the road, and we

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Speaker 3: met and she was agreeable, and we got married. I mean,

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Speaker 3: it was just like, you know, I'm a man, you're

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Speaker 3: a woman.

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Speaker 1: Let's do this.

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Speaker 3: Crockett said he was as sly about it as a

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Speaker 3: fox when he is going to rob a h house

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Speaker 3: when he courted Elizabeth, and it worked. David and Elizabeth

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Speaker 3: were married at her home. During the ceremony, a hog

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Speaker 3: named Hook pushed open the door and walked inside, and

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Speaker 3: everyone laughed, and Crockett said, old Hook, from now on,

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Speaker 3: I'll do the grunting around here.

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Speaker 4: That's good.

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Speaker 3: In some ways, romance is a novelty of the modern

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Speaker 3: prosperous world. The original idea of marriage was primarily one

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Speaker 3: of practicality. This could be why more than fifty percent

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Speaker 3: of marriages in America end in divorce. Could it be

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Speaker 3: that using the tickuli feelings of cheap emotion as our

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Speaker 3: primary guide on marriage are leading us astray. I'm not

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Speaker 3: suggesting that a marriage should be absent of love, just

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Speaker 3: a question. In Crockett's political career, he would sponsor bills

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Speaker 3: that would make it harder to get a divorce in Tennessee.

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Speaker 3: We don't know the exact date of Polly's death, but

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Speaker 3: she died in eighteen fifteen, and he married Elizabeth on

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Speaker 3: March sixth, eighteen fifteen, so he remarried inside of three

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Speaker 3: months of Polly's death. It's notable too, that Elizabeth's first

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Speaker 3: husband was killed in the Creek War that Crockett also

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Speaker 3: fought in. Elizabeth had two children that she brought into

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Speaker 3: the marriage and David three, and then they would have

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Speaker 3: three children together, bringing their total number of children to eight.

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Speaker 3: That's a respectable sized Tennessee family. The pragmatism of David

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Speaker 3: and Elizabeth's marriage was evidenced by their business ventures together.

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Speaker 3: The new Crockett family would then move to Shoal Creek

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Speaker 3: near Lawrenceburg, southeast of Nashville, Tennessee. Today there's a Crockett

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Speaker 3: State Park there. Here is an event in eighteen nineteen

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Speaker 3: that shaped their family's life.

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Speaker 5: Another way that Crockett's life parallels Daniel Boone's is that

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Speaker 5: both started many enterprises, businesses, and they never worked out.

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Speaker 5: They always collapsed one way or another. And using his

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Speaker 5: wife's money, he builds this huge business gristmill, powder mill,

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Speaker 5: distillery and thinks, you know, well have got it made.

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Speaker 5: Now this comes a flood and it's all washed away.

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Speaker 5: He has to start over again.

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Speaker 3: You know, it seems like poverty chased these guys around

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Speaker 3: a lot and shaped a lot of their life. I mean,

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Speaker 3: if Crockett had been wealthy, he wouldn't have been Crockett.

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Speaker 3: If Boone had been independently wealthy, he never would have

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Speaker 3: had to have taken the risks that he took. You know,

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Speaker 3: I feel like these guys, even though if they if

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Speaker 3: you had him choose poverty or choose wealth, they would

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Speaker 3: inevitably have chosen wealth and had maybe an easier life.

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Speaker 3: It was this thing that was following them that drove them,

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Speaker 3: and that drive that they had is what made them

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Speaker 3: who they were.

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Speaker 5: They were both gamblers and they were willing to take

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Speaker 5: huge chances. I think both of them had a sense

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Speaker 5: that they were going to lose in practical things, but

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Speaker 5: they were willing to try really risky.

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Speaker 3: Things because it might have a big payoff. You might

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Speaker 3: go through the Cumberland Gap and get ten thousand acres

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Speaker 3: in Kentucky that yours, or you might go to West

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Speaker 3: Tennessee or Texas and get land.

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Speaker 5: But also I think Crockett felt sometimes that he was

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Speaker 5: kind of born to failure. It became a part of

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Speaker 5: the persona, the public persona, the self deprecating you know,

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Speaker 5: I've done this, I've done that. You know this, you know,

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Speaker 5: the loss of the mill starts a streak that ends

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Speaker 5: up at the Alamo. He didn't choose failure, but he

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Speaker 5: was willing to risk failure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if the gristmill had worked out, that flood hadn't come,

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Speaker 3: and that had been a major source of prosperity for

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Speaker 3: his family, he probably maybe would have never gone to

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Speaker 3: take Oh.

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Speaker 5: Well, certainly you have never gone to Texas. He'd probably

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Speaker 5: never gone to Congress is either.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting thought. You think

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Speaker 3: about the failures in your life or the difficulty, the

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Speaker 3: stuff that was hard, and so often that looks like

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Speaker 3: a like a black X, but that that black X

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Speaker 3: is probably what pushed you to do other stuff that

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Speaker 3: ended up being winds for you.

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Speaker 5: The unconventional thing they ended up doing it thing that

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Speaker 5: nobody expected.

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you one thing I've learned from looking at

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Speaker 3: Frontier history's owning a gristmill is risky business.

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Speaker 1: Oh man.

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Speaker 3: It's just like every time when I hear that they

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Speaker 3: build a gristmill, I'm like, oh man, here comes financial failure.

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Speaker 3: After the failure of the mill, Crockett's wanderlust for land

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Speaker 3: got the best of him, and he went on an

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Speaker 3: exploration into Alabama, the land formerly owned by the Creeks.

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Speaker 3: He gets down there on a several month excursion and

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Speaker 3: contracts what most likely was malaria.

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Speaker 4: He gets so sick his.

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Speaker 3: Buddies literally leave him for dead, return to Tennessee and

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Speaker 3: give his horse to Elizabeth with news of his death.

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Speaker 3: But as we know, reports of death aren't always true.

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Speaker 5: Again, I remember Mark Twain's other reports of my death.

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Speaker 3: I want to ask you about that because so, yeah,

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Speaker 3: so these guys that were with Crockett go back and

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Speaker 3: tell Elizabeth Crockett's dead, even though they actually didn't see

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Speaker 3: him die. They just when they left him he was

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Speaker 3: Basically this seems so common back during this time that

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Speaker 3: the Frontier was so dangerous, the communication was so slim.

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Speaker 3: We know it happened with Boone when he went into

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Speaker 3: the wilderness for two years, it was just assumed that

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Speaker 3: he was dead. It happened with Crockett. It just seems

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Speaker 3: like today I think about you know, my wife or

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Speaker 3: it would just be so bizarre to have some period

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Speaker 3: of your life when you did not know if your

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Speaker 3: spouse or loved one was dead or alive.

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Speaker 5: Well, the most famous case is Hugh Glass. Remember that

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Speaker 5: Jim Bridger as a sixteen year old left him because

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Speaker 5: he was so close to being dead. He he was

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Speaker 5: going to die and when you get away from the

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Speaker 5: grizzly bears, yeah and the Sioux.

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Speaker 1: So he just left him.

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Speaker 5: Was he was dead?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, No, the.

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Speaker 5: Reports of my doubt that greatly exaggerated.

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Speaker 3: Mark twains Man, that is a when you think about

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Speaker 3: human emotions and how we're geared to deal with crisis

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Speaker 3: in life. That has got to be probably one of

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Speaker 3: the most dramatic things that can happen, is when you

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Speaker 3: think somebody's dead that you find out they're alive. And

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Speaker 3: you can even take that analogy back to the pinnacle

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Speaker 3: of the Christian faith, which is Jesus died and then

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Speaker 3: was resurrected three days later. He shows back up alive.

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Speaker 3: It's a pretty I don't know. It just takes a

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Speaker 3: human on a massive roller coaster. And it's interesting because

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Speaker 3: that happened all the time back these days.

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Speaker 5: Obviously they were happy to see him when he showed

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Speaker 5: up and she had sent somebody to look for him.

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Speaker 3: She was a pragmatic woman, wasn't she. She was like,

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Speaker 3: I don't think he's dead, that old sucker. You can't

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Speaker 3: kill him that easy. There's more to that near death story.

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Speaker 3: That's really interesting. Will somebody on the next render please

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Speaker 3: remind me to talk about his near death in Alabama. Now,

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Speaker 3: that is pragmatism, you know. I'm amazed at how quickly

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Speaker 3: they moved past loss. And you see that with Elizabeth Patton,

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Speaker 3: Elizabeth Crockett, when the gristmill washed away, she just kind

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Speaker 3: of said, well, there was a quote from her and

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Speaker 3: she used the words, we'll we'll scuffle around and get

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Speaker 3: some more, get something else going.

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Speaker 4: You know, they're just kind of.

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Speaker 5: That's the American way. I mean, you move further west,

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Speaker 5: your debt, you lose everything, get in trouble with the law, whatever,

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Speaker 5: you just keep going with. You try again, and then

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Speaker 5: you try again. It's just you know how the country

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Speaker 5: was developed. That's people who failed in Europe or they

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Speaker 5: wanted to go, you know, they were in Ireland or

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Speaker 5: somewhere they.

