Speaker 1: They're wearing themselves out trying to receive reinforcements, receive supplies,
Speaker 1: and they can't.
Speaker 2: They can't.
Speaker 1: On February twenty third, Santa Anna and the Mexican Army arrive.
Speaker 3: The final episodes of these series are always somber for me.
Speaker 3: I think we all know what's about to happen to
Speaker 3: our boy, David Crockett. I'm interested in the best information
Speaker 3: that we have about the Alamo, not the narrative we've
Speaker 3: heard from the likes of John Wayne and Walt Disney,
Speaker 3: or maybe their narratives were right. Sometimes nationalistic narratives have
Speaker 3: to be sorted through, because I'm mainly interested in not that,
Speaker 3: but the inner workings and character and fabric of the
Speaker 3: man David Crockett. I'm also interested in why people from
Speaker 3: Texas are so crazed about the Alamo and passionate about
Speaker 3: how Crockett died. Learned that it was far more important
Speaker 3: in US history than you might think. Holly's Comet soared
Speaker 3: over North America in eighteen thirty five and thirty six
Speaker 3: and was blamed for some of the time's ill fate.
Speaker 3: Andrew Jackson sarcastically commissioned Crockett to catch it by the
Speaker 3: tail before it hit the United States, destroying the country.
Speaker 3: He didn't catch it, but he did help change the
Speaker 3: course of this nation by his death. And we're gonna
Speaker 3: learn did Crockett die fighting or was he executed? And
Speaker 3: why do we care? I really doubt that you're gonna
Speaker 3: want to miss this one.
Speaker 4: Most people who think they know history don't know how
Speaker 4: they know what they think they know.
Speaker 3: My name is Clay Knukem, and this is the Bear
Speaker 3: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 3: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 3: story of Americans.
Speaker 2: Who live their lives close to the land.
Speaker 3: Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and
Speaker 3: fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 3: places we explore. Over twenty buckskin clad horsemen are riding
Speaker 3: through the dry plains of Texas. One sure looks a
Speaker 3: lot like John Wayne, and he's wearing a coonskin hat.
Speaker 3: I think that's Davy Crockett.
Speaker 5: Well that you big down after twenty days a hard riding,
Speaker 5: we're gonna have to learn the lingo they use down here, Davy.
Speaker 2: Why don't we go davy to the town or to
Speaker 2: the part part.
Speaker 5: It's an all make you better take a better look.
Speaker 5: A lot of people moving in there.
Speaker 2: Them guns don't give it no mistion. Look to me, Arnel,
Speaker 2: what do you see? A n ti and a spell cantina?
Speaker 3: Do it mean what I think you do it?
Speaker 5: Dude, it means all of these DearS gets it into
Speaker 5: our boobie.
Speaker 3: This was near the opening scene of John Wayne's nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty movie titled The Alamo. It's rife with historical inaccuracies,
Speaker 3: but this scene depicting these guys entering into San Antonio
Speaker 3: as more relaxed than they should have been, is probably accurate.
Speaker 3: On February eighth, eighteen thirty six, the real David Crockett,
Speaker 3: our gentlemen from the Cane, America's first celebrity, voluntarily rode
Speaker 3: into a Mexican war zone. His one month in San
Speaker 3: Antonio would be the most scrutinized, studied, and mythologized portions
Speaker 3: of his storied life, because on the morning of March sixth,
Speaker 3: eighteen thirty six, he and one hundred and eighty eight
Speaker 3: other men would die at the hands of the Mexican army,
Speaker 3: making this one of the most infamous days in Texas
Speaker 3: and American history. The mystery of this day, because of
Speaker 3: the lack of survivors, would set many Americans on a
Speaker 3: lifelong journey to understand what happened, including John Wayne, whose
Speaker 3: passion project was this Alamo movie, which he directed and funded.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't just the Duke who was passionate about
Speaker 3: the Alamo.
Speaker 2: And Crockett.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Crockett's bigger than Disney and John Wayne. Even John
Speaker 1: Wayne couldn't play Davy Crockett. John Wayne played John Wayne
Speaker 1: playing Davy Crockett. So before my moved to Texas, my
Speaker 1: dad had renovated his childhood home, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with
Speaker 1: the bell shaped parapet of the Alamo. So here we
Speaker 1: were ten minutes from the Atlantic Ocean, and we had
Speaker 1: neighbors asking why we were building a taco bell in
Speaker 1: the middle of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, my dad was eventually
Speaker 1: hit with foreclosure. We knew we were going to lose
Speaker 1: the house, and so I was about twenty at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty four. Now I realized I had to leave
Speaker 1: the nest. So I moved to San Antonio in twenty
Speaker 1: ten and within four months of living in San Antonio,
Speaker 1: I was working at the Alamo.
Speaker 3: Passion comes in many shapes, but it's the special breed
Speaker 3: that are passionate about the Alamo that was the voice
Speaker 3: of David Crockett. Fanatic and historical illustrator Wade Dylon. He
Speaker 3: worked for eight years at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 3: which to many people surprised despite Wayne's movie, is still standing,
Speaker 3: well most of it in John Wayne's movie, it got
Speaker 3: blown up. The real Battle of the Alamo is a
Speaker 3: central feature in the Texas Revolution that eventually led Texas
Speaker 3: to independence and statehood, and though Texas is now part
Speaker 3: of these United States, many would say that that statehood
Speaker 3: didn't remove that Texas independence. The most debated question of
Speaker 3: the Alamo, though, is how did David Crockett die? This
Speaker 3: has become a really important question. John Wayne's version showed
Speaker 3: that he died the iconic death of a hero in
Speaker 3: the midst of battle. However, there is another version of
Speaker 3: his death that many aren't happy about.
Speaker 4: The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, the editor asked me if I
Speaker 4: would review a new book that a New York City
Speaker 4: fireman by the name of Bill Groeneman, whose amateur historian
Speaker 4: had written it was called Defense of a Legend, David
Speaker 4: Crockett and the Delapinia Diary. And to make a long
Speaker 4: story short, Delapeno was a junior officer in the Mexican
Speaker 4: Army who wrote a diary. Later re rote it as
Speaker 4: a memoir, but it's almost always called his diary. And
Speaker 4: he witnessed the capture and execution of a handful of
Speaker 4: men after the Battle of the Alamo. They were captured
Speaker 4: right at the end, executed within a few minutes, and
Speaker 4: he identifies one of them as being David Crockett.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, did our ears just partake of an
Speaker 3: account of pure heresy? Everybody who knows our Crockett, the
Speaker 3: king of the wild Frontier, who knows no fear, they
Speaker 3: would know that Crockett would never surrender to anyone. You
Speaker 3: can't just capture a Bobcat grinnin Whirlwind Brothers. That was
Speaker 3: doctor James E. Crisp, Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State
Speaker 3: University in Texas. Native He is from te He's a
Speaker 3: national expert on the last five minutes of David Crockett's life,
Speaker 3: and his whole career has been involved In this debate,
Speaker 3: he wrote a book called Sleuthing the Alamo and another
Speaker 3: titled How did Davy Die?
