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Why was Davy Crockett king of the wild frontier? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's back. Yeah,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: where's that little plastic clappy machine? We can just Jerry's back.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Jerry can I mentioned had surgery on her back to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: add a third limb. She does not have the third limb,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: but she uh is. It's been a while on her
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: back recuperating, then eventually was in a chair and now
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: she's walking around and now she can do push ups
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: with the third arm coming out of her back. It's
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. But soon enough Jerry will be like pain
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: free for the first time this year, which is very excited. Yes,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: but for the time being, she's on some pretty dynamite pills.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I to her. Um, Jerry, how are you
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: doing over there? So welcome back, Jerry. We didn't know
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: how much we missed you until you were gone for real.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: All right, again the applaustic that's about as much sentiments
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: we allow. You know, my throat dried up. I had
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: like some sort of adverse reaction to that. All right,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: let's do this. Oh really, yeah, man, fine, let's Davie Crockett.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I should point out first off that when I was
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a kid visiting my grandparents in Memphis, Tennessee, Davy Crockett land, Um,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I have a great picture, and people who always say, like,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: why don't you ever post the pictures you talk about?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: But I had this great picture of me when I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: was like five years old. Coon skin cap, fringe, vest, boots,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: little plastic bowie, knife, long muzzle loading. Must get. I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: think I know this very must get you're talking about. Yeah,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: so I was just like totally rigged out and of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: cessed with watching the old Davy Crockett show, even though
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it was like nineteen and that show ran the fifties.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: It was one of those deals like we still grew
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: up on Gilligan's Island on these older shows. Well, yeah,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I think Disney Walt Disney Presents or something like that.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: They ran a lot of that stuff years later. Yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I was way into it. That's awesome because I was
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: into camping early on, and it was just really fit
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the bill for me. I love the song the whole deal. Yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I had a coonskin cap too, But so did Jerry.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: The only yes she did h the only extray couch
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: from all I had was a deer skin water bag
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: filled with wine. Oh yeah, yeah, a boda bag. Yeah,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't have one, but Emily does and she still
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: puts wine in it and sneakes it in the concerts.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's do it. Uh so, Chuck, you
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you made reference to Davy Crockett from the fifties, the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Disney thing, not Daniel Boone. No, Daniel Boone was prior
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to Davy Crockett. Davy Crockett became Daniel Boone's successor. Is
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the the um personification of the American push westward. For
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a long time, David Crockett personified the conquering of the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Indian Um, the wrestling of the bear, taming of this
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: land and through America, America. Although he spent like his
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: entire life in Tennessee pretty much, No, that's not true.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: He went to Texas, he did, But he spent a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: lot of time in Alabama and actually homesteaded there for
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a little while around Talladega. Not for too long, though,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: for long enough. Like his family in Tennessee are all
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: very adamant about being a lifelong Tennessee guy, right and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in his heart he would agree with that entirely. Um.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: He was born in Tennessee, near Knoxville, Greene County. Yeah,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: he uh spent most of his life there, even when
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: he argue and in O F t um, he was
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee, I believe for the most part. Um. He Uh.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: His autobio bography was titled UM David Crockett of Tennessee
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: parentheses really yeah not Alabama. Yeah, he went to West
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Tennessee for a while too. We'll get to all this,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: but yeah, let's go back to the Disney's a volunteer.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: So twenty years after, Yeah it is? Is that where
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it came from him? No? I don't think so. Okay,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: but because he did volunteer, maybe you never know. Maybe
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder if that was like kind of a thing
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't just him. But yeah, the Tennessee is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the volunteer state, and Davy Crockett was a big time volunteer.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Or maybe he felt pressure too because he was in Tennessee.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: He's like, I really the peer pressure state. Want to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: but I guess I must. Ye. Um, so Disney, I'm
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: talking about Disney, whether you like it or not, No,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: but let's do it. I love that show. So twenty
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: years after Disney runs five episodes, that's the run of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the Davy Crockett Show. Yeah, there was only five episodes.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I even looked that up because I was like, that
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: can't be right. Yeah, I saw a hundred of them. Yeah,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you saw those five times each. Um, so they in
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: from ninety five and you was a kid in nineteen seventy,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: one full year before I was born, by the way, Yeah,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I was four. I was still watching it, loving this stuff.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So I had staying power. But what had even more
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: staying power was Davy Crockett himself, because the Disney thing
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: ran a full hundred and fifteen years after Davy Crockett died. Yeah,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: he was already kind of a legend in his own