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Speaker 3: You know, that makes me see a real connection to

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Speaker 3: the actual land of America, that the physical land, how

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Speaker 3: big it is, and kind of American identity that we

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Speaker 3: had room to make mistakes and continue to move. I mean,

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Speaker 3: just the idea of a literal geographic move after some

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Speaker 3: type of failure or you know, if back in Europe

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Speaker 3: when everything was settled from coast to coast and you

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Speaker 3: fail in your little hometown, I mean, there's not a

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Speaker 3: vast wilderness to the west of you to just go

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Speaker 3: and try something.

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Speaker 5: Might in jail in England as you've got in debt.

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Speaker 4: But here there was a place to run.

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Speaker 3: I've never really thought of that as such a part

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Speaker 3: of American identity in the well.

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Speaker 5: I think it's true in other ways, just geography that

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Speaker 5: if you fail to start another career, I mean somebody

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Speaker 5: else COVID comes and people lose their job and they

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Speaker 5: go to the community college or you know, start another

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Speaker 5: That's why you know there's so many jobs begging people

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Speaker 5: have moved on to something.

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Speaker 3: Any I think that's that's unique to Americans.

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Speaker 5: It's not unique, but it's certainly a part of our character.

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Speaker 5: That nothing is at the end of the world. I mean,

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Speaker 5: you lose something, you know you can always try again.

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Speaker 5: It's a part of the character that is most successful

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Speaker 5: what we call pragmatism. The people who are pragmatic usually

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Speaker 5: win over those who are idealistic or have some fantasy

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Speaker 5: about the way things have to be. It's said that

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Speaker 5: in the Civil War, the Union was much more pragmatic

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Speaker 5: than the South, which had grown up on the novels

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Speaker 5: of Sir Walter Scott. This you know chivalry, and you

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Speaker 5: know grandness, and really a place that you know where

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Speaker 5: you something, you have a little shop or a factory,

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Speaker 5: that it's hard for one to ultimately compete with the other.

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Speaker 5: You may have generals that are better, but it's this,

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Speaker 5: it's the supplies, the material that finally on the war

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Speaker 5: that makes sense. If we have any genius, it's pragmatism.

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Speaker 3: If we have any genius, it's pragmatism. That's interesting to

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Speaker 3: think about. Seems to me like there should be a

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Speaker 3: fine balance of idealism and pragmatism in one's life. The

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Speaker 3: year eighteen seventeen is when the world began to take

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Speaker 3: notice of Crockett, he was thirty two years old, which

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Speaker 3: for the frontier was on the right side of middle age.

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Speaker 3: It was then he was appointed as a magistrate of

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Speaker 3: his county, which is basically a low level judge. Crockett said,

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Speaker 3: this was a hard business for me, for I could

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Speaker 3: just barely write my own name, but to do this

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Speaker 3: and write warrants too, was at least a huckleberry over

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Speaker 3: my persimmon. That was a cute way to say that

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Speaker 3: this was above his pay grade. And he went on

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Speaker 3: to say, quote, I made my decisions on the principles

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Speaker 3: of common justice and honesty between man and man, and

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Speaker 3: relied on natural born since not on law learning to

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Speaker 3: guide me, for I had never read a page in

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Speaker 3: a law book my whole life.

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Speaker 4: Crockett's public life grew over the.

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Speaker 3: Next few years when he rose out of the wilderness

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Speaker 3: of West Tennessee and declared that he was going to

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Speaker 3: run for state representative. So in eighteen twenty one is

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Speaker 3: when he ran for state representative, and he was aged

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Speaker 3: thirty five. So we've walked through his life from being

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Speaker 3: farmed out to do work for his father when he

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Speaker 3: was thirteen running away from home working for John Canaday,

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Speaker 3: this astute quaker who really shaped him to get him married.

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Speaker 3: And from twenty to thirty five he kind of became

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Speaker 3: the bear hunter and backwoodsman and built this you know,

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Speaker 3: really was on the frontier. And then when he was

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Speaker 3: in eighteen twenty one, age thirty five, he ran for

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Speaker 3: state representative. It said that he started his campaign at

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Speaker 3: a squirrel hunt. There was a big squirrel hunt down

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Speaker 3: on the Duck River in Hickman County, and it was

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Speaker 3: a big social gathering and they had a big frolic

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Speaker 3: as they called, where they had music and bands, and

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Speaker 3: it was a squirrel hunting contest where the guys went

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Speaker 3: out and whoever could bring back the most squirrels would win,

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Speaker 3: and so called it squirrel scalps scalps, Yeah, they called it.

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Speaker 3: They brought squirrel scalps back. What I took note of

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Speaker 3: this he said when he stood up before those people,

380
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Speaker 3: and again he's not polished in public speaking at this point.

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Speaker 3: He's just done it a couple of times probably, And

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Speaker 3: when he stood up before him, he got choked up

383
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Speaker 3: big time. And I can identify with that, standing up

384
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Speaker 3: before people and being self conscious and just being his

385
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Speaker 3: knees were shaking, yeah, just locked up, and he made

386
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Speaker 3: a joke like he was stumbling for what to say,

387
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Speaker 3: and he said, well, when I stood up here there

388
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Speaker 3: it was like a there was a little bit of

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Speaker 3: whiskey at the bottom of the barrel, and I thought

390
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Speaker 3: I could get it out by turning it over and

391
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Speaker 3: shaking it.

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Speaker 4: And when I did, nothing came out.

393
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Speaker 3: And he was a metaphor about him thinking he had

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Speaker 3: something to say but didn't. And when he did that,

395
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Speaker 3: all the people started laughing and it encouraged him, and

396
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Speaker 3: all of a sudden he.

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Speaker 1: Was able to give the.

398
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I could identify with that so much.

399
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Speaker 3: But he had a very successful first speech, and then

400
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Speaker 3: that became like the fire of his political career was

401
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Speaker 3: standing up and talking to people.

402
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Speaker 5: Well, I think he discovered this talent that when he's

403
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Speaker 5: actually in front of people, however nervous he was before,

404
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 5: when he's up there looking them in the face, that

405
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 5: suddenly the words do come to him. That that's true

406
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Speaker 5: for some people, and it's not. I've always been that way.

407
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Speaker 5: I'm a very shy person. But when I get up

408
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Speaker 5: in front of people, the words come and I think

409
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Speaker 5: Crockett found out there. That was the important point. He's

410
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Speaker 5: somebody had this rapport with people that he kind of

411
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Speaker 5: knew what they wanted to hear and how he wanted

412
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Speaker 5: to present himself because he's creating a persona Every public

413
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Speaker 5: person is an actor, and from the time he was

414
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Speaker 5: very young, he was sort of an actor. He's like

415
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 5: Boone in that way. I mean, everybody is an actor

416
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Speaker 5: in a sense. You create the role of yourself and

417
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Speaker 5: Crockett was really good at it. That was the real

418
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Speaker 5: beginning of his political career when he got up there

419
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Speaker 5: and was at LBJ who said, if you're really a

420
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Speaker 5: have the talent to be a politician, and you walk

421
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Speaker 5: into a room, you've got to know within I don't know,

422
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Speaker 5: forty five seconds or something, what people's.

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Speaker 1: Attitude to you are.

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Speaker 5: You just sense it that people or a hostile or

425
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Speaker 5: friendly or yeah, believe you. And he had that.

426
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Speaker 3: Crockett would win the election and it would set a

427
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Speaker 3: new course for his life. Here's Scott Williams with some context.

428
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Speaker 2: So you have to look at what was going on

429
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Speaker 2: in the country at the time. So expansion is what

430
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Speaker 2: everybody was all about. America was needing to grow there

431
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 2: needed to be a lot more farmland, a lot of

432
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Speaker 2: trade was going on internationally, and all of the area

433
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Speaker 2: where I am, all around us for thousands of miles,

434
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Speaker 2: is prime agriculture land. People up east, though, were curious.

435
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Speaker 2: They were trying to figure out, you know, what is

436
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 2: his land like, you know, and so there were songs

437
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 2: and there were there was a lot of you know,

438
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 2: the media was really writing about it, and there were

439
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 2: a lot of people writing books about it, and so

440
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 2: it was very romanticized. And so people like Andrew Jackson,

441
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 2: who were the last person you would ever think would

442
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 2: be running for office, you know, could win. And someone

443
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 2: like a David Crockett, who, well, who are.

444
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: You going to vote for?

445
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 2: You know, if you're going to vote for somebody to

446
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 2: represent you in the Tennessee legislature, are you going to

447
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 2: vote for some fancy, you know, well dressed person or

448
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 2: are you going to vote for somebody that's a lot

449
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 2: like you. It's going to be able to spin yarns

450
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 2: and tell stories and make you laugh.

451
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 3: And I guess back in the back in the East,

452
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 3: that was the typical political leader.