Speaker 2: And Why Do We Care so much?
Speaker 3: The Lapoena Diary is big news, but there's more.
Speaker 2: Here's way.
Speaker 1: Now, this is where the controversy comes into play. The
Speaker 1: Dailapenia Diary shows up after the big crocket craze of
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3: All right, so like one hundred and twenty five years later,
Speaker 3: this diary shows up, which is kind of convenient.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing about the diary is a great deal
Speaker 1: of the diary is legitimate, is authentic. But what is
Speaker 1: debated is the section that specifically talks about the execution
Speaker 1: of David Crockett. The pages of that section of the
Speaker 1: diary are different sizes, and they're quite popossibly forged.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, the whole diary is legit, but just
Speaker 3: the section about Crockett's death is a fraud.
Speaker 2: I'm no detective, but that sounds sketchy.
Speaker 3: But it also sounds sketchy that it appeared in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty five, conveniently right when Walt Disney resurrected Crockett's legacy
Speaker 3: with the trilogy of films. Weren't there security cameras or
Speaker 3: military body cams that we can review to see how
Speaker 3: our boy Crockett died.
Speaker 4: Within weeks after the fall of the Alamo, two stories
Speaker 4: had reached New Orleans and was printed in the New
Speaker 4: Orleans papers. One was that Crockett had died fighting like
Speaker 4: a tiger and fell in combat, and the other that
Speaker 4: he was among those handful of men who were captured
Speaker 4: and executed. Both stories were there from the very beginning.
Speaker 4: There's an artist from Texas who painted two pictures of
Speaker 4: Crockett in the Alamo. One was him fighting and one
Speaker 4: was him captive. That was in the nineteen thirties, so
Speaker 4: the stories were always there. But by the time they
Speaker 4: started making you know, the John Wayne movie and the
Speaker 4: Fest Parker Disneyland version of Crockett, they went with the
Speaker 4: alternate stories. In fest Parker, he dies, you know, swinging
Speaker 4: his rifle, although they never show him die. And in
Speaker 4: John Wayne, I believe he gets blown up in the
Speaker 4: powder magazine after getting stabbed through the chest. We're living
Speaker 4: in a age right now where there's so much falsehood
Speaker 4: put out as conclusions that people don't look at how
Speaker 4: the conclusions were arrived at what you have to do,
Speaker 4: as a professional historian or someone who reads professional historians
Speaker 4: is look at the evidence. And what I've done is
Speaker 4: describe the evidence. There are no eyewitnesses to Crockett dying
Speaker 4: in combat. Zero.
Speaker 3: This man speaks with conviction, and by the end of
Speaker 3: this episode, you're gonna have a gut feeling of what
Speaker 3: happened to Crockett.
Speaker 2: But that's all. It will be, just a feeling.
Speaker 3: There are multiple first hand accounts of seeing Crockett's dead
Speaker 3: body with his Coonskin hat by his side, no joke.
Speaker 2: There are zero.
Speaker 3: Accounts of anyone actually seeing him die fighting, and there
Speaker 3: are three accounts from soldiers in the Mexican Army of
Speaker 3: him being executed, but none of them seemed to be
Speaker 3: rock solid. But before we can answer those questions, we
Speaker 3: need to understand why our Tennessee boy was in Texas.
Speaker 3: In episode three of our Crockett series, we left him
Speaker 3: in eighteen thirty five, when he'd been defeated in a
Speaker 3: race for Congress by Adam Huntsman.
Speaker 2: The defeat chapped him bad.
Speaker 3: He said he was rascaled out of the election, and
Speaker 3: then he finalized a plan that he'd likely had for
Speaker 3: some time.
Speaker 4: Crockett had been in Congress and he lost an election.
Speaker 4: He was defeated by a guy with a wooden leg,
Speaker 4: and he told his constituents, if you're going to vote
Speaker 4: for that Timbertow instead of me, you can all go
Speaker 4: to Hell, and I'm going to Texas. Now. The question
Speaker 4: is why would he choose Texas well. Texas was a
Speaker 4: wide open place for American immigration to where they could
Speaker 4: get good land very cheap, and Crockett needed that because
Speaker 4: he was not a wealthy man. In fact, Crockett had
Speaker 4: lost his life savings more than once in his life.
Speaker 3: Crockett is forty nine years old, and in the words
Speaker 3: of Bono, he still hasn't found what he's looking for,
Speaker 3: which was primarily land in a stable life. Crockett had
Speaker 3: vowed that if Martin van Buren was elected president, he'd
Speaker 3: leave the country, and he famously said, you can all
Speaker 3: go to h double hockey sticks, and.
Speaker 2: I'll go to Texas. And he did just that.
Speaker 3: Matilda Crockett's daughter, wrote that when her father left their
Speaker 3: home in Rutherford, Tennessee, he was quote dressed in his
Speaker 3: hunting shirt, wearing a coonskin cap, and carried a fine
Speaker 3: rifle presented to him by his friends in Philadelphia. He
Speaker 3: seemed very confident the morning he went away that he
Speaker 3: would soon have us all join him in Texas.
Speaker 2: End of quote.
Speaker 3: Crockett would cross the Mississippi River, and he arrived in
Speaker 3: Little Rock, Arkansas on November the twelfth, where it's recorded
Speaker 3: that he killed a deer and skinned it behind the
Speaker 3: Jeffreys Hotel and was entertained by a puppet showed a
Speaker 3: local tavern.
Speaker 2: That's no joke.
Speaker 3: It was reported that hundreds of people gathered and held
Speaker 3: a banquet for Crockett at a hotel, and the newspaper
Speaker 3: quoted Crockett as saying, I kid you not. He said quote,
Speaker 3: if I could rest anywhere, it would be in Arkansas,
Speaker 3: where the man a real half horse, half alligator, breathe
Speaker 3: such as grow nowhere else on the face of the
Speaker 3: universal Earth, but just around the backbone of North America.