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: time as well. But this Disney thing, there was Disney
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Davy Crockett fever in the mid fifties. Yeah. They supposedly
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: at its peak, five thousand coon skin caps a day
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: were selling. Within a couple of months of the premiere
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: of the first Davy Crockett episode, a hundred million dollars
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: had been made off of the Davy Crockett franchise. Yeah,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: he just came on like a ton of bricks and uh,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of course you know the coinskin cap if you Simpsons,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Jebediagh Springfield as ensconcedin, was it bronze? Is that a
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: bronze statue? I can't really tell. It's on TV and
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that cartoon form, so it's a statue. Uh. And we
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: don't know for sure if he actually wore a coonskin cap.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: He did, Well, that's not what I saw. I saw
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that Daniel Boone did not for sure, and Davy Crockett
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: more likely wore wildcatter, fox and possibly coon skin on occasion.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say that it was very apropos that
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that picture of you all dolled up like Davy Crockett
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: was taken in Memphis, because that is supposedly the first
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: time he wore the little fringe e hunting shirt and
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the coonskin cap when he had it out from Memphis
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to Texas, which we'll talk about later. That's what I saw,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: man alive. This is interesting, but I think this illustrates
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a really great point about Davy Crockett. There are few
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: people who definitively lived who have more legends and possible
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: half truth swirling around them then Davy Crockett yeah. I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: think some people out there might even think that he
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't even a real dude. It's just like a tall
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: tale guy. Yeah, you know, he very much lived. Um.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And we got to mention the song. Well. First of all,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Fess Parker started as Davy Crockett. Best Parker also start
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: as Daniel Boone. Is that right? I guess they were
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: like it's typecast that um. And he also the the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: TV theme song was sung by the Wellington's the famous
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: song King of the Wild Frontier. UM. But in ninety
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: four different people recorded it, and all four of them
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in the same year recorded the same song landed in
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the top ten. That's how popular that song was, or
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that's how just kind of um undemanding audiences were in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the fifties radio audience, maybe so. But Best Parker did
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: one of the virsions. He also did sang yeah, man,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that guy made some dough off of Davy Crockett, unbelievable. Ironically,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: he was afraid of snakes, was he really? Isn't that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a wine too? Best Parker h not a winery, not
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that I don't know of. That's that's a dingy winery
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: right there. It's wine pass through. Best Parkers cap there's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: some winery that has a name similar to that. Best Parker. Yeah, no,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: nont know, Test Parker, I don't know. I know, I'm
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: getting confused. So I tell him about the Davy Crockett,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the U. S. Armies Davy Crockett. That was a rocket.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Did you see that thing? Uh? No? Was it cool? Yeah? Yeah,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: it was in the nineteen sixties the Army. It was
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a artillery launcher lightweight that fired mortars that had nuclear warheads,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and they called it the Davy Crockett. Yeah, it fired
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: seventy pound nuclear warheads. That's what it was designed to do.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: And they never deployed it. But it was basically a
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: bunch of pipes that like you drive up on your
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: jeep about one to two miles away from the enemy.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: In Europe, the Ruskies, I guess, and assembled this thing
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: real quick and dropped the seventy pound warhead mortaring and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: shot it off under the enemy. It was never used,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: though not as far as I know. It was tested
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and there's pictures of, like, I mean, it might as
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: well be like a GHI Joe drawing, like the pictures
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of this thing being tested with like the jeep and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the guys standing next to it, and there's like, it's
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: just cool. You have to check that out. Yeah, Luckily,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I don't think they anyone's ever set off a warhead
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: on anybody in battle, aside from Herashima Nagasaki, aside from us.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: All right, Davy Crockett shameful, um alright. So he was
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: born in Tennessee in six uh. At twelve years old,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: his dad sent him off to this dude, Jacob Siler,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to help drive cattle to Virginia, and like, you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: as a twelve year old, like they're working hard back then,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and this dude, the job ended up, you know, ended
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and the Silas guy like forcibly detained him as like
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a slave of sorts. And he was like, screw this,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna a hike seven miles in the snow out
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: of here in the middle of the night. What's crazy
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: is in two hours? Yeah, he ran it. I don't
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: even think I could run on a flat plane seven
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: miles and two hours. Well, they don't write songs and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: TV shows about either, No, they didn't. Actually, we did
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: have a TV show in a song about us. Yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: but we commissioned it virtually. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, alright,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So he drops out of school while he does a
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: lot of hooky, and his dad gets pretty ticked off
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: at him. So he's like, basically, I'm gonna leave home
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: at a young age because I'm not into the school
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and thing. Yeah he um. He for across his lifetime