453
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: Oh and it was the.

454
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 4: Standard I read.

455
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 3: I think it was in your book that a lot

456
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 3: of the politics back East maybe weren't even that much

457
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 3: different than Europe what these people had left. And so

458
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 3: when Crockett was when he rose up, America was like, Yeah, that's.

459
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:51,360
Speaker 1: Who we are.

460
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 4: We're not We're.

461
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: Not those guys. This is who we are. Yeah, that's

462
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: exactly right.

463
00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 3: Crockett biographer Michael Wallace said the political campaign evokeding Crockett

464
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 3: a folksiness in frontier flair that displayed his expansive personality

465
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 3: in full force. He would continue to use this template

466
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 3: of folksy speeches that vividly differed from the stuffy political

467
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 3: vibe of his opponents. The founding fathers weren't exactly commoners,

468
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 3: you know. Wallace also said Crockett never put on airs.

469
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 3: He was trying to represent the common men and women

470
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 3: just like himself and not the landed gentry, creating an

471
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 3: ethic for this western portion of Tennessee that challenged the

472
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 3: hierarchical structure of the plantation culture and the quote. He

473
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 3: would maintain this stance his whole political career and become

474
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 3: America's first frontier populist politician, as he would later go

475
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 3: to Congress so eighteen twenty one he's a state representative.

476
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 3: This is his first time to really be in the

477
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,880
Speaker 3: public eye, and he's in the chamber of the Legislature.

478
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 3: One of the more pro legislators stand up and they're

479
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 3: talking about Crockett, and he belittles Crockett when he says

480
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 3: the gentleman from the cane. This was designed to be basically,

481
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 3: it was just saying, this is a common man, an

482
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 3: uneducated man, a man that doesn't need to be here.

483
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 3: And he was trying to take the knees out from Crockett.

484
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:23,199
Speaker 3: And then what does Crockett do.

485
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 5: He calls himself the gentleman from the cane.

486
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:29,959
Speaker 3: At the time, there were vast expanses of river cane

487
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 3: associated with wilderness.

488
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 4: That's what he's talking about when he says the cane.

489
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 3: The man who belittled him wore a ruff which was

490
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 3: a high frillly caller, you know, like those European guys wore.

491
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 3: And the next day Crockett stood before the Congress wearing

492
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 3: a rouf and calling himself a man from the cane.

493
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 3: This maid is aggressor of the laughing stock of the

494
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 3: Tennessee legislature.

495
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 5: And that's remember how difficult it is to come from

496
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 5: his background and to be in a chamber of people

497
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 5: who are much better addressed, who have the confidence of

498
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 5: people who have more money. This is really challenging somebody

499
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 5: really from the working class, particularly when things get difficult.

500
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 5: You may be able to act confidently when things are

501
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 5: going smoothly, but when you're criticized, somebody's making fun of you,

502
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 5: and you still act with confidence. Not many people can

503
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 5: really do that.

504
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 3: Another option would be for someone to make a fool

505
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 3: of themselves and get mad and go on a rant.

506
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're just thinking about all the options,

507
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 3: you know, option one, option two, when you're belittled by

508
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 3: people in power. And he did the absolute best option.

509
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 3: He used it the rest of his life. His enemies

510
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 3: gave him as a beautiful plan for marketing and branding

511
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 3: for his career.

512
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 5: We could also say that he created that role in

513
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 5: American politics that in the era of the Founding Fathers

514
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 5: on the early nineteenth century, almost all politicians are from

515
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 5: advantage backgrounds. In some ways that still is true. You know,

516
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 5: you find out politicism of the Harvard or Princeton, however

517
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 5: folksy they may act. But Crockett's the real thing of it.

518
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 5: He didn't come from the.

519
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 3: Cane in Wallace's book, he said quote. One of Crockett's

520
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 3: favorite ploys, developed early on in his political career, was

521
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 3: the campaign and a buckskin hunting shirt with two large pockets.

522
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 3: One pocket he kept a big twist of tobacco, and

523
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 3: then the other a bottle of liquor. Crockett said, when

524
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 3: I met a man and offered him a dram, he

525
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 3: would throw out his quid a tobacco and take on.

526
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 3: And after he had taken his horn, I would out

527
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 3: with my twist and give him another chaw. And in

528
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 3: this way he would not be worse off than when

529
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 3: I found him. End of quote. Now, I could do

530
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 3: without the hard liquor in mouth tobacco, but the concept

531
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 3: is solid. And I'll give you one guest who also

532
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 3: wore buckskin in the legislature. I compared him to Michael

533
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 3: Jordan on the last episode, and he's clearly the goat

534
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 3: the American Frontier.

535
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 4: Yep Old d B. Daniel Boone.

536
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 3: You know I might run for political office one day,

537
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 3: first of all, so I could represent my people, but secondly,

538
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: so I could wear my first light and a pair

539
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 3: of briarproof Bibbs into the state House to lecture those

540
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 3: crusty yuppies on the virtue of true Arkansas living.

541
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 4: You know what, Brent Reeves might even be my running mate.

542
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 4: We might even run for governor and vice governor. Bill

543
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 4: cut that out. That's ridiculous.

544
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 3: I've got to read another excerpt from Wallace's book. Crockett

545
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 3: certainly didn't know it at the time, but with his

546
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 3: victory in eighteen twenty three, he was well on his

547
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 3: way to becoming a folk hero in a nation that

548
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 3: had heroes such as George Washington, but no genuine folk heroes.

549
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 3: There were plenty of mythologized heroes from the past and

550
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 3: the founding fathers, including some of who were still alive,

551
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 3: who were admired and respected, but not other than Washington

552
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 3: the stuff of legend. Even the admirable Daniel Boone, who

553
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 3: died an old man just a few years before Missouri,

554
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 3: seemed distant and removed, particularly since he had much preferred

555
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 3: solitude to the legend that overshadowed him. Andrew Jackson and

556
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 3: other notable political leaders were objects of hero worship in

557
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 3: many circles, but especially the so called common man saw

558
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 3: something else in the brash yet unpretentious David Crockett of Tennessee.

559
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 3: The common man was on the rise, as Jackson's political

560
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 3: success revealed, and Crockett also had the makings to become

561
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 3: one of America's first heroes for the masses.

562
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 4: End of quote.

563
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 3: This helps me understand a difference in Boone Crockett's persona

564
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 3: Boone would become an American archetype for manhood, freedom, independence,

565
00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 3: and the natural man connected to nature.

566
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 4: Wallace calls Crockett a folk hero.

567
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 3: A more modern word we've used would be celebrity because

568
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 3: all this happened in his lifetime. Crockett would serve a

569
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 3: two year term from eighteen twenty one to twenty three

570
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 3: and win reelection in twenty three to serve as second

571
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 3: term in state government. While in office, Crockett was very effective,

572
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 3: and his primary focus was helping Tennessee settlers by land

573
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 3: at a reasonable price, but he also sponsored bills promoting

574
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 3: navigable rivers, marriage with widows, things that opposed divorce, banning dueling,

575
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 3: and opposing prisoner labor. But he did lose his first

576
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 3: national race in twenty four for a seat and a

577
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 3: Senate His opponent had more money by now his family

578
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 3: had moved to West Tennessee, living near real Foot Lake

579
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 3: and later near present day Rutherford, Tennessee near Memphis. And

580
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 3: after these two terms, he returned home and a literal

581
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 3: shipwrecked business venture would lead him to his next step, Congress.

582
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: But one thing that I did pick up on about

583
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: David Crockett is he was.

584
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: A good friend. If you were a friend of David Crockett,

585
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 2: he kept you by his side. One of my favorite

586
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 2: stories in in his life. This is a great little

587
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 2: example of how things went for David Crockett. You know,

588
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 2: back then, think about it. Barrels were the most important

589
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 2: thing you could have, whether you're on the farm or

590
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 2: in the city or wherever you are.

591
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: A barrel is crucial because you would store things in it.

592
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: It kept things dry, it kept.

593
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 2: Major transportation of absolutely, barrels were huge. So the Obien

594
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 2: River is near here in Obien County, so he would

595
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 2: hit his house was his cabin was close to the

596
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 2: Obien River.

597
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: Hit.

598
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 2: He and his wife owned that land, and so his

599
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 2: idea was, I'm going to pay you to cut the

600
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 2: barrel pieces, and then we're gonna we're gonna build a boat,

601
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 2: two boats, and then we're gonna take them to New

602
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 2: Orleans and we're gonna sell them.

603
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 3: Go down the Obien to where it hits the Missississippi.

604
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: And we're gonna go down the Mississippi and then Staves.

605
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, New Orleans, Yep, that's what they were called, Beryl Staves.

606
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 2: Then he'll pay you, you know. So these guys had

607
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: a lot of trust. So they get into the Mississippi

608
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 2: River and suddenly he's like, wow, I really didn't realize

609
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 2: it was this crazy out here on the Mississippi River.

