Commentary: Don’t just remember the Alamo; remember Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett is a larger-than-life real American hero. He was a frontiersman, militia volunteer, adventurer and politician.

Born on the western frontier of the United States in Tennessee in 1786, he grew up hunting in the woods and helping with the farm. Most children of this era did not have long childhoods like they do today. When he was 12 years old, he was indentured in service to another family to help pay off his father’s debts.

Schooling was also an occasional and limited activity for children during these years. Many people had to teach themselves basic reading, writing and arithmetic. This short-lived childhood, however, resulted in independent, confident and capable individuals who were the epitome of the creative and self-reliant American. Davy Crockett was just such a man.

Crockett was unlucky in love twice when the young women he was smitten with chose to marry others. Then he met Polly at a harvest festival. After receiving the consent of her mother and father, Crockett courted the young Polly; they fell in love and were married in 1806.

They settled on land near her family and their first child was born. A second son came a year later and then a daughter. The Crockett family moved twice to establish new homesteads further west.

When Polly died in 1815, Davy was heartbroken, but he soon met and married a widow with two children. It was common in these years for people to die young, and the practicalities of raising a family demanded this practical solution of joining two families.

Meanwhile, the Creek Indian Wars flared up on the frontier. Crockett joined the militia to assist with the fighting. He hunted for wild game to feed the soldiers. Throughout the years he helped protect the families of the frontier communities with his work in the militia.

Then, in 1821, he was voted into the Tennessee state Legislature. He honed his speaking and story-telling skills as he spoke to the crowds of voters. He favored lower taxes. He was familiar with the struggles that settlers out West faced. Working the land was hard. Poverty and loss of title to their land was common among those who sought to make a better life for themselves and their families.

In 1827, he decided to run for the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. He was a popular man with the people so he won a second term.

Because he opposed many of President Jackson’s policies, most notably the Indian Removal Act that resulted in the infamous Trail of Tears, where thousands of Native Americans died on the forced march from their ancestral lands to the Oklahoma territory, he found his career in politics was short-lived.

Soon he was reelected to Congress again in 1833. During this time, he wrote a popular autobiographical book, “A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett.” His book made his name well-known across the country. Crockett was popular because he stood up for what was right.

People were attracted to his outspoken, honest and folksy sayings such as, “When you know you’re right, act on it.”

When he lost his another election bid, he told his constituents that he had acted faithfully on their behalf, but since they did not choose to reelect him, then “they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.”

Texas was on the verge of fighting for its independence from Mexico because the new government was starting to exert more control over the settlers and to demand more in the way of taxes. This did not suit the free-loving Americans!

Crockett and 65 volunteers, who were promised 4,600 acres of land, arrived at the Alamo Mission in Texas to help with the fight against the Mexican army let by General Santa Anna. Two hundred men endured a siege and then intense bombardments by the 600 Mexicans before they finally succumbed after 90 minutes of intense battle on March 6,1836.

Davy Crockett was only 49 years old, but he was a vibrant and picturesque frontiersman. He died along with William Travis, James Bowie and the rest of those at the Alamo.

This battle became the rallying cry, “Remember the Alamo!” for Texan Independence a month later when Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas became an independent republic, the Lone Star State, and remained so for 10 years.

In the 1950s, Crockett resurfaced as the capable and likable folk hero on a popular Disney TV program. Kids across America could be seen playing with their Davy Crockett coonskin caps, fringed buckskin jackets and carrying their Kentucky long rifles just like the real man did those many years before.

What a hero for these children to look up to! A man who was strong, capable, adventuresome and who did what was right. He was a free-loving individual who captured the American Spirit of independence and self-reliance.

Newport Beach resident SHERRY NORD MARRON is a former adjunct professor at Orange Coast College who also taught at the University of Connecticut.