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: he became a very successful person. Um, and he kind
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of wore the fact that he didn't have much school
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and as a badge of honor, like he was very
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: proud of how far he'd gotten in life without formal education. Um.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, as a kid, he hated school. Is the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: impression I have. Yeah. He called it a strategic withdrawal.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Left for two and a half years, came home like
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a grown person. It was like sixteen, and his family
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: was like, who is this larger version of my son?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And they forgave him and it was all good. Yeah.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: He actually stuck around and um, helped work off some
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of his father's seventies six dollar debt for a year,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and went to school as a peace offering for another
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: six months, and then said okay, let's to forget it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go make my own way. And this is
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: when he begins to volunteer. That's right, volunteered with the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Tennessee Militia. Yeah, his military career started. There lots of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: militia action going on, like he was in a bunch
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of different militias. It seemed like, yeah, and what he
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: was part of. UM is one of the more despicable
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: parts of American history, the removal of Indians, specifically, in
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: this case, the Southern Indians from their lands. There was
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of land UM in what are now the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Southern United States and southeastern United States that was right
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: for cotton growing, and there were a lot of people
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: who on at that land, and there were a lot
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: of treaties. Basically, the the militias would go in battle
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the Creeks or the Choctaws or the Cherokees or whoever,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and UM then after their defeat, would force a treaty
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: on them. And Andrew Jackson, who later became president, was
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: personally responsible for nine of eleven treaties between eighteen fourteen
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and eighteen twenty four, which means nine of eleven Indian massacres.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Basically the American h and there are massacres on both sides,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and Davy Crockett actually took place in one of the massacres.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: A a attributive massacre, right, yeah. I think that was
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: his first military duty. He enlisted to avenge the attack
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: on Fort MEM's, Alabama, and with Andrew Jackson, Uh did
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: so Indian massacre right, very sad. Yeah, it was the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: name of the town was Tolosa Hatchie and it was
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in Alabama. Um. And I believe they killed about two
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: d Indian men and uh eighty four women and children
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: were captured. And then whoever he's left alive, I guess
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson came in and negotiated a treaty. They probably
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: kept one man alive to sign the right exactly, and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it basically said all the rest of you have to
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: get off this land, but you can go west. And
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: then as this happened time and time again, UM, more
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and more Americans moved south and established plantations around this time.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So that's the context of what was going on in Davy.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Crockett was volunteering with the militia basically. Yeah, and it
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: seemed like he really hoped all over the place between like, uh,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: some military militia work, because these are when you enlisted.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: It was like a ninety day enlistment. It wasn't like
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: years and years, UM and then like some political work
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: before he you know, got real serious. He was a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: town commissioner for a little while. He was a Justice
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of the Piece for a couple of years. So he
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: was just sort of floating around, a little militia work,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: a little political work, Indian fighting. Yeah, he was a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: man of many fringe jackets. I guess he really was. Well, uh,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: before we keep going, you want to do a message break, Yeah,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good time. And then things get
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: serious for Davy Crockett. So we were talking Chuck about um,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: how Davy Crockett wore many many hats, and we want
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to say also that he although he was an Indian
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: fighter and actually became very much respected as one. That's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: part of his initial legend was that he was an
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Indian fighter, which was very much admired among UM Americans
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: at the time. UM. He eventually it parted from that
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: image very publicly, but first he kind of had to
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: create a public platform to do that on I guess right. Yeah,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: he Uh. He was a commissioner for a while in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: UM Tennessee, and then he was elected to the Tennessee
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Legislature and then finally in UM he won a seat
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: in Congress. Yeah, his first his first like he was
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: actual Congressional Representative Tennessee seven, that's right, and served two
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: terms and then lost basically the third term because he
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: came out so vehemently opposed to what Jackson was doing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: with like taking back the land. Yeah. So the Supreme
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Court ruled that, um, that that Native Americans had a
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: right to occupancy. Yes, they can live in North America,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: but that is trumped by Americans right of discovery. Somehow
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: they decided that we discovered this land that you already
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: lived on, which trumps your right to live on it.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Did that anyone ever? Say? No, no, no, we discovered
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it because we're here, right, And they were cut down