610
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 2: And the people he had hired to do this also

611
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: didn't realize. So there is a place near Memphis called

612
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 2: Patty's Hen and Chicken Island something like that. They hit it,

613
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 2: and when they hit it, one boat fell apart. They

614
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 2: had to everybody get on the other boat. And he's

615
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:39,240
Speaker 2: he was asleep at the time, and his crew pulled

616
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 2: him through the window. When they did, they pulled all

617
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 2: his clothes off.

618
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 3: Here's Robert Morgan on the Mississippi River wreck.

619
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 5: When you read that passage of him going down the

620
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 5: Obien River and getting on the Mississippi, you have to

621
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 5: remember a wonderful book by Mark Kwain, Life on the

622
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 5: Mississippi and was brilliant passages in it, And what's brilliant

623
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 5: writing by him and possibly an American literature are describing

624
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 5: how you navigate on the Mississippi, that a pilot has

625
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 5: to memorize the whole thing. He knows the current, he

626
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 5: knows where the sandbars are, he knows where the eddies are,

627
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 5: the sucks, and I mean it's a.

628
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: You know, it takes you years.

629
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 5: And here are these people with these two flat boats.

630
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 5: They know absolutely nothing about the Mississippi hoping to navigate.

631
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 3: It seems like he would have known better than that.

632
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 5: Well, there's something in Crockett. I don't have a name

633
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 5: for it. I'm still working on it that like Edgar

634
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 5: Allen Poe, I don't want to call it a death wish,

635
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 5: but it's something like that that when he does something,

636
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:50,280
Speaker 5: he has to know it's so risky it probably won't work.

637
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 3: Crockett was wild, and that ever present thing mister Morgan

638
00:36:55,960 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 3: can't put his finger on would eventually kill Him's Scott

639
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 3: on the rest of the shipwreck story that ultimately leads

640
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 3: him to a run for Congress.

641
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 2: So he is hovering naked on this island when a

642
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 2: boat comes down from Memphis and picks him up and

643
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 2: takes him to Memphis and they get him something to

644
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 2: drink and something to eat. Him and his crew. Of course,

645
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: I don't know what he's thinking in his mind. This

646
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 2: is like a disaster. Everything it's gone, you know, and

647
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 2: these guys, I'm sure like going, uh so, where we're

648
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 2: gonna get Are we gonna get paid? And so, you know,

649
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 2: here he is, you know, going to Memphis, and they

650
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 2: introduce him to Marcus Winchester, who is the mayor of

651
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 2: Memphis and the son of Winchester who was one of

652
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 2: the founders of all of West Tennessee.

653
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: And so they just hit it off like gangbusters, you know.

654
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 2: And Marcus Winchester is this guy who's from you know,

655
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 2: very fancy background, great schools, well respected, but who had

656
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 2: actually married a woman who was part Native American, possibly

657
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,760
Speaker 2: some African American blood, and so he was in many

658
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 2: ways a figure with a lot of controversy swirling around

659
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 2: him at the time. So Marcus Winchester and his wife

660
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 2: were having to live outside the city of the city

661
00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 2: limits of the city he was the mayor of. And

662
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: from then on, Marcus Winchester funded a lot of daily

663
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 2: Crockett's campaigns.

664
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 3: Winchester would encourage and fund Crockett to run again for

665
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 3: a national seat in Congress, which he did in eighteen

666
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 3: twenty seven. And this river wreck was a major crisis,

667
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 3: with over one years of work completely lost in a

668
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 3: near death experience on the Mississippi River that would have

669
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 3: made a great story on a Medeator close called audio book.

670
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 3: Him ending up half naked on the banks of the Mississippi,

671
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 3: in his vulnerability, opened a door for a political alliance.

672
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 3: You would think that strength would land big deals, but

673
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 3: sometimes it's weakness. It was in these highly contested campaigns

674
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:02,479
Speaker 3: for Congress that Crockett his campaign style began to rock

675
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 3: the free world. He was a force of nature to

676
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 3: be reckoned with. On the campaign trail, they typically traveled

677
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 3: with the person they were running against, and they'd go

678
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 3: from town to town given stump speeches. Once Crockett's opponent

679
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 3: paused his speech when a flock of guineas began to

680
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,919
Speaker 3: chatter loudly, and he asked some people to run off

681
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 3: the guineas. Crockett stood up after and he said his

682
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 3: opponent was the first person he'd ever known to understand

683
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 3: the language of guinea fowls.

684
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 4: Everyone laughed.

685
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 3: Another time, Crockett asked his opponent if he could go

686
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 3: first at the next town, and then Crockett proceeded to

687
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 3: recite the man's campaign speech word for word. His opponent

688
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 3: was flustered and speechless. Once Crockett was running against a

689
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 3: man with a peg leg, a prosthetic leg, and they

690
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 3: stayed at this farmer's house who had a beautiful young daughter.

691
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 3: In the night, Crockett took a wooden chair and thumped

692
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 3: it down the hall and knocked on the girl's door

693
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 3: and quickly ran back to his room before the irate

694
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 3: awakened father accused Crockett's opponents of some serious misconduct. Crockett

695
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 3: was playing chess while these boys were playing checkers.

696
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 4: Here is Robert Morgan.

697
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:20,439
Speaker 3: Introducing us to the political rival that would define Crockett's life.

698
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 5: Andrew Jackson, somebody like David Crockett, had from his youth,

699
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 5: had this resistance against the upper classes. Also because the

700
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 5: upper classes had owned all the land and charged them

701
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,839
Speaker 5: money for renting it, and in effect tried to make

702
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 5: them serfs, really people tied to the land doing all

703
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 5: the work. It's very interesting to think of Crockett's relationship

704
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:52,720
Speaker 5: with Andrew Jackson because Jackson was ostensibly for the poor people.

705
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 5: He was a populist, but Jackson had become a great

706
00:40:56,440 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 5: landowner many slaves. As Crockett became much more familiar with

707
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 5: politics and then with Washington, he understood that that Jackson

708
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 5: had really become the friend of the ruling classes, the

709
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 5: slave owning ruling class. So it's very important to understand

710
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 5: that he'd been a Jacksonian earlier because he thought that

711
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 5: the Jacksonians, not just Jackson himself but his whole party,

712
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 5: were people for the poor people, and then he came

713
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 5: to realize that was absolutely not true, that they were

714
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 5: very much for the ruling class and had little interest

715
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 5: in the squatters on land who needed land and needed

716
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 5: title to the land. This resentment, this war really between

717
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 5: the scotch Irish and the ruling classes went all the

718
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 5: way back to Scotland and almost to the Middle Ages.

719
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 3: And that really defined who Crockett would become in that

720
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 3: he was constantly communicating to people that he was a

721
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 3: common man and kind of had a chip on his

722
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 3: shoulder against the entitled the rich. It's almost like you

723
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,280
Speaker 3: can trace that thing in him all the way back

724
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 3: across the Atlantic to the history that their family brought

725
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 3: with him, even though he was never there. He was

726
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 3: born in Tennessee. To me, it's interesting how generational ideas

727
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 3: and worldviews just passed down well.

728
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 5: Crockett is one of the few leaders of the United

729
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:30,239
Speaker 5: States who actually came from the laboring working class. That

730
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 5: if you look at the great politicians of the nineteenth century,

731
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 5: at the founding Fathers, they're mostly from middle class anyway.

732
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 5: But Crockett really came from the laboring classes, people had

733
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 5: very little education. And that's very important in thinking about him,

734
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 5: but also in thinking about the politics of the nineteenth century.

735
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 5: Who else can you think of who's a famous politician

736
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 5: who came literally from the laboring class. It's Lincoln, the

737
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 5: greatest president of all, who shares so much with David Crockett,

738
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 5: including the sense of humor, backwards humor, and who tried

739
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 5: so much for working for the poor people and the

740
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 5: black people, the slaves. He had that sympathy. But Lincoln

741
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 5: is one of the few people of the nineteenth century

742
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 5: who comes literally from the working class. So think about that.

743
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 5: Crockett has an enormous influence on the political culture.

744
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 3: So you think he influenced people's ideas of who could

745
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 3: be a leader, but also directly influenced Lincoln as a politician.

746
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I mean, Lincoln shares so much with Crockett, including,

747
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 5: you know, telling corny jokes all the time and also

748
00:43:55,920 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 5: being a kind of like a poker player with his policy.

749
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 5: Remember I think it was Chase who said earlier in

750
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:08,919
Speaker 5: Lincoln administration, mister President, you've got to tell us what

751
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 5: your policy is, and Lincoln famously answered, my policy is

752
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:20,919
Speaker 5: to have no policy. And both Crockett and Lincoln were

753
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 5: deeply influenced by the culture of the frontier, which was

754
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 5: deeply influenced by Indian politics and culture. That's exactly the

755
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 5: way a famous Indian chief would act. You didn't know

756
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 5: what he was going to say, You didn't know what

757
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,320
Speaker 5: his policy was going to be till the last minute.