Speaker 3: I am literally blushing with pride. I didn't make that up.
Speaker 3: But Crockett did leave the Creation State and went to Texas.
Speaker 3: The editor of an Arkansas newspaper would write, quote, we
Speaker 3: shall die contented. We have seen the honorable David Crockett,
Speaker 3: who arrived in this place this evening on his way
Speaker 3: to Texas, where he contemplates ending his days. It's not
Speaker 3: entirely known what this editor meant by this cryptic statement,
Speaker 3: but the prophetic utterance was accurate.
Speaker 1: Crockett leaves for Texas November of eighteen thirty five. He's traveling.
Speaker 1: In each major town that he's crossing through, he's receiving
Speaker 1: updates as to the politics of Texas. They're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a war, so the northern Federalist States of
Speaker 1: Mexico that includes Texas.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, at this time, Texas is filled with American
Speaker 1: and European immigrants who have brought their ideologies and practices
Speaker 1: with them. Mexican Representative mere Itehan, when he took a
Speaker 1: tour of Texas, stated that the American immigrants carried their
Speaker 1: constitutions in their pockets.
Speaker 3: These people were energized by the new ideals of America.
Speaker 3: The handwriting was on the wall that this place was
Speaker 3: about to be its own country and it would likely
Speaker 3: be a lot more like America than Mexico. But why
Speaker 3: was Crockett there.
Speaker 1: Crockett comes down to Texas volunteering for six months because
Speaker 1: he realizes during wartime land offices are likely closed, and
Speaker 1: the quickest way for him to acquire land at this
Speaker 1: point upon arrival is by volunteering.
Speaker 3: All these guys were always looking for land. That he
Speaker 3: had been promised over four thousand acres of land for
Speaker 3: his military service. That's a pretty good deal if you
Speaker 3: don't die. Other accounts said he was only guaranteed six
Speaker 3: hundred and forty acres, but Crockett had more on his
Speaker 3: mind than land. Remember, this guy has national fame and
Speaker 3: was a potential candidate for U as president, and now
Speaker 3: he believes that he can be a significant player in
Speaker 3: Texas politics, maybe even president of Texas. Here is Crockett's
Speaker 3: last correspondence with his family that he wrote to his
Speaker 3: daughter Margaret. This is the first time I've had the
Speaker 3: opportunity to write you with convenience. I am now blessed
Speaker 3: with excellent health and him in high spirits.
Speaker 2: Although I've had.
Speaker 3: Many difficulties to encounter and have got through safe and
Speaker 3: have been received by everybody with the open arm of friendship.
Speaker 3: I am hailed with a hearty welcome to this country,
Speaker 3: a dinner and a party of ladies have honored me
Speaker 3: with an invitation to participate with them. Both in naked Dedosius.
Speaker 3: In this place. The cannon was fired here on my arrival.
Speaker 3: I must say as to what I have seen of Texas,
Speaker 3: it is the garden spot of the world. The best
Speaker 3: land and the best prospect for health I have ever
Speaker 3: saw is here. I do believe it's a fortune to
Speaker 3: any man to come here. There is a world of
Speaker 3: country to settle, and it's not required here to pay
Speaker 3: down for your league of land. Every man is entitled
Speaker 3: to his head right of four thousand, four hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty eight acres. They might have the money to pay
Speaker 3: it off the land. This is just how this letter reads,
Speaker 3: So this grammar's kind of wild. I expect an all
Speaker 3: probability to settle on the Bow Dark or the chalktaw
Speaker 3: by you, the Red River that I have found, no
Speaker 3: doubt the richest country in the world, good land, plenty
Speaker 3: of timber, and the best springs and good millstreams, good range,
Speaker 3: clear water, in every appearance of good health and gain plenty.
Speaker 3: It is in the past where the buffalo passes from
Speaker 3: north to south back twice a year, in bees and
Speaker 3: honey plenty. I have a great hope of getting the
Speaker 3: agency to settle that country, and I would be glad
Speaker 3: to see every friend I have settled there. It would
Speaker 3: be a fortune to them all. I have taken the
Speaker 3: oath of the government and have enrolled my name as
Speaker 3: a volunteer for six months, and will set out for
Speaker 3: the Rio Grand in a few days with the volunteers
Speaker 3: from the United States. All volunteers is entitled to a
Speaker 3: vote for a member of the Convention, or to be
Speaker 3: voted four and I have but little doubt of being
Speaker 3: elected a member to form a constitution for this province.
Speaker 3: I am rejoiced at my fate and had rather be
Speaker 3: in my present situation than to be elected to a
Speaker 3: seat in Congress for life. I am in hopes of
Speaker 3: making a fortune for myself and family, as bad as
Speaker 3: have been my prospects. I have not wrote to William,
Speaker 3: but have requested John to direct him what to do.
Speaker 3: I hope you will show this letter to him and
Speaker 3: also your brother John, as it is not convenient at
Speaker 3: this time for me to write them. I hope you
Speaker 3: will do the best you can, and I will do
Speaker 3: the same. Do not be uneasy about me, for I
Speaker 3: am with friends. I must close with great respects, your
Speaker 3: affectionate father Farewell, signed David Crockett, January ninth, eighteen thirty six.
Speaker 3: This letter leaves little speculation of the intentions of Crockett
Speaker 3: in Texas. He encountered many people during his time there,
Speaker 3: one of which was a Swisher family. They would later
Speaker 3: write about their time with Crockett.
Speaker 2: This is what they said. Quote.
Speaker 3: He conversed about himself in the most unaffected manner, without
Speaker 3: the slightest attempt to display any genius or smartness. He
Speaker 3: told us many great anecdotes, many of which were commonplace
Speaker 3: and amounted to nothing within themselves, but his inimitable way
Speaker 3: of telling them would convulse us in laughter.
Speaker 2: End of quote.
Speaker 3: This reminds me of John Gadsby Chapman, the portrait painters
Speaker 3: recollections of Crockett. Sounds like it would have been.
Speaker 2: Hard not to like him.
Speaker 3: This land deal was good for most folks, but there
Speaker 3: were some groups who didn't get a good deal at all.
Speaker 3: This is interesting.
Speaker 4: Crockett was going to where lots of Americans were going.