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: where they stood. Um. So the the I guess the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: idea the issue of Indian removal in this time was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: being played out in the courts. Andrew Jackson becomes president,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: gets the Indian Removal Act passed through, which basically says,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I'm the president, I deal with treaties with Indians. I'm
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: taking this out of the hands of the courts, and
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I'm by the way, Andrew Jackson, And you know how
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I feel about Indian removal. Y'all can get out west right,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and apparently this is egregious enough to make David Krack
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: would say, you know what, I'm totally rethinking this land
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: use policy, this land grab, the Indian Removal Act. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: even though we're both from Tennessee and we're both in
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the same political party, I'm publicly separating myself from you
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and your policies. Mr President. That was a big deal
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: on He lost because of it, he did, but he
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: lost very narrowly, I believe two fifty two votes. Um.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And actually, in our we have a video series people
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: called Trapped in a Meeting, And in this week's Trapped
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: in a Meeting, we learned that while Andrew Jackson was
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: in office, he had an assassination attempt on his life.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: And Davy Crockett, this guy like this, this mentally ill guy,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: went to shoot Andrew Jackson on the steps of the Capitol.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I think you remember we talked about in the Insanity
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Defense episode. Yeah, and Davy Crockett was one of the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: guys who subdued. He like jumped into action because he's
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Davy Crockett. Yeah, even though they already a post one
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: another politically at this poet's still going to help save
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the President stand up guy. Yeah, Davy Crock he was.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: It turned out to be a pretty cool dude. Um.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: So he loses that after for his third bid, third
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: consecutive term, he loses, uh, his bid, and um he
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: goes off and starts making money by making and selling
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: barrel staves, like the slats he used to make whiskey
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and wine barrels. It's apparently it's pretty lucrative at the time. Yeah,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: he almost doing it though. Yeah, there was a boat
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: wreck on the Mississippi River carrying those barrel staves and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: he almost died then. And he almost died earlier in
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: his life when he had malaria when he was home
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: studying in Alabama. So he's he you know, he was
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a rough and tumble guy, you know. Um. Supposedly also
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: during this time he killed a hundred and five bears
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: in a year, killed him one when he was only three,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: which well, that's a Disney legend. And also we should
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: say that the idea that he was a King of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the Wild Frontier, that term, that label came directly from
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Disney as well. He obviously didn't wrestle a bear when
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: he was only three, but he was a very well
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: known bear hunter. Um. Whether he killed a hundred and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: five or not, that's kind of up for debate. But
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: if you want to read his firsthand account of it,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: there's an awesome article called bear Hunting in Tennessee Colan
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Davy Crockett tells Tall Tales. It's on George Mason University's website.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Check it out. It's he's a pretty awesome author. He
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: was talking about how he's hunting with his eight dogs,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and his dogs are the best dogs on the planet,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: flushing out bear. Um. And he saw some other fellas
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: come up and they wanted to hunt with him, and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: they had like twenty dogs, but all the dogs were terrible.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: He said they couldn't bark at a bear without having
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to lean up against a tree to rest for a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: little while. Um. So he left the dogs behind and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: let him chew on some bare bones and he took
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: his dogs out. It's awesome, like this guy is totally
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: uneducated frontiersman who also went to Congress and kind of
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a humorous too. Yeah. I think the song actually originally went,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: um hike seven miles in the snow and two hours
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: when he was only twelve, and they're like, let's just
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: make something up. Killed him a bear. It wasn't even
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: killed it's k I l T killed him a bar. Yeah. Yeah,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: um probe that song is still just like instantly comes
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: in my head, the lyrics and everything. So he lost
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: his third congressional bid um and then he starts gaining
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: more fame and notoriety. And this is at a time
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: where you know, it's it's it was pre internet. Yeah,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was the pre internet a little it was pre Internet,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and it was a time where it was you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it wasn't the easiest thing to gain this kind of notoriety.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Like that just shows how popular he was, Like he
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: was one of the most famous people in the country. Um,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: they had these uh Davy Crockett Almanacs published um lots
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of books written about him. One lied and said that
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: it was an autobiography to sell books, and the Almanacs
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: actually came out of that. They used that book as
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the basis of it. Yeah. So so that just kind
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of perpetuated all these lies, and since it was attributed
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to him, that gave him a reputation for spinning tall
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: tales about himself. But she didn't necessarily that that wasn't
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: necessarily untrue. He just didn't spin him quite as much
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: as as other people did about him. There was a