758
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 5: And that's exactly the way Lincoln acted.

759
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 3: So Crockett being this kind of first significant American frontier

760
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 3: populist and he kind of emerged as this political.

761
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 4: Leader and kind of forged a pattern.

762
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 3: And he for sure was the first guy that was

763
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 3: a no notable, notable politician that was absolutely uneducated, that

764
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 3: was foreshore from the frontier and he like created this

765
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 3: space that then influenced American politics from there on out.

766
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 5: He's the model, as Boone was the model for the frontiersman.

767
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:21,479
Speaker 5: Crockett is the model of the frontiersman, the laborer who

768
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 5: arrives in Washington and becomes a very famous, iconic figure.

769
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 3: That's big fodder for quantifying how Crockett influenced America. He

770
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 3: influenced Lincoln. Here's Scott with the DL on the Jackson

771
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 3: Crockett feud.

772
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 2: You know, I was happened to be researching and writing

773
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 2: my book during one of the most contentious eras in

774
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 2: recent memory, when Trump was in office, and so I

775
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 2: couldn't help but have a lot of that resonate with me,

776
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 2: the comparisons between Trump and Andrew Jackson, and you know

777
00:45:58,600 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 2: how some of those.

778
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 4: Tell me about that interesting.

779
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:06,359
Speaker 2: Well, Yet, like Trump Andrew Jackson was like, Hey, I'm

780
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 2: going to do things my way, no matter. I don't

781
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 2: care what you I don't care what anybody says. You know,

782
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 2: I'm the I'm the anti government person, you know. And

783
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 2: also at the time, political campaigns were vicious. I mean

784
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: you think they were vicious, you know, during the Trump era,

785
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 2: they were even ten times more vicious.

786
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: Really during Andrew.

787
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,240
Speaker 2: Jackson's you know, him and his wife, Andrew Jackson's wife,

788
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:31,359
Speaker 2: you know, she may or may not have still been

789
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 2: married when they got married, so.

790
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 4: She was likely a little bit of a scandal.

791
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:36,919
Speaker 1: A political you know, a polygamist.

792
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 2: And you know, if if you go strictly by the

793
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 2: law and the stress of the media coverage and and

794
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 2: his political enemies, you know, using that killed her. And

795
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 2: so so imagine the anger and the fury that was

796
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 2: directed towards.

797
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:55,280
Speaker 1: Him by Andrew Jackson.

798
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and this is a guy that was

799
00:46:57,440 --> 00:46:59,720
Speaker 3: involved in I think like one hundred duels.

800
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean he was.

801
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 3: He was literally in shootouts like constantly.

802
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 2: And I was researching David Crockett, you can't help, but

803
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 2: also research Andrew Jackson quite a bit. And you know,

804
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 2: here the bullets that were still in his body caused

805
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 2: long term lead poisoning. Yeah, and so he lived for

806
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 2: you know, a really long time, but oh my gosh, the.

807
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 3: Last year had the bullets from the duels, at least

808
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 3: one or two bullets, yeah, lodged in his body.

809
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,320
Speaker 2: They couldn't get out, and it just slowly leaked into

810
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 2: his body.

811
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 1: Until he just he died a horrible death.

812
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 3: They exhumed his hair from the grave, Yeah, I guess

813
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 3: they dug him up, Yeah, and found all that lead

814
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 3: and did analysis on it modern analysis and found that

815
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 3: he died of leda this is which.

816
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: Is ultimately killed him.

817
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 2: But he was just I mean, he was a hot head,

818
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 2: and you know he he was really the antithesis ultimately

819
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 2: of what David Crockett was about. And you would think

820
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: these two guys would have more in common than they

821
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 2: had different, but they really.

822
00:47:58,360 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: Had more different.

823
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 3: So Andrew Jackson was anti government, right, right, but now Crockett,

824
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 3: where would Crockett have staid?

825
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 2: Well, what Andrew Jackson and James k Holk, what they

826
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 2: needed more than anything was for all the congressmen to

827
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 2: fall into line. And so if Andrew Jackson and if

828
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 2: they needed something done they wanted, they wanted David Crockett

829
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 2: to vote yes when they wanted yes, and no when

830
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 2: they voted no. And I tried to figure out was

831
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 2: David Crockett in many cases that he went against them?

832
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:31,959
Speaker 2: Was he going against him because he knew they wanted

833
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 2: him to go for them, or was he truly And

834
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 2: I do think it's a mixture of the two.

835
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,240
Speaker 3: So it could be that he was actually not playing

836
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 3: politics and just doing what he thought was right in

837
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 3: the situation, that would be the most noble.

838
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's somewhere in the middle that's most

839
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 2: Usually as the case, he wasn't going to let anybody

840
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 2: boss him around, he wasn't to let anybody push him around.

841
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:56,800
Speaker 2: So probably the most notable was the eighteen thirty Indian

842
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:01,919
Speaker 2: Removal Act, where Andrew Jackson was spinning it as Hey,

843
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 2: you know what, We're gonna do something nice for the

844
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 2: Native Americans. We're gonna help them preserve their way of life,

845
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:13,280
Speaker 2: and we're gonna send them, you know, to Oklahoma out west.

846
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 1: And David Crockett knew enough to do that that was

847
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: not true.

848
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,279
Speaker 2: And that a lot of the Native Americans had actually assimilated,

849
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 2: but they had assimilated and their tribes still owned a

850
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 2: huge amounts of land. And so David Crockett, there's a

851
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 2: quote that's in the book that probably to me, his

852
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 2: most noble moment is when he said, look, I know,

853
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 2: Native America, my territory that I represent has more Native

854
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 2: Americans touching it than any place else. And I can

855
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 2: tell you this is not a good bill unless.

856
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: They choose to go. If they choose, too great, But

857
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: I'm gonna vote no.

858
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:52,719
Speaker 2: And so you know, that is what really at the

859
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 2: end of the day, that was the last straw for

860
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:57,840
Speaker 2: Andrew Jackson and his cronies.

861
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 3: Do you think that Crockett it's motivations inside of that

862
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,800
Speaker 3: where truly he was empathetic towards the Native Americans.

863
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I've tried to figure that out.

864
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 2: It's impossible really to ever know, but I do think

865
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:12,719
Speaker 2: so because in that particular case, it wouldn't have hurt

866
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 2: him in any way to vote yes unless he really

867
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 2: truly believed that it was the wrong thing to do.

868
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 2: And so I do think especially by that point in

869
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 2: his life, you know, you got to think by then,

870
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, this is a guy, and it's

871
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 2: hard for us because for us, David Crockett is you know,

872
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 2: daity Daty Crockett, King of the World Frontier. It's so

873
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 2: ingrained in our culture. It's hard to think about the fact,

874
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:40,880
Speaker 2: here's this real person who is going to Washington and

875
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:44,800
Speaker 2: there are plays on stage about him, and he's going

876
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 2: to a play that is about him, you know, And

877
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 2: so there are books and magazine. I mean, he has

878
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 2: reached the height of fame unlike really anybody else. I

879
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 2: mean there were lots of Congressmen and senators, and there

880
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 2: was lots of politicians and you know, but other famous people. Yeah,

881
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 2: but he just by far was the most most well known,

882
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 2: most recognized, most famous. And so by voting no on

883
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 2: that bill, he was the only Tennessee and to vote no.

884
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,400
Speaker 2: And and it it was in all the papers. Everybody

885
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:19,319
Speaker 2: wrote about it and wrote about it and wrote about it.

886
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:21,440
Speaker 1: And here's the other thing that's interesting.

887
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,080
Speaker 2: So he had a campaign coming up to be re elected,

888
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 2: but by voting against Jackson, they all put as much

889
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:31,360
Speaker 2: force and energy as they could behind Adam Huntsman.

890
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: So they win and.

891
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 4: Ultimately hurt him politically.

892
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: It did, It really did.

893
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 2: And the Whigs so that you know, the Whigs were

894
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 2: funding this little book tour.

895
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,760
Speaker 1: And you know, these.

896
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 2: Guys are all you know, for the most part, Easterners,

897
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 2: you know, and they're all you know, these are the

898
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 2: guys that have the.

899
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 3: Guys in the East are funding Crockett. Yeah, because they

900
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 3: think he could be I.

901
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,080
Speaker 2: Think maybe he could be a Whig. Maybe we'll convert

902
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 2: him over to us. He'll run for president, and he

903
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:59,879
Speaker 2: could win, but he needed to win his next camp.

904
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 2: So if he had won, then he could potentially have

905
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 2: gone on.

906
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:09,800
Speaker 3: So that cost him voting against the Indian Removal Act.

907
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 3: He a couple of bounces away could have kept him

908
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:13,760
Speaker 3: from running for president.

909
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 2: Yep, because he really lost. He lost to Adam Huntsman

910
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:19,840
Speaker 2: by just a few hundred votes.

911
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 1: Wow. And so if he had not lost, history would

912
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 1: have been a lot different.