Speaker 4: The population had gone up to close to thirty thousand
Speaker 4: people from the United States, including two or three thousand
Speaker 4: slaves that they had brought in, and slavery was a
Speaker 4: touchy subject in Mexico because good many people in Mexico
Speaker 4: wanted to get rid of it. By the time of
Speaker 4: the Texas Revolution, they had gotten rid of it, and
Speaker 4: virtually all of Mexico except for Texas. Texas had been accepted,
Speaker 4: had been allowed to keep slavery legal. You weren't supposed
Speaker 4: to bring slaves in, but they got around that by
Speaker 4: signing ninety nine year in dentures with their slaves. I've
Speaker 4: seen a copy of one of those. You know, I
Speaker 4: the slave in order to learn the art and science
Speaker 4: of agriculture hereby pledge ninety nine years of labor to
Speaker 4: this guy who's taking me in.
Speaker 3: Crockett had crossed into Texas near Clarksville on the Red
Speaker 3: River in late December eighteen thirty five, traveling with his
Speaker 3: nephew and two neighbors from Tennessee. It takes him about
Speaker 3: a month, and we're not sure why, but he ends
Speaker 3: up in San Antonio.
Speaker 1: There, in San Antonio de Bajar, he arrives around February
Speaker 1: nineth eighteen thirty six. He arrives outside of town near
Speaker 1: the old Campo Santo, the old town cemetery, and he's
Speaker 1: greeted with a kind of grizzly scene. I kind of
Speaker 1: see it as foreshadowing in regards to Crockett. But he
Speaker 1: arrives at the cemetery. That's an acre of land surrounded
Speaker 1: by an eight foot wall, and in the center of
Speaker 1: the cemetery is a large cross, and at the base
Speaker 1: of this cross are human skulls, and then throughout the
Speaker 1: cemetery are just boones promiscuously scattered throughout.
Speaker 3: A soldier would later write about this cemetery, describing the
Speaker 3: poorly buried human remains on the surface of the ground.
Speaker 3: In twenty seventeen, the Children's Hospital of San Antonio found
Speaker 3: the remains of seventy people when they discovered this spot.
Speaker 3: The Campo Santo Cemetery the same one that likely greeted
Speaker 3: Crockett when he arrived. Just f why if you haven't
Speaker 3: been to what remains of the Alamo. It's literally in
Speaker 3: downtown San Antonio. Shortly after Crockett gets there, things escalate quickly.
Speaker 3: There are two divisions of the Texas military that Wade
Speaker 3: talks about, the Bahard and the Golead Garrisons.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the Bahart Garrison, as well as the Mendana Goliad
Speaker 1: are receiving reports that the Mexican Army is marching north.
Speaker 1: They have crossed through the presidiod Ario Grande and they're
Speaker 1: heading into Texas. And there's a lot of disbelief because
Speaker 1: it's winter. They don't think the Mexican Army is going
Speaker 1: to come up until the spring because all their pack animals,
Speaker 1: they don't have grass to feed. What they don't realize
Speaker 1: is that the Mexican Army has marched through two blizzards
Speaker 1: to put down this rebellion. You're going to have a
Speaker 1: division of the Mexican Army under General Jose Urea head
Speaker 1: towards Goliad. Santa Anna will head towards Bajart. So Crockett, yeah,
Speaker 1: he is in the thick of it.
Speaker 3: San Antonio was the key to Texas. That's why they
Speaker 3: needed to defend it and why Santa Ana wanted to
Speaker 3: take it. The Bahart Garrison has two guys struggling for
Speaker 3: the leadership of the group, James Bowie and William Travis.
Speaker 3: Both of these guys were wild dudes. Here's an excerpt
Speaker 3: from Michael Wallace's biography of Crockett, titled David Crockett And Again,
Speaker 3: if you're looking for a Crockett biography. This is the
Speaker 3: one I would suggest. Here's what he said about Bowie
Speaker 3: and Travis. Beside making a fortune as a dealer in
Speaker 3: human cargo and subverting the ban on the slave trade, Bowie,
Speaker 3: like Stephen Austin, also became a land speculator. He sold
Speaker 3: fraudulent claims in Arkansas Territory, masterminded a series of property
Speaker 3: swindles in Louisiana, and speculated in Texas land. Bowie saw
Speaker 3: that there was an immense profit to be made in
Speaker 3: Texas real estate. He learned Spanish, joined the Catholic Church,
Speaker 3: and became a Mexican citizen, and married into one of
Speaker 3: San Antonio's prominent Tehano families. When his wife and two
Speaker 3: children died during a colliria epidemic, Bowie went into an
Speaker 3: alcoholic depression that lasted until his death in his sick
Speaker 3: bed at the Alamo, where he's served as commander of
Speaker 3: volunteer soldiers. William Barrett Travis, commander of the regular Army
Speaker 3: troops defending the Old Mission Fortress, was an attorney by trade.
Speaker 3: He knew Bowie from San Felipe, where he served as
Speaker 3: the Knife Fighter's Council, a South Carolinian native, Travis, like
Speaker 3: many others, came to Texas to escape bad debts and
Speaker 3: avoid going to prison. After abandoning his pregnant wife and
Speaker 3: young son in Alabama, he entered Texas illegally and immediately
Speaker 3: became involved in the slave trade. He settled in San
Speaker 3: Felipe de Austin in eighteen thirty one, obtained some land
Speaker 3: from Stephen Austin, and established his new practice. Enjoyed the
Speaker 3: company of women, was known to devour Sir Walter Scott novels,
Speaker 3: and divorced his wife in eighteen thirty six when she
Speaker 3: showed up to save their marriage. Although he neglected to
Speaker 3: pay off the debts left behind in Alabama, Travis soon
Speaker 3: began acquiring land and slaves, including a young black man
Speaker 3: known only as Joe. He would stay with his white
Speaker 3: master all the way to the end of the Alamo,
Speaker 3: where his life was spared because he was a slave.
Speaker 3: I realize that's just two paragraphs about these guys, but
Speaker 3: sounds like they were pretty wild. And now these two
Speaker 3: are struggling to see who's gonna lead.
Speaker 1: Eventually, these two men put together an olive branch. They
Speaker 1: come together. They realize they need to stick together to
Speaker 1: defend the town in the best interest of the defensive Texas.
Speaker 1: And so for the next few days, I imagine that
Speaker 1: they're really trying to assess the situation. How can they
Speaker 1: with their meager force of maybe one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: volunteers at this time, how can they defend the town.
Speaker 1: They realize they really can't if they were to be
Speaker 1: attacked now based on the reports, But they can continue
Speaker 1: fortifying the Alamo. The Alamo is an old Spanish mission.
Speaker 1: It has been converted into a fortress and used as
Speaker 1: a military outpost. Ever sense the mission was desecularized in
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety three. So there it is the Alamo, four
Speaker 1: and a half acre compound, fortified with eighteen pieces of artillery.
