Heritage Month Day Two: Davy Crocket

Happy Davy Crockett Day!

For day two of Heritage History month, we’re heading back to early America and the world of America’s folk heroes.

In our highly technified world, which caters to mindless consumption and pacified boredom, it is always a good time to be inspired by the great frontiersman Davy Crockett.

Crockett’s political and cultural demeanor is profoundly American in that there was always a tension between his commitment to the well being of his people and place (and therefore his role in politics) and his deeply ingrained spirit of freedom to explore and conquer the frontier.

Crockett represents that moment in American history where the continent seemed so vast and disordered—full of adventure and escapades, a theater on which man could glory in what Teddy Roosevelt would call the “Strenuous Life.” He earned well his designation as the King of the Wild Frontier.

Crockett’s sociopolitical instincts were lodged deeply in the frontier that he loved. He had a realistic understanding of the natives—recognizing them to be savages, murderous, and unpredictable at times, yet tamable and capable of being dealt with peaceably—recognizing that the attitudes of the tribes varied even between themselves and perceived threats. He is well known to have had an uneasy relationship with the bureaucratic political exploits of Washington, preferring instead the wild, the untamed, the uncultivated. He was often ready for a good battle or so, but easily bored at the thought of playing soldier when there was no fighting to do, and an entire country to explore.

Famously, he would rather go hunt wild game for his fellow troops than march around in rehearsal formations.

He thought it ridiculous that the political elite in Washington would often vote for random expenditures which functioned to appropriate money from the everyday taxpayer and pass it on to some politically chosen beneficiary. Hence his well-renown “Not Yours to Give” speech.

This “buck the regime” attitude was also on display when he sought re-election to Congress in 1835. Strongly opposed by Andrew Jackson, he informed his constituents in a campaign speech that he hoped they would trust him to represent them well. But if they wouldn’t, they could go to hell and he would go to Texas.

And go to Texas he did. Always eager to adventure, Crockett would ride in to the Texas Revolution with a band of militia volunteers where he would fight for the independence of Texas from Mexico—then in a quest of centralization out of fear of United States expansion. He would die at the Alamo, doing what he loved: adventuring.

Davy Crockett is an American hero because the tales told about his life reminded people that living was not the condition of being alive, but rather was more truly about engaging the world and discovering your destiny. He did so on the scene of the American frontier, which was the context into which he was born and he made the most of it; choosing to be a man of action and deed rather than going along with the crowd—whether in power or out of power.

Happy Davy Crockett Day of this fine Heritage History month!