913
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 3: Krockutt was the only Tennessee and to vote no to

914
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:33,919
Speaker 3: Jackson's Indian Removal Act. It's important for me to try

915
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 3: to peer into the inner workings of his vote. We've

916
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 3: got to decide if this guy is going to be

917
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 3: in the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. I think there's

918
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:48,359
Speaker 3: a line of thought that could be Krockett. His identity

919
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 3: was that he was a poor kind of overlooked from

920
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 3: a marginalized group of people. I mean, that was his

921
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,439
Speaker 3: whole identity. It's like, these rich folks don't know what's

922
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,879
Speaker 3: going on? Were these poor folks from the cane right.

923
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 3: I think that would lend itself to having a genuine

924
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:11,760
Speaker 3: empathy towards people that he saw being abused misused.

925
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 4: By the establishment and think about this.

926
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 2: So the other thing that could have made him win

927
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 2: is before the land was truly surveyed and before it

928
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 2: was truly able to be purchased legally, a lot of

929
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 2: people came in here. A lot of people were just

930
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:33,400
Speaker 2: flooding in here, setting up a space and saying, surely

931
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 2: the government will let me have this once it becomes available.

932
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,800
Speaker 2: And so they're setting up farms. Some people, the grand

933
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 2: the father, and the grandfather set up the farm. Well

934
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 2: by the time, you know, the young man is in

935
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 2: his twenties and he's farming. They've been that's his whole,

936
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 2: that's where he's from.

937
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: You know. Well, they didn't even own the lands. They

938
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: were squatters.

939
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 2: And so what David Crockett was trying to do is

940
00:53:55,840 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 2: pass legislation that would allow these people to purchase their land. Well,

941
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 2: first he tried to allow them to have it just

942
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:04,479
Speaker 2: you know, if they had been farming in a certain

943
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 2: amount of time, they could have it.

944
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:07,800
Speaker 1: But then there was no way that was going to go.

945
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 2: So so it became could they get it at a

946
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:15,319
Speaker 2: reasonable amount of money, which they could never settle upon

947
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:20,239
Speaker 2: what is reasonable. There were a few times he got close. Ultimately,

948
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 2: no legislation was ever passed, And when he would have

949
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 2: really been in there fighting for that legislation, that the

950
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 2: time he should have been, he was out promoting his book.

951
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 2: So it was sort of a missed opportunity there.

952
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 3: But so would you say that his two main things

953
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:41,239
Speaker 3: that he did as a politician was fight for essentially squatters'

954
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 3: rights to have their own land and then the Indian

955
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 3: Removal Act and a general opposition to anything Andrew Jackson did.

956
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean that was kind

957
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:53,240
Speaker 2: of his political career.

958
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: Anti establishment.

959
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:57,239
Speaker 2: But Andrew Jackson was anti establishment, so I guess he

960
00:54:57,280 --> 00:54:58,719
Speaker 2: was anti anti establishment.

961
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 1: He was. He was astablished squared.

962
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 3: Davy Crockett, Yeah, David Crockett anti squared. You know, we've

963
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 3: skipped over an important part of Crockett's political career that

964
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 3: will sum up quickly. The Whigs, which will be equivalent

965
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 3: to modern day Republicans, saw him as a potential presidential candidate.

966
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:22,320
Speaker 3: They courted him, flattered him, and brought him to Washington,

967
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:27,359
Speaker 3: DC and funded his famous autobiography book Tour. Yes, it's

968
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 3: the book. We've been reading stuff out of the book.

969
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 3: Tour was during a political session, and so he didn't

970
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 3: show up to Congress and this would end up biting

971
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 3: him in the Buckskins. This was Crockett's blunder.

972
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 5: This is where Crockett really gets in trouble because he

973
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 5: starts overplaying it, encouraged by the newspapers and the audience.

974
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 5: He's the man from McCain and he's the real thing,

975
00:55:56,200 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 5: and he's working hard in Congress. But the Whigs begin

976
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:06,000
Speaker 5: to perceive that he's against the Jacksonians. He's fallen out

977
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:08,680
Speaker 5: with him. He's from Tennessee and it's deadly to be

978
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 5: from Tennessee and against Jackson's the popular person in the country.

979
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 1: So huh.

980
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 5: The Whigs from the North. He's primarily saying, we can

981
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 5: use this guy, and they encourage other people and even

982
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 5: Crocket himself to exaggerate this if it comes sort of

983
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:27,920
Speaker 5: the clown the buffoon, and there's a book published about

984
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,840
Speaker 5: him that really hypes that image, and he may have

985
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 5: had a hand in it. Was it ego, I mean,

986
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 5: where they planned to his ego and he kind of

987
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:39,800
Speaker 5: fell for it, to his ego and his vanity. Yes,

988
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 5: that he was a handsome fella and they, I mean

989
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 5: nobody could resist this of course, that this fella from

990
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 5: the backwoods of Tennessee, is in the finest parlors, and

991
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 5: it's told he's great, it's a greater future, and you know,

992
00:56:56,760 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 5: we're going to maybe wonderful president eventually convincing that he's

993
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 5: going to run for president. And the more he's a clown,

994
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 5: the more it's going to be, the better it's going

995
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 5: to be. So Crockett begins to go off track in

996
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 5: that period.

997
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 3: I think this really gives us some solid insight into

998
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 3: who Crockett was and what defined his political career. All

999
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 3: this stuff is really important to me because internal character

1000
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 3: plays a big part of being in the Beargreas Hall

1001
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 3: of Fame. But does being enamored with fame count against

1002
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 3: you in the realm of internal character? In some ways,

1003
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 3: I can see the argument of my friend Cleave Stanella

1004
00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 3: at Meat Eater, who thinks Crockett was a vain and

1005
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 3: self serving man. But that seems like it's kind of

1006
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 3: part of being a celebrity, which doesn't necessarily make it right.

1007
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 3: Here's Scott with a tough question.

1008
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 2: You know, in my little talk that I give, I

1009
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 2: do ask people, what do you suppose David Crockett the

1010
00:57:56,920 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 2: man would think about Davy Crockett the entertainment brand that

1011
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 2: sprung up around parts of his personality. And my answer

1012
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 2: is always, you know, I think he would love it

1013
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:11,160
Speaker 2: if he could capitalize off.

1014
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: It some way and make money off of it.

1015
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 2: So he would be he would be one of those

1016
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 2: folks at those at those celebrity things where you're signing autographs.

1017
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 2: He'd be signing autographs. He'd have a podcast, surely, you know,

1018
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:26,560
Speaker 2: he'd have a big social media presence. Crockett would have

1019
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 2: a huge social he would have a huge now he'd

1020
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 2: be tiktoking with the best of them, and so he would.

1021
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 2: But I also, having researched him, he would spend a

1022
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 2: whole lot more.

1023
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 1: Than he made on doing those things.

1024
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:44,320
Speaker 3: But I keep I keep going back to this though,

1025
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:48,560
Speaker 3: Does that not spoil the authenticity of Crockett for you

1026
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 3: personally to think that he would have Because I feel

1027
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 3: like as Americans, we want this guy that never wanted fame,

1028
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,560
Speaker 3: but fame found him because of his character and how

1029
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 3: great a man he was. It's sort of what's the

1030
00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 3: lore around Boone, which isn't entirely true. He did quite

1031
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 3: a bit of stuff to help raise his fame, like

1032
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 3: probably any of us would if we had the opportunity.

1033
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 3: But that's where I keep going with Crockett because I'm torn.

1034
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: I mean, look at look at like, you know, the

1035
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:21,360
Speaker 1: Earnharts and race car driving.

1036
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:25,080
Speaker 2: You know, I think they're bad people because they want

1037
00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 2: to capitalize off of I mean, other people were making

1038
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 2: money off.

1039
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,840
Speaker 1: His name, image and likeness. Why shouldn't he be compensated

1040
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:32,240
Speaker 1: as well?

1041
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 3: And see, that's where I think we're totally hypocritical, me

1042
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 3: hypocritical because when I think of this, this guy that

1043
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:44,920
Speaker 3: was formative in America's identity, I don't want him to

1044
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 3: be a celebrity.

1045
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:46,400
Speaker 1: I don't.

1046
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 3: I don't want him to be someone that had awareness

1047
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 3: of his own fame and would have done things to

1048
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 3: manipulate that and grow it. I want him to be

1049
00:59:56,160 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 3: this guy in West Tennessee that just woke up one

1050
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:02,600
Speaker 3: day and famous, you know, kind of like Boon And

1051
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 3: you're always comparing these two guys. But and that doesn't

1052
01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:09,960
Speaker 3: make me discount Crockett at all. It's just something that

1053
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 3: I think about. Do you think about that well?

1054
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 2: And honestly, he was so much on the front of

1055
01:00:18,760 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 2: this fame. You know, people hadn't really been famous in

1056
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 2: America like that. And so I think about, you know,

1057
01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 2: I think about some of the people that I've worked

1058
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 2: with in my career who are famous, quote unquote, who

1059
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 2: manage when they get ready to have a photograph taken.