Speaker 1: They realize if the Mexican army were to arrive, they
Speaker 1: would have to retreat into the Alamo. Now every single day,
Speaker 1: Travis and Buie, I mean, they're just they're wearing themselves out,
Speaker 1: trying to receive reinforcements, receive supplies, try and get some
Speaker 1: sort of response out of this forming government within Texas,
Speaker 1: and they can't.
Speaker 2: They can't.
Speaker 1: On February twenty third, Santa Anna and the Mexican army arrive.
Speaker 3: The people in San Antonio were very surprised at Santa
Speaker 3: Anna's early arrival.
Speaker 1: Santa Anna's attached to the vanguard. They number roughly fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred Travis Bowie Crockett. They realize again they cannot defend
Speaker 1: the town, so they withdraw in to the Alamo. Slowly
Speaker 1: but surely. The Mexican army arrive without resistance, they take
Speaker 1: the town. They mount a blood red banner from the
Speaker 1: top the bell tower of the San Fernando Church. That
Speaker 1: blood red banner meaning death tall Traders, Death tall Pirates.
Speaker 1: It is Santa Anna's symbol to the Bahar Garrison or
Speaker 1: the Alamo Garrison at this point that he is there
Speaker 1: to carry out the Tornell Decree, which by Mexican law states,
Speaker 1: if you rebel against the Mexican government under an unrecognized flag,
Speaker 1: you are labeled a pirate and put to the sword.
Speaker 1: So Santa Anna is going to follow that.
Speaker 3: To the tee, Death to all pirates. Turns out pirates
Speaker 3: don't need water. The word pirate means a person who
Speaker 3: appropriates or reproduces the work of another without permission. So
Speaker 3: Santa Anna has taken the city and the Texas soldiers
Speaker 3: and the people of the town have retreated into this
Speaker 3: old Spanish fort, the Alamo. The second day of the siege,
Speaker 3: Bowie becomes deathly ill and turns over full command to Travis.
Speaker 3: Travis wrote a famous letter on that day pleading for reinforcements,
Speaker 3: and he signed it Victory or Death. In Billy Bob
Speaker 3: Thornton's two thousand and four movie on Crockett, it shows
Speaker 3: Crockett on the wall of the Alamo playing the fiddle
Speaker 3: for the Mexican army. To hear Crockett playing the fiddle
Speaker 3: at the Alamo is likely a myth because it didn't
Speaker 3: show up in the literature until almost fifty years after
Speaker 3: the battle, and we're not even entirely sure that he
Speaker 3: knew how to play the fiddle.
Speaker 2: This is important stuff.
Speaker 1: The very next day of February twenty fifth, third day
Speaker 1: of the siege, the Mexican army is already starting to
Speaker 1: be to surround the Alamo fort with artillery, batteries and
Speaker 1: the fort. It's the same day that sant Anna decides
Speaker 1: to test the defenses on the southern end of the fort,
Speaker 1: and the Mexican army begins to attack on the south side,
Speaker 1: and for two and a half hours, the Alamo garrison
Speaker 1: is holding their own. Crockett, in a letter written by Travis,
Speaker 1: is seen at all points, animating the men to do
Speaker 1: their duty. So Crockett, having been in battles, been in conflict,
Speaker 1: his natural leadership skills are coming through. And at the
Speaker 1: age of forty nine. You know, I'm sure Crockett's you know,
Speaker 1: firing the rifle himself. But he is out there despite
Speaker 1: being a private, acting like Colonel Crockett.
Speaker 3: I think this is an important part of the story
Speaker 3: if we're trying to know who Crockett was. This isn't myth,
Speaker 3: but was recorded in an official letter from the commanding
Speaker 3: officer that Crockett is out there leading and fighting, which
Speaker 3: seems entirely consistent with the crocket we've seen.
Speaker 1: The siege lasts for thirteen days, and a great deal
Speaker 1: of that time is spent by these men endearing an
Speaker 1: artillery bombardment, living off of rations. The Mexican Army eventually
Speaker 1: cuts off their access to water, and so the slaves
Speaker 1: within the fortress are likely assigned to dig a new
Speaker 1: well inside of the fort. Morale is just going down.
Speaker 1: They're waiting and waiting for reinforcements, thinking that any day
Speaker 1: now Fannin is going to arrive.
Speaker 3: Fannin is the leader of the closest garrison of Texas troops,
Speaker 3: and they've been communicating with him, but he just can't
Speaker 3: get there in time.
Speaker 1: There's some debate as to whether towards the end of
Speaker 1: the siege, Travis requests a parley. There's some debate as
Speaker 1: to whether or not Travis is trying to save the
Speaker 1: lives of his men, but eventually the the answer is
Speaker 1: very clear that they're not going to march out of
Speaker 1: that fort alive. So the end of the siege, Travis
Speaker 1: gathers his men and has a talk. Now, there's one
Speaker 1: rendition of this story that comes to us from William P.
Speaker 1: Zuber that Travis drew a line in the sand asking
Speaker 1: his men to stay and fight with him. But whether
Speaker 1: that happened or not, the Alamo garrison that they stay.
Speaker 1: Crockett stays.
Speaker 2: My luck gargo, not a lod.
Speaker 1: The heartbreak for me personally, when I try and get
Speaker 1: into the minds of these men is what was their
Speaker 1: headspace like, you know, Crockett. Crockett came all this way
Speaker 1: for forty nine years he had been trying. He's come
Speaker 1: all this way to now get stuck inside of a
Speaker 1: fort in a foreign country. I'm sure he's dealing with
Speaker 1: some reluctance. All of these men are scared. But come Sunday,
Speaker 1: March sixth, five point thirty in the morning, one six
Speaker 1: hundred Centralist Mexican soldiers attack the fort from all sides.
Speaker 1: So it's very possible that Crockett is somewhere along the
Speaker 1: west wall or even the north wall. During the battle,
Speaker 1: the Mexican army spills into the compound, and all of
Speaker 1: this action is taking place so quickly that the Alama
Speaker 1: defenders are unable to spike or disable their artillery. So
Speaker 1: as the Alamo defenders retreat into the Long Barrack, into
Speaker 1: the old convent of the Spanish Mission, the Mexican army
Speaker 1: turned the cannons inward and them through the doors in
Speaker 1: fire across the plaza. The Mexican army, now congregating in
Speaker 1: the heart of the fort inside of the plaza, now
Speaker 1: race across and they begin sweeping through each individual rooms
Speaker 1: of the Long Barrack, where we would see the last
Speaker 1: stand at the Battle of the Alamo. This is the
Speaker 1: deadliest grizzliest hand to hand fighting taking place.