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: play by James Kirk Paulding called The Line of the West,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and the character Nimrod Wildfire was based on Davy Crockett.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: And um, he finally did get together with with of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: because as you said, he wasn't educated, so he had
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: got a little help. But he eventually did write his
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: own autobiography with with the help of a co author. Yeah,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: he did. And um you can very much compare it
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to Barack Obama writing The Audacity of Hope, because it
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: was released at a time when the Whigs were starting
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to tout Um Davy Crockett as a possible challenger I
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: guess to Andrew Jackson for the presidency. Uh A Native
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: A Native A narrative of the life of Davy Crockett
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: of the State of Tennessee by Thomas Chilton, and Davy
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Crockett was the official one. Yeah. So the problem is
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Chuck he Um didn't win his re election bid, so
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: his his um idea of going into the presidency. The
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: primary I guess in eighteen thirty six was that his
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: plan that yeah, he was going along with that, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: some of the Whigs were like, let's do it. But
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: since he he was knocked out of Congress in eighteen
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: thirty five, he did make a third trip back to
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Congress from eighteen to eighteen thirty five, but then he
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: was defeated by a peg leg lawyer, yeah, named Adam Huntsman. Yeah. Um,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: very narrowly, but he lost. So I think at that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: point he was like, I'm kind of done with Congress
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, And that his losing to the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that peg leg lawyer, as he was dubbed um, gave
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: rise to his famous quote, Uh, since you have chosen
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you may all go to Hell and I will go
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to Texas. And he was basically like, I want to
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: go check out Texas and see what's out there. You know.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: This was like he didn't go westward, like, you know,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: to California anything like that. Like Texas was super west
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, and it was a Mexican state
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that was um in a struggle for independence. There was
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a rebellion going on there. Yeah, that's not why I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: went though. No, apparently he got caught up in that.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: But he went there just to explore and I was
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: going to settle down with his family and just you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: live on the hand, right, there's a lot of money
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to be made there. Well, yeah, he said, what I've
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: seen of Texas, there is a world of country here
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to settle. I had rather be in my present situation
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: than to be elected to a seat in Congress for life.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So he really thumbed his nose at politics at that time.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Or he was just really happy too with Texas. Yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that's true. Um. He also it didn't take very long
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: for him to get there, and I guess get caught
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: up in the rebellion that was going on that really
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: kind of spoke to him in his spirit. Yeah. They
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: said he loved a good fight. Yeah. I think he
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: just couldn't resist. Yeah. Um, well, I mean he was
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a bear hunter for goodness sake. Um. So he gets
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: there and um basically aligns himself with the rebel movement
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: who asked him in his traveling companion to sign an
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: oath of allegiance to it, and uh, in it, it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: basically says like I Davy Crockett am pledge allegiance to
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: this rebellion and any future government that may come out
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: of it. David Krack is like, I'm not signing that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: in she put Republican before government because he wasn't about
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to sign his allegiance over to some you know, tyrannical
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: government that came out of this rebellion. He didn't know.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: So he was one to head his bets, that's right,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: very smartly, so he signed it and um very famously,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Uh died at the Siege of the Alamo, which I
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: know you have visited the Alamo and there's no basement.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: There's no basement, and it's I always hear from everybody
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that visits. I have not how small it is. Everyone's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: always underwhelmed. It's basically like one room. Yeah. Yeah. Umi
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: took me there and it's in San Antonio. You go
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: in and you're like, it's this lump of history in
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the middle of downtown San Antonio. Yeah, and it's just
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it's like was this a bank or was it the Alamo? Yeah,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I mean like there's it's just there's a couple of
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: side rooms, but it's really just one main room. Yeah.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I always just pictured, you know, some huge fort. Yeah
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you'd think so, And um, I'll visit it one day
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: for sure. The gardens, the grounds are amazing. Yeah, yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it's it's very cool. It's worth going to for sure. Yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Well I love being historical landmarks. Do you know you
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: should do south by Southwest to fly into San Antonio
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and drive to Austin. Yeah, that's what you did, right.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: So the Alamo is great. I'm gonna visit. He famously
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: died defending the Alamo, but there are many versions of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: how that exactly that went down from um died surrounded
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: by sixteen dead Mexicans that he killed with his hand
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: on a knife in the back of one. Two captured
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: and executed. Two killed at the very beginning of the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: thing and didn't even see much action. Yeah, but we
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: think we have a pretty definitive story. Yeah, there's um