1060
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 2: They manage where the lights are, they manage how they look.

1061
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 1: They want to see a clip of what if you're.

1062
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 2: Shooting video, They want to manage how their image is

1063
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 2: projected publicly. And so there were no cameras yet then

1064
01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 2: very soon thereafter there would be photography.

1065
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: You know.

1066
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 3: But I think what you're saying is that we can't

1067
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 3: blame Crockett for doing the same thing that all our

1068
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 3: heroes today are doing.

1069
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:02,640
Speaker 1: Well, or any of us would do.

1070
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:04,880
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're smart, you want to how many

1071
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 2: of us have a photograph taken and you say, oh,

1072
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 2: don't post that? Yep, you know, I mean, we control

1073
01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 2: our self images. But Crockett had a painting done, and

1074
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 2: he controlled the gun. He was holding the dogs that

1075
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 2: were in the shot. He wanted to be holding a

1076
01:01:21,920 --> 01:01:24,480
Speaker 2: hat like he was waving at his neighbor, you know,

1077
01:01:24,680 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 2: And and that's a that's a photograph that you.

1078
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:30,880
Speaker 4: Know, if he orchestrated that painting.

1079
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 2: And the painter lived to be a you know, very

1080
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 2: old man, and he wrote about the whole experience of

1081
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 2: painting David Crockett, and he wrote about what it was like,

1082
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 2: what they talked about. Crockett was dealing with some family

1083
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 2: issues at the time and his his uh son was

1084
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 2: upset with him because he was spending too much time

1085
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 2: in d C. And he said, these the dogs you're using,

1086
01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:54,200
Speaker 2: those are not what I would use if I were

1087
01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 2: hunting bear and a hurricane as he called it. And

1088
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 2: he he took the painter into the streets of DC

1089
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:06,160
Speaker 2: and they rounded up dogs that he thought he would use.

1090
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:08,919
Speaker 2: He had when he's looking at it, he said, right,

1091
01:02:09,120 --> 01:02:11,840
Speaker 2: I'm on the gun, right, go ahead, And so the

1092
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 2: painter wrote. You could see where the painter wrote go

1093
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 2: ahead on the gun. The painter rights that Crockett was

1094
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:19,920
Speaker 2: just not quite happy with the painting.

1095
01:02:19,960 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: He just kept saying, I'm not quite there, and that one.

1096
01:02:22,240 --> 01:02:24,240
Speaker 2: Day he came in and he was just exuberant and

1097
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 2: he said, I've got it.

1098
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to do.

1099
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:30,240
Speaker 2: Paint me holding my hat up, waving like I'm waving

1100
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:33,000
Speaker 2: to my neighbor and saying how he you know, because

1101
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 2: he wanted to be approachable. He wanted to be. He

1102
01:02:35,800 --> 01:02:38,400
Speaker 2: didn't want you to be, you know, a stuffy you

1103
01:02:38,480 --> 01:02:43,120
Speaker 2: know painting. So and he also said he also wrote,

1104
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 2: you know, every painter always makes me look like a

1105
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 2: Methodist minister.

1106
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 1: So he didn't want to look like a Methodist man. Yeah,

1107
01:02:50,880 --> 01:02:53,440
Speaker 1: that's right. And so that's the famous painting.

1108
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 3: And that that gave America a template for kind of

1109
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 3: the folk hero too, because we we came from the

1110
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 3: white Europeans that primarily established the colonies in the States

1111
01:03:06,600 --> 01:03:10,680
Speaker 3: in the East came from Europe, and their aristocracy was

1112
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 3: very stuffy, very very proper, very prim and so Crockett

1113
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:18,040
Speaker 3: was like, I ain't like those guys, right.

1114
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 2: He rewrote the book, you know, he rewrote the book

1115
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:22,920
Speaker 2: on what it means to be famous. You know, he

1116
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 2: also would love to have been able to capitalize off

1117
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:28,360
Speaker 2: of it financially and make enough money to where he

1118
01:03:28,360 --> 01:03:31,120
Speaker 2: could support his family. And who could blame him for that?

1119
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:34,080
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, don't we all want to do that?

1120
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 3: Numerous people painted Crockett, and he said he always looked

1121
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 3: like a Methodist preacher.

1122
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:40,880
Speaker 4: That's funny.

1123
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:45,439
Speaker 3: But in eighteen thirty four, John Gadsby Chapman set out

1124
01:03:45,480 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 3: to paint the authentic Crockett, who was then forty seven

1125
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:53,520
Speaker 3: years old, the original painting. After Crockett's death, the Ylamo

1126
01:03:53,720 --> 01:03:56,360
Speaker 3: was acquired by the State of Texas and hung in

1127
01:03:56,440 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 3: the State Capitol Building in Austin. Chapman had the pain

1128
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 3: for self for one thousand dollars, but was never paid

1129
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:05,920
Speaker 3: by the State of Texas, or at least that's what

1130
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:10,920
Speaker 3: they say. Tragically, a faulty stovepipe burned the entire State

1131
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 3: Capitol Building to the ground, including the painting, so the

1132
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:17,400
Speaker 3: original painting is gone today.

1133
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 4: What we have is replicas.

1134
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:23,960
Speaker 3: Crockett would die two years after the painting was complete,

1135
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 3: and Chapman wrote a memoir about painting Crockett called Reminiscences

1136
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:35,160
Speaker 3: of Colonel David Crockett. Chapman wrote, quote, with all the

1137
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:41,720
Speaker 3: disadvantages consequent upon deficiency and timely educational training, Colonel Crockett's

1138
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:45,919
Speaker 3: command of verbal expression was very remarkable. Say what he might,

1139
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:50,400
Speaker 3: his meaning could never be misinterpreted. He expressed opinions and

1140
01:04:50,440 --> 01:04:55,919
Speaker 3: told his stories with unhesitating clearness of diction, often embellished

1141
01:04:55,960 --> 01:05:00,160
Speaker 3: with graphic touches of original wit and humor, sparkling and

1142
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 3: even startling, yet never out of place or obtrusively ostentatious.

1143
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 3: As for his backwoods slang, it fell upon the ear

1144
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 3: meaningly and consistent as the crack of his rifle, or

1145
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:16,160
Speaker 3: the halloo from a hurricane or from a cane break.

1146
01:05:16,640 --> 01:05:19,840
Speaker 3: It was to him truly a mother tongue in which

1147
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 3: his ideas flowed most naturally and found most empathetic and

1148
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:29,800
Speaker 3: unrestrained utterance during the progressive intimacy that grew out of

1149
01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:34,240
Speaker 3: familiar intercourse with Colonel Crockett. While engaged upon his portrait,

1150
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 3: he rarely, if ever, exhibited, either in conversation or manner,

1151
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:44,600
Speaker 3: attributes of coarseness of character that prevailing popular opinion very

1152
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:49,080
Speaker 3: unjustly assigned him. I cannot recall to mind an instant

1153
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:53,680
Speaker 3: of his indulgence of gasconade or profanity. There was an

1154
01:05:53,800 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 3: earnestness of truth in his narrations of events circumstances of

1155
01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 3: his adventurous life that made it obvious, while the heroic

1156
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:06,080
Speaker 3: type of his grand physical development equal to any emergency

1157
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 3: of achievement. His clear, unfaltering eye, with all gentle and

1158
01:06:10,720 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 3: sympathetic play of features, telegraphing as it were, directly from

1159
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:20,720
Speaker 3: a true heart overflowing with kind feeling and impulse, irresistibly

1160
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:26,760
Speaker 3: dispelled suspicion of insincerity and braggartism. The ease and readiness

1161
01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:31,080
Speaker 3: with which Colonel Crockett adapted himself to circumstances of personal

1162
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 3: position and intercourse were remarkable, at times even masterly. He

1163
01:06:36,680 --> 01:06:39,480
Speaker 3: would seem to catch in the first moment of introduction

1164
01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:43,160
Speaker 3: the tone and characteristics of a new acquaintance, and was

1165
01:06:43,240 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 3: well to comprehend and rarely failed and agreeably confirming pre

1166
01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 3: entertained opinions in reference to himself.

1167
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 4: End of quote.

1168
01:06:54,800 --> 01:07:00,360
Speaker 3: Wow, that was some incredible writing and description. It seemed

1169
01:07:00,360 --> 01:07:03,800
Speaker 3: to be moved by the accounts of these portrait painters.