Speaker 3: I hesitated to use these clichet sounds of battle with
Speaker 3: the corny dramatic music. These were real humans, real fear,
Speaker 3: real blood, real pain. In the moment, these men weren't
Speaker 3: thinking about being immortalized he rose on TV or in books.
Speaker 3: They were trying not to die and be swallowed by.
Speaker 1: And by seven o'clock in the morning, the battle of
Speaker 1: the Alamo is over. The moment the Battle of the
Speaker 1: Alamou is over, that's when you can really begin to
Speaker 1: track the myth of the death of David Crockett. How
Speaker 1: did Crockett die? To me, it doesn't matter how Crockett died,
Speaker 1: because he fought and died at the Alamo. But after
Speaker 1: the battle, survivor Susannah Dickinson, who was the only English
Speaker 1: speaking female survivor. The rest were Tehana. They spoke Spanish.
Speaker 1: As she is escorted out of the church, holding her
Speaker 1: fifteen month old daughter, Angelina and also nursing a wounded
Speaker 1: ankle she had been shot. She states in her account,
Speaker 1: which was dictated later in life, she states, I saw
Speaker 1: Colonel Crockett lying dead between the church and the two
Speaker 1: story barrack building. Mutilated with his peculiar cap lying by
Speaker 1: his side.
Speaker 3: That peculiar hat was most likely a Coonskin hat for real,
Speaker 3: because there are two different accounts of Crockett wearing it
Speaker 3: when he was leaving Tennessee, one from his daughter and
Speaker 3: another from a guy named John Davis who saw him
Speaker 3: wearing a Coonskin hat when he left Memphis. This is
Speaker 3: one place I like Crockett better than Boone. A man's
Speaker 3: got to have a touch of pizzazz, and a Coonskin
Speaker 3: hat delivers that. It was said that Daniel Boone wore
Speaker 3: a beaver Felt hat, and now that's pretty classy. And
Speaker 3: that's why I actually wear both, not at the same time.
Speaker 3: In case you're wondering, Josh Landbridge spilmaker makes my coonskin hats,
Speaker 3: and Seeing Hat Company made me my one hundred percent
Speaker 3: beaver Felt hat that I wear a lot.
Speaker 1: Now this is Crockett's body being identified. Of course, we
Speaker 1: don't know how Crockett died. Most accounts state that Crockett
Speaker 1: went down fighting, but of course those accounts, for the
Speaker 1: most part, are not from reliable sources. And then we
Speaker 1: have the account of Lieutenant Colonel Jose Enrique de Lapina,
Speaker 1: who states that Crockett identifies himself as a naturalist, one
Speaker 1: of seven amongst a group of survivors. Shortly after the battle,
Speaker 1: they are brought before Santa Anna. Where Santa Anna he's
Speaker 1: going to carry out the Tornello decree deathall pirates, and
Speaker 1: these men are executed. They are beaten to death by swords.
Speaker 2: Here's doctor Crisp.
Speaker 3: We're gonna learn that he one hundred percent believes in
Speaker 3: the accuracies of the day La Pina Diaries. But I
Speaker 3: want to ask him appointed question. Why do you think
Speaker 3: it's so important for the legacy of Texas for Crockett
Speaker 3: to have died fighting rather than, you know, just being
Speaker 3: taken to captive. Why is that so important do you
Speaker 3: think to people?
Speaker 4: Well, you can and get some clues from the paintings.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the cover of my book Slothing the Alamo,
Speaker 4: and there's a painting done around nineteen one nineteen two.
Speaker 4: It's the last moments of Crockett's life when he's fighting
Speaker 4: there at the Alamo. And this figure of Crockett is
Speaker 4: actually copied from a figure of George Armstrong Custer, which
Speaker 4: was at the time the most famous painting in lithograph
Speaker 4: in America, it's the same pose. And what Custer is
Speaker 4: doing is he's fighting the Indians and he's about to die.
Speaker 4: And the way I try to interpret this is that
Speaker 4: people were saying, there are certain enemies that you never
Speaker 4: surrender to.
Speaker 3: I can understand how this idea could be important to
Speaker 3: a state's identity. Doctor Chris believes that it's rooted in
Speaker 3: ideas of racial supremacy, and when you hear him out,
Speaker 3: he makes a compelling point. But was that the true
Speaker 3: motivation of this painting and the whole reason that these
Speaker 3: people are passionate about Crockett died in battle?
Speaker 4: Why were people angry at me and writing and writing
Speaker 4: hate mail to me when I said, look, the Mexicans
Speaker 4: executed Crockett, and they were accusing me of being pro Mexican.
Speaker 4: They just couldn't take the idea that Crockett had allowed
Speaker 4: himself to be captured. I never used the S word,
Speaker 4: that is surrender. Crockett was captured when his weapons were
Speaker 4: no longer useful, when he was out of ammunition, when
Speaker 4: these half dozen men were taken, and Santa Anna got
Speaker 4: very angry. He said, I told you no prisoners today,
Speaker 4: and so he immediately ordered the men around him to
Speaker 4: execute the prisoners. He gave the order to the Zappadores,
Speaker 4: but instead of firing their guns, the Sappers didn't fire
Speaker 4: their guns, and and his own retinue, his own junior
Speaker 4: officers stepped forth and killed the men with swords and bayonets.
Speaker 4: They weren't executed firing squad style. They were executed with
Speaker 4: bayonets and swords. And what Dellapinia said, and it was
Speaker 4: mistranslated into English, but what he said into the Spanish
Speaker 4: is that they died moaning, but they did not humiliate themselves.
Speaker 4: That's what he said about the men who were killed.
Speaker 4: There's a mindset that anyone who says something like this
Speaker 4: about Crockett, you know that Crockett was killed after the battle,
Speaker 4: is somehow tearing down the Texan myth, the Texan personality,
Speaker 4: the Texan attitude, everything that makes Texans Texans. I'm a historian.
Speaker 4: I have to look at the evidence, and the evidence
Speaker 4: is overwhelming that Crockett was executed.
Speaker 3: Big if true. Big if true. Here's his thoughts on
Speaker 3: the day La Poena Diaries.
Speaker 4: The Deleapinia diary. Since I worked on it has been
Speaker 4: subjected to forensic analysis, paper, water damage, insect damage, inc.