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: some other stuff that he supposedly did do. Like he
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: was um documented is running all over the Alamo, like
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: keeping everybody animated, keeping one write exactly. UM. And he
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: supposedly played his fiddle a lot like very rousing tune,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: just tried to keep everyone's spirits and energy up and
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: they're defending the small little building. Um. He supposedly took
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: out five gunners in succession who were trying to shoot
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a cannon at the Alamo with Old Betsy his musket. Yeah.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And um. He also supposedly came very close to hitting
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: um Antonio Santa Anna, the general who was leading the siege. Um,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: but just missed him, even though Santa Anna thought he
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: was well out of range of the guns. And I
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: see him, but there's no way he can do yeah, exactly. Um.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So he did do some stuff. He's documented to doing
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: something probably truthful. But the problem there was always a
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: problem with how he died, in that he was captured,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and a great brave Indian fighting bear hunter like is
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: who represents all of America, isn't supposed to be captured
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: because if you capture, that means you put your gun
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: down or you didn't die fighting. Well, I supposed he
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: ran out of bullets and then we started clubbing them
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: with his gun, killing them with his you know, bare
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: hands in a in a butt of a gun. Right,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: So that's the fictitious version. The other versions from eyewitnesses
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: contradict that. So America long struggled with how Davy Crockett died.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And then in um the diary of one of the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Mexican Army soldiers who was there at the siege was
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: published and um, it basically laid to rest, like, yes,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: David Crockett was among those captured. It was five or
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: six people, yep, like everybody else had been killed or
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: or um, we're women basically uh. And Crockett was among
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: like five or six soldiers who were captured. Despite Santa
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Anna Um saying don't take any prisoners, they did anyway, Yeah,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: they did, but he was not. Um the account says
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that it was not He wasn't shamed, though he still
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: died bravely. They were bayonetted and shot. And the quote
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: pain is quote was the Mexican soldier whose diary these
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: unfortunates died with complaining without humiliating themselves before their tortures.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So I think it was like one of those Red
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Dawn scenes where they start singing America the Beautiful. Yeah,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: probably you know, like you're about to shoot me, but
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: my head is held high, or like who is it
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: we did last week? The the lady, Oh, Mota Hary, Yeah,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Mota Hary. Yeah. Davy crock and Mana Hary they're virtually indistinguishable,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: that's right. So his reputation remained intact. And uh that
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the Alamo and then Walt disn't got a hold of it,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and a hundred years later became a sensation. Yeah. I
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: mean even even beyond the remaining in tech dying at
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the Alamo, defending the Alumo. It's like mushroom clouded his
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: personality and his reputation is a legend. Like it just
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: sealed it forever, like Davy Crockett, American hero, King of
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the wild front here. Yeah, Timbertoe No, not a Timber too.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I actually had to look that up. I was like,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: what does that mean. I was like, oh, I wouldn't
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: like got it. He was pretty clever. Oh and that quote,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: by the way, was said while he was drinking with
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: his buddies in Memphis at the Union Hotel. And I
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: did a little digging, and that is the Union Hotel
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: was what is now the grounds of Auto Zone Park
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: where the Memphis Redbirds playball. Oh yeah, yeah, I need
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to get back to Memphis. My family has all gone
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: from there now, so aside from visiting the graves of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: my grandparents, there's really no other reason to go back.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: The grave of Elvis. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah, we'll
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: go again, all right. That the station not gonna fund itself, Yeah,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that's true. Um, okay, you got anything else, Davy Crockett? Oh,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: you know what, I have one other thing. Something occurred
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: to me while we were researching this. Um, if you
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: think of Davy Crockett and you're an American, it's just
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: all these images come to mind. It's the national hero,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and there's he's complex and everything. Think about how every
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: single country has at least somebody like that, and just
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: how totally unaware we are of those people that are
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: like that in all those other countries. Yeah, like who
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: was Finland's Davy Crockett exactly? Yeah, you know, but it's
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: neat to think that there's somebody like that out there
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: for at least one for every country on the map.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Francais that Davy Crockett. I'm sure Napoleon Davy Croquette. Uh yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And you know what, in listener, man, we should ask
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: for your country's version Davy Crockett. Do that. Okay, So
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: until then, UM, if you want to learn a little
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: more about Davy Crockett, you can me in this article
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: that I wrote years and years ago, Um, by searching
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Davy Crockett in the search bar, and that's d A. V. Y.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: The early nineteenth century version of Davy and where else?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: What was that website we also used to get this information?