1170
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:06,920
Speaker 3: If you recall, a young painter by the name of

1171
01:07:07,080 --> 01:07:11,520
Speaker 3: Chester Harding traveled to Missouri in eighteen twenty and painted

1172
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:16,480
Speaker 3: the only portrait of Daniel Boone we have. Just months

1173
01:07:16,640 --> 01:07:21,800
Speaker 3: before his death, Chester Harding wrote a fascinating piece about

1174
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:26,920
Speaker 3: meeting the elderly Boone. Here's what he wrote, Remember this

1175
01:07:26,960 --> 01:07:31,360
Speaker 3: is Boone. In June of this year, I made a

1176
01:07:31,440 --> 01:07:34,440
Speaker 3: trip of one hundred miles for the purpose of painting

1177
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 3: the portrait of Colonel Daniel Boone. I had much trouble

1178
01:07:38,120 --> 01:07:41,200
Speaker 3: finding him. He was living some miles from the road

1179
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:44,640
Speaker 3: in one of the old cabins of an old block house,

1180
01:07:44,680 --> 01:07:47,640
Speaker 3: which was built for the protection of the settlers against

1181
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:51,280
Speaker 3: the incursion the Indians. I found that the nearer I

1182
01:07:51,320 --> 01:07:53,960
Speaker 3: got to his dwelling, the less was known of him.

1183
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:57,840
Speaker 3: When within two miles of his house, I asked a

1184
01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:01,439
Speaker 3: man to tell me where Colonel Boone lived, he said

1185
01:08:01,480 --> 01:08:05,320
Speaker 3: he did not know of any such man. Why, yes,

1186
01:08:05,400 --> 01:08:08,920
Speaker 3: you do, said his wife. It's that white haired old

1187
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:13,040
Speaker 3: man who lives on the bottom near the river. A

1188
01:08:13,080 --> 01:08:16,559
Speaker 3: good illustration that a prophet is not without honor save

1189
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 3: his own country. End of quote. For some reason, that

1190
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:26,160
Speaker 3: passage almost brings me to tears every time I read it.

1191
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:30,639
Speaker 3: I don't really know why. Harding went on, and he wrote,

1192
01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:34,559
Speaker 3: I found the object of my search engaged in cooking

1193
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:37,679
Speaker 3: his dinner. He was lying on his bunk near the fire,

1194
01:08:38,040 --> 01:08:41,840
Speaker 3: and had a long strip of venison wound around his ramrod,

1195
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:45,800
Speaker 3: and was busy turning it before a brisk blaze and

1196
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:49,680
Speaker 3: using salt and pepper to season his meat. I at

1197
01:08:49,760 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 3: once told him the object of my visit. I found

1198
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:56,679
Speaker 3: he hardly knew what I meant. I explained the matter

1199
01:08:56,760 --> 01:08:59,719
Speaker 3: to him, and he agreed to sit. He was eighty

1200
01:08:59,720 --> 01:09:03,679
Speaker 3: six years old and rather infirm. His memory of passing

1201
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:07,639
Speaker 3: events was much impaired, Yet he would amuse me every

1202
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:11,400
Speaker 3: day by his anecdotes of his earlier life. I asked

1203
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:14,000
Speaker 3: him one day, just after his description of one of

1204
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:17,599
Speaker 3: his long hunts, if he never got lost, having no compass.

1205
01:09:18,400 --> 01:09:20,760
Speaker 4: No, he said, I can't say I was.

1206
01:09:20,720 --> 01:09:24,559
Speaker 3: Ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

1207
01:09:25,560 --> 01:09:28,160
Speaker 4: End of quote.

1208
01:09:28,439 --> 01:09:32,160
Speaker 3: The intimacy with which these portrait painters interact with people

1209
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:35,800
Speaker 3: to create their art, and the pictorial expression of their

1210
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:40,960
Speaker 3: candidate's humanity births a unique angled story, and I think

1211
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:44,760
Speaker 3: it may be one of the most accurate. Clearly they're

1212
01:09:44,840 --> 01:09:48,599
Speaker 3: viewing these people in their best light, perhaps even an

1213
01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:53,040
Speaker 3: idealized one. But who is qualified to tell the story

1214
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:57,519
Speaker 3: of any man? What angle gives the clearest, most true

1215
01:09:57,760 --> 01:10:01,960
Speaker 3: version of a human Every man has his own version

1216
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:05,240
Speaker 3: of his life, which is one version. His enemies also

1217
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:09,160
Speaker 3: have a version, his family, his friends, and even the

1218
01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:12,880
Speaker 3: people that never knew him. Who do we believe to

1219
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:16,479
Speaker 3: interpret for us who a man is? Let me ask

1220
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:19,679
Speaker 3: you a question, who do you hope gets to release

1221
01:10:19,760 --> 01:10:24,479
Speaker 3: the canonized version of your story. Brothers and Sisters, you

1222
01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:28,920
Speaker 3: may have already seen my hand, but I love Crockett.

1223
01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:33,200
Speaker 3: But perhaps by contrasting these two portrait sessions of these

1224
01:10:33,240 --> 01:10:37,679
Speaker 3: great American backwoodsmen, we can see the differences in these men.

1225
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:42,160
Speaker 3: Boone was just so much less aware of his own fame,

1226
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:45,639
Speaker 3: and that lends him credibility to me. But I do

1227
01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:49,800
Speaker 3: believe that Crockett was a good man, really an incredible

1228
01:10:49,840 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 3: man who wore his flaws on his sleeve. And though

1229
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:56,799
Speaker 3: I'm kind of disappointed with the way Crockett would handle

1230
01:10:56,800 --> 01:10:58,720
Speaker 3: his fame, as we're going to talk about in just

1231
01:10:58,720 --> 01:11:01,680
Speaker 3: a seconds, it seems like a lot to ask a

1232
01:11:01,760 --> 01:11:06,400
Speaker 3: guy who came from absolute poverty on the backwoods frontier

1233
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:10,200
Speaker 3: of America to get this global fame and just respond

1234
01:11:10,439 --> 01:11:14,640
Speaker 3: with perfect humility in this idealized way that I have

1235
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:18,600
Speaker 3: in my mind. It just doesn't seem fair. Did I

1236
01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:20,360
Speaker 3: ever tell you about the time he stopped to pay

1237
01:11:20,400 --> 01:11:23,240
Speaker 3: a widow a one dollar debt that he owed her

1238
01:11:23,320 --> 01:11:26,519
Speaker 3: husband from ten years before. Did I tell you about

1239
01:11:26,520 --> 01:11:29,519
Speaker 3: the bill he sponsored that kept freed slaves from being

1240
01:11:29,640 --> 01:11:33,160
Speaker 3: able to be repurchased. Did I tell you that he

1241
01:11:33,439 --> 01:11:37,840
Speaker 3: owned some slaves in his lifetime. Here's Robert Morgan on

1242
01:11:38,000 --> 01:11:39,640
Speaker 3: Crockett's demise.

1243
01:11:40,120 --> 01:11:45,240
Speaker 5: And Crockett was so really intoxicated by all this adulation,

1244
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:49,600
Speaker 5: apparent adulation and the play about him. Everybody knew it

1245
01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:52,720
Speaker 5: was about him been so successful, and they laughed at it,

1246
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:55,559
Speaker 5: and they forgot they were laughing at it. So that

1247
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:58,640
Speaker 5: on new yr work and they put him from fancy hotels,

1248
01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:03,680
Speaker 5: and that's that would turn any of us. Really, we

1249
01:12:04,640 --> 01:12:08,400
Speaker 5: find it hard to resist that he kind of went

1250
01:12:08,479 --> 01:12:11,720
Speaker 5: for it, and it probably was the most disastrous thing

1251
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:13,559
Speaker 5: he had done in his whole life. It was more

1252
01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:17,040
Speaker 5: damning than losing his mill on the flood or his

1253
01:12:18,040 --> 01:12:21,280
Speaker 5: flat boats on the Mississippi. Yeah, it hurt him more.

1254
01:12:21,720 --> 01:12:25,080
Speaker 5: I think it really hurt him when he lost that

1255
01:12:25,160 --> 01:12:30,080
Speaker 5: election in eighteen thirty one and then again in eighteen

1256
01:12:30,160 --> 01:12:32,599
Speaker 5: thirty five and went off to Texas.

1257
01:12:34,560 --> 01:12:38,799
Speaker 3: Oh, that ominous trip to Texas. Crockett's book tour cost

1258
01:12:38,840 --> 01:12:41,120
Speaker 3: him the election in eighteen thirty one and again in

1259
01:12:41,160 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 3: eighteen thirty five, and he never recovered. On the next

1260
01:12:46,160 --> 01:12:49,240
Speaker 3: and final episode, we're going to dive in deep into

1261
01:12:49,280 --> 01:12:53,679
Speaker 3: Crockett's last stand at the Alamo and all the drama

1262
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:59,120
Speaker 3: and controversy that surrounds it. I can't thank you enough

1263
01:12:59,120 --> 01:13:03,680
Speaker 3: for listening to I hope you're enjoying Brent Reeves this

1264
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:07,120
Speaker 3: country life podcast, and I look forward to talking to

1265
01:13:07,160 --> 01:13:10,240
Speaker 3: the folks on the Render next week. Be thinking about

1266
01:13:10,280 --> 01:13:13,400
Speaker 3: whether you think Crockett should be in the Bear Grease

1267
01:13:13,479 --> 01:13:13,960
Speaker 3: Hall of Fame.