Speaker 4: It passed every test, every test, and those are by
Speaker 4: experts at the University of Texas. So I don't have
Speaker 4: any doubt about the authenticity, and I don't have much
Speaker 4: doubt at all about the accuracy. I know it's authentic.
Speaker 4: I believe because they're corroborating witnesses that it was, that
Speaker 4: it was accurate. You know, history is not religion. You
Speaker 4: don't learn it on your mother's knee and just know
Speaker 4: it's true. You need to take a look at how
Speaker 4: you know what you know. A lot of people don't
Speaker 4: ever want to do that. They tell me what they believe.
Speaker 4: I say, how do you know? And most of them
Speaker 4: don't have a good answer for that. When I first
Speaker 4: started talking to high school students after I got into
Speaker 4: this controversy, one of the students said, listen, you can't
Speaker 4: change history, as if it all got written down by somebody,
Speaker 4: and now we have to take everything that was written
Speaker 4: down as true, no matter what the documents say, no
Speaker 4: matter what other eyewitnesses say. But most people who think
Speaker 4: they know history don't know how they know what they
Speaker 4: think they know.
Speaker 3: Doctor Chris believes the Daila poena diary to be accurate.
Speaker 3: Here's what our boy Wade thinks.
Speaker 1: I don't think Crockett was executed. I think Crockett died
Speaker 1: in battle, whether he was shot crossing the plaza or
Speaker 1: he went down fighting swinging his rifle as depicted in
Speaker 1: popular culture. The reason I don't believe Crockett was executed
Speaker 1: is well, I have a hard time buying that the
Speaker 1: most famous American at the time is brought face to
Speaker 1: face to Santa Ana. He's identified and executed, Whereas if
Speaker 1: Santa Anna realized who Crockett was, Santa Anna would have
Speaker 1: used him as leverage of American intervention in this war.
Speaker 1: I see that if Santa Anna truly realized who Crockett was,
Speaker 1: that Santa Anna may have spared him sent him back
Speaker 1: down to Mexico to show of a foreign involvement. Instead,
Speaker 1: Santa Anna, after the battle, sends down to Mexico the
Speaker 1: flag of the New Orleans Grays, showing American involvement, and
Speaker 1: he writes in a letter stating that he had seen
Speaker 1: the bodies of the leader Travis, the Braggart Bowie, and
Speaker 1: some man named Crockett.
Speaker 3: So that would mean that he didn't execute Crockett. He
Speaker 3: just saw the body of Crockett.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's what happened. I think Travis's slave
Speaker 1: Joe is identifying the bodies of the leaders, and of
Speaker 1: course Joe has the task of trying to find the
Speaker 1: bodies in the midst of this chaos. And Joe in
Speaker 1: his account that Crockett was surrounded by friend and foe,
Speaker 1: so like he died fighting quite possibly.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, if Crockett was involved in an execution scenario,
Speaker 1: that could have occurred anywhere inside of the fort, and
Speaker 1: of course there's bodies strewn throughout. I just think the
Speaker 1: likelihood of that happening is it's It sounds too good
Speaker 1: to be true. Really, it sounds like well, Hollywood, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Crockett went down in battle.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: Interesting. I love the passion of both of these positions.
Speaker 3: Are you starting to develop a gut feeling? Here's doctor crisp.
Speaker 4: So you know, you believe what you want to believe.
Speaker 4: Very often it becomes a matter of ideology and a
Speaker 4: matter of self definition, a self image. Dan Kilgore, who
Speaker 4: first published the Little book How did Davy Die? And
Speaker 4: who looked at the evidence and decided that dell opinion
Speaker 4: was correct. He was called a communist. People told me
Speaker 4: I ought to wash his mouth out with soap. They
Speaker 4: called him a smut peddler because they didn't want to
Speaker 4: hear his conclusion. And at one time Dan Kilgore said, well,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't mind so much if they had just read
Speaker 4: the book. But they didn't read it. They just saw
Speaker 4: the conclusion and they knew they didn't like him, and
Speaker 4: so then they attacked him personally. You know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of that going on today. Still. I've experienced some
Speaker 4: of it myself, although I have, in fact made friends
Speaker 4: of some people who originally wanted to, as one woman said,
Speaker 4: gut me with a bowie knife because hanging is too.
Speaker 2: Good for me.
Speaker 4: I met her in front of the animal That's when
Speaker 4: she said that, and I said, have you read the article?
Speaker 4: She said no, I'm just a Crockett loyalist. She later
Speaker 4: became a good friend and decided I wasn't a bad
Speaker 4: guy after all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we get to these ideas of our heroes, and
Speaker 3: then when they're torn down, we think that that that
Speaker 3: idea is.
Speaker 4: Well, let's be careful about using the Let's be careful
Speaker 4: about using the term toned down. People accused me of
Speaker 4: the very beginning when I first published this stuff, of
Speaker 4: saying that Crockett was a coward. And I said, wait,
Speaker 4: just a minute. Were the guys at Batan and Corrigador cowards?
Speaker 4: These were guys who held out until they just couldn't
Speaker 4: hold out anymore. Are these cowards? Absolutely? And so by
Speaker 4: saying that someone was, it's like John McCain, Is John
Speaker 4: McCain some kind of coward, some kind of you know,
Speaker 4: awful guy because he allowed himself to be captured. No,
Speaker 4: Crockett was a Crockett was a good guy. I like
Speaker 4: David Crockett more a lot more than I like Andrew Jackson.
Speaker 4: You know, Crockett was a very admirable person. He was
Speaker 4: a popular figure in America, and deservedly so.
Speaker 3: I asked Wade why he thought the way David Crockett
Speaker 3: died with such an important question.
Speaker 1: I think it has everything to do with closure. Everybody
Speaker 1: needs closure in their lives. Everybody needs answers, especially to
Speaker 1: big questions. And unfortunately, a lot of the big questions
Speaker 1: in our lives will go unanswered, and in regards to
Speaker 1: in regards to Crockett, will likely never know for sure.
Speaker 3: Wade is such a Crockett Alamo die hard that he's
Speaker 3: working on a fully illustrated book about Crockett. Basically, it's
Speaker 3: a really cool, detailed comic book that will be a
Speaker 3: couple hundred pages long when it's finished. I wanted to
Speaker 3: ask him why the Alamo was so special to him.
Speaker 1: It's a story of so few against so many. It's
Speaker 1: an underdog story. You have this congregation of all of
Speaker 1: these very colorful characters at this one spot. It's almost
Speaker 1: too good to be true, but it happens.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask Wade why Crockett was so important
Speaker 3: to him.