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Was that? Uh, if you look in the source the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: source list on the Lots More Information page of my article,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: it's in there. There's some good stuff. So I think
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: it's like the Texas Online Handbook maybe ye, something like that. Yeah,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and don't forget to go read that first person account
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of bear hunting with Davy Crockett on George Mason University website.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Since I said George Mason, I mean it's time for
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: listening now. Uh. This is about um e c T
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: electro convulsive therapy that we've podcasted on and about civil
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: rights of people forced into stuff like this, and it's
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: from Jamie. Hey, guys, in your ECT podcast you mentioned
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: anti psychiatry with regards to the resistance of e c T.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Hope that one day you'll do a podcast about the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Consumer Survivor X patient movement c s X. It's one
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of the remaining civil rights movements in the country and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: around the world. Mind Freedom dot Org is a great
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: resource to start with. It was one of the first
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: CSX organizations and insistence and still going strong today. Robert
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Whittaker A journalist wrote Mad in America, where he describes
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: inventors of torture devices peddling their machines to various mental
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: institutions which held the belief that patients can be shocked
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: or tortured into sanity. Lobotomies were finally discontinued because storzine
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: was introduced as the new lobotomy to a pill that
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: metrosol injections and insulin shock were tortuous and highly feared
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: by patients who received them. Much of when what went
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: on in one flow of the Cuckoo's nest is still
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: true for today's modern institutions, including forced east. Nowadays, the
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: tortures are more subtle. I was on a drug personally
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: called Howdall that to this day I believe would make
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: an excellent torture drug. I was also literally blinded by
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: another drug called h mellaril, which was forced upon me
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: while in a hospital. My eyesight was restored many layers
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: many years later, thanks to Emory Eye Center here in Atlanta,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: but I was never warned about the possibile side effects
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of mellaril or given a choice to take it or not.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Today's modern medications routinely caused diabetes and rapid weight gain,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: as well as dependence in early death. When people try
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: to discontinue their use, their face with symptoms far worse
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: than symptoms for which they were originally treated. In fact,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: many school shooters were either on one of these drugs
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: or drawing from them. When you do the research, I
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: was a patient in the mental health system for twenty
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: plus years and now I operate an alternative to traditional
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: mental health services Indicator Georgia, which is near where I live.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Recovery is possible when you reclaim your power taken from
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you in psychiatry, and guys, I'm not anti psychiatry, but
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I am no longer blinded or threatened by the tactics
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: that they can sometimes use. I believe in civil rights
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: for people who have been diagnosed and labeled as mentally ill.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And please understand that anyone walking into a psychiatrist office
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: can effortlessly walk out with the label that will follow
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: them for the rest of their lives. Yeah, there's a
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: stigma totally. So I hope you will consider UH podcasting
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: on this powerful but often oppressed the civil rights movement.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I love I love the podcast on a lot, Thanks
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a lot Jamie have it is very interesting. I've not
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: heard of that before. Yeah, C S C SX movie.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I will definitely be checking it out to. That is
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a great listener mail where we're told about something we've
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: never heard of before in our entire lives but find
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: intensely interesting. That's a good one, thanks, Jamie. Um. If
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you oh yeah, I forgot Um. If you have a
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: national hero in your country and you're not in the US,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: like myth and legend in truth all wrapped up sort
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of like Davy profit right, UM, we want to know
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: who that is and know a little bit about him
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: if you're in the US or her. Oh yeah, good one,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: chuck UM. If you're in the US, you can still
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: have an opportunity to write and tell us something that
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: we don't know about that's intensely interesting. There's your homework,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: everybody to work. Uh. You can tweet to us at
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast on Twitter. I should say,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I don't want to presume everybody knows what tweeting is. UM.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: On Facebook dot com, you can join us at stuff
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you should know, that's our page name. You can send
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com,
• 35:06
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• 35:09
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• 35:19
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• 35:22
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• 35:31
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