Speaker 1: With David Crockett, my appeal to him has always been
Speaker 1: he's the common man, and he's the common man who
Speaker 1: is always hit with these obstacles in his life, death
Speaker 1: in the family, loss of his businesses, but he always
Speaker 1: finds the strength to keep going to as he would say,
Speaker 1: go ahead. Yeah, Crockett lost a lot, and that connected
Speaker 1: with me and my father because we lost a lot.
Speaker 1: My mother, my dad's wife, passed away in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: we lost the house to foreclosure, lost Uncle Jamie to cancer.
Speaker 1: So you know, when putting all of that together, trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of things and just you know, realizing
Speaker 1: that other people have been through the same thing you
Speaker 1: have and in you know the context, Crockett he took
Speaker 1: that pain, he took those struggles, and you know he
Speaker 1: pushed forward.
Speaker 3: Do we love Crockett because of his failure? Most American
Speaker 3: heroes we love because of how successful they were, But
Speaker 3: in almost every area of Crockett's life, he seemed to fail.
Speaker 3: Even at the very end of his life.
Speaker 2: They lost.
Speaker 3: The Alamo movie was John Wayne's passion project. He made
Speaker 3: several promotional and inspirational videos about his movie. I want
Speaker 3: us to hear from the Duke what he thinks about.
Speaker 2: The Alamo.
Speaker 5: Boy. Travis and Dickenson and the others had died in
Speaker 5: the Alimal held off an army for thirteen days, and
Speaker 5: it's hard to believe that they ever existed, had become
Speaker 5: legends before the smoke over the battle had blown away.
Speaker 5: What kind of men were they? Well, we know that
Speaker 5: they died and that they were heroes, But nobody wants
Speaker 5: to die, and nobody just decided to be a hero
Speaker 5: has to be forced on you. That's what happened to them,
Speaker 5: was forced on them. Because they were stuck with ideas
Speaker 5: like freedom and the rights of the individual, hatred a dictators. Crockett,
Speaker 5: for instance, refused to sign the Health of Allegiance. The
Speaker 5: Government of Texas in the late changed it to the
Speaker 5: Republican Government of Texas. Living free meant a lot more
Speaker 5: to them than cowering in security. Another thing about Crockett,
Speaker 5: When he left for the Alamo, he said his children
Speaker 5: this message, I hope you'll do the best you can.
Speaker 5: I'll do the same. Don't be uneasy about me. I
Speaker 5: am with my friends. Worked out just about that way.
Speaker 5: He stayed with his friends, and he did the best
Speaker 5: he could.
Speaker 3: I really don't think the motivations of those at the
Speaker 3: Alamo were as clarified as John Wayne is proposing in
Speaker 3: his movie promotion. Time has a way of honing the
Speaker 3: narrative of people's motivations, sometimes shaping them into things that
Speaker 3: are far more noble than they were. But sometimes it's
Speaker 3: the opposite, and it makes their motivations way worse than
Speaker 3: they actually were. The only thing we know for sure
Speaker 3: is that those men fought and died for a cause
Speaker 3: that would deeply affect the trajectory of America. Here's our
Speaker 3: old friend Robert Morgan with an overview of how Crockett
Speaker 3: affected America.
Speaker 6: Well, there's several ways that Crockett is very important to
Speaker 6: the history and the culture of this country. I think
Speaker 6: the first is he created the model of the backwoods
Speaker 6: politician with all the jokes and the backwood language and humor,
Speaker 6: which culminates in Abraham Lincoln. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 6: I mean there are many parallels between them their behavior
Speaker 6: in Washington. He has a huge impact on American literature,
Speaker 6: showing how you can create literature in the voice of
Speaker 6: the ordinary people in his autobiography and his speeches. That
Speaker 6: probably culminates in Huckleberry Finn, which has got to be
Speaker 6: one of the two or three greatest novels in American literature.
Speaker 6: He had a huge impact on oratory of bringing back
Speaker 6: woods preaching. It's really preaching that the greatest speaker in
Speaker 6: the American history is almost certainly Tecumse, who could move
Speaker 6: people to do whatever he told them to do. Never
Speaker 6: they wrote down so impressive white people, they had never
Speaker 6: seen anybody who could speak that way, and Crockett had
Speaker 6: some of that. He was from that world, and talking
Speaker 6: to the big talk was a very important thing. Also by
Speaker 6: dying at the Alamo. He was so famous that he
Speaker 6: influenced the sympathy of the whole country for Texas independence.
Speaker 6: Because of Texas independence, it was ten years later annexed
Speaker 6: as a state. Because it was annexed as a state,
Speaker 6: Polk was able to create the Mexican War by sending
Speaker 6: soldiers down there who were attacked on the Rio Grande
Speaker 6: by the Mexican Army. It's an excuse for fighting Mexico.
Speaker 6: Because of the Mexican War, Polk was able to claim
Speaker 6: paying fifteen million dollars for the whole West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California.
Speaker 3: The Texas Revolution would become a critical component of American expansion,
Speaker 3: and the social popularity supporting that revolution was dramatically influenced
Speaker 3: by crocketts popularity and death at the Alamo. Just hours
Speaker 3: after the Alamo fell, the Texas Declaration of Independence was
Speaker 3: proposed and passed, and that would eventually form the Republic
Speaker 3: of Texas, which stayed an independent nation from eighteen thirty
Speaker 3: six until December twenty ninth, eighteen forty five, when it
Speaker 3: was admitted into the Union of the United States as
Speaker 3: the twenty eighth state. The bodies of the dead at
Speaker 3: the Alamo were burned by the Mexican Army, and their
Speaker 3: ashes are now incorporated into the soil lying beneath the Alamo.
Speaker 3: After the report of Crockett's death, many claim to have
Speaker 3: seen him alive. Crockett's son John Wesley ended up going
Speaker 3: to Texas to investigate his father's death for himself. In
Speaker 3: the mid eighteen fifties, Crockett's widow, Elizabeth, and their two
Speaker 3: sons would receive three hundred and twenty acres of land
Speaker 3: for David's military service and move to Texas, where Elizabeth
Speaker 3: would live until her death at the age of seventy
Speaker 3: two on January thirty first, eighteen sixty in Hood.
Speaker 2: County, Texas.
Speaker 3: I can't thank you guys enough for listening to Bear Grease.
Speaker 3: I hope you'll share our podcast with a friend, and
Speaker 3: I look forward to talking with everybody on the Render
Speaker 3: about Crockett's death at the Alamo next week.