Oftentimes characters in history achieve fame through their actions, or through the deliberate attempts of others. It is a mixture of both of these cases which brought fame to George Washington, because he was not only an excellent military commander and statesman, but he also had the help of men like Mason Locke Weems to spread a “gospel” in praise of him.

But for Billy the Kid the history works out differently. There are clear examples of how his fame increased without intention. One of these is seen in the story of William Sydney Porter under the pseudonym O. Henry. He wrote “The Cabellero’s Way” about a character named Cisco Kid. This story is contained within a larger collection of works regarding the Kid by Harold Dellinger, which is the book I acquired from the library and my source. In Dellinger’s introduction to the O. Henry story, he points out how the author was “no doubt affected by early stage productions about Billy the Kid”. So O. Henry created a character who was inspired by Billy the Kid. In the process of fiction, there is not a need to stick to the facts. So O. Henry could freely and without guilt do everything in his power to make an amazing character. The only trick is for the facts about the fiction to somehow seep back into the lore about the actual person. If this can happen, then legends can be made.

First it would be good to talk about some of the descriptions contained in the story (my page references will be to the Dellinger source which contains within it the O. Henry story). O. Henry begins by talking of the killings of kid, finishing his introductory paragraph by saying “therefore a woman loved him” (58). Fascinatingly, this establishes a mood connecting murder and love. It gives a Hollywood style glow to the reckless outlaw by attaching his image to romance. This theme of love continues, as O. Henry gives the following description of his Cisco Kid: “He knew but one tune and sang it, as he knew but one code and lived it, and but one girl and loved her” (64). This again is the stuff of romance. I especially like the sharpness of vision. A classic model of the hero is someone who can entirely fix his mind on a goal and block out everything else. In this sense the Cisco Kid becomes a man of fierce will both in love and in battle.

In addition to a sharp focus, O. Henry’s character is also simply good at what he does in love. “He was muy caballero, as the Mexicans express it, where the ladies are concerned” (68). So the killer is charming! I think that this contrast is another big part of the myth-making. A person emotionally unstable enough to murder is able to charm. And the same person who so callously ends life can put such an emormous value on the life of just one person, the woman he loves.

In a way, O. Henry created this character, this mixture of violence, quickness, short-temper and love. I argue that not only was this character inspired by Billy the Kid, but the character also gave back to the mythology about the real man. Being legendary is less about the actual facts than about a mythic aura. And so if a similar character (fictional or not) has such an aura, it can alter the way that the general public perceives a person, shifting from ordinary man to hero.

Dellinger, Harold. Billy the Kid: The Best Writings on the Infamous Outlaw. 1. Guilford, CT: Morris Book Publishing, 2009. 58-68. Print.

One thing that makes me prefer the interpretation of Crisp regarding Anglo racism is his strong defense of moderation: that race and racism should not be seen as “immutable ‘givens’ in any historical situation” (41). I think that is definitely true. It is economic and political differences that give rise to racism in the first place (i.e. the plantation economy created transatlantic slavery which then created the racism to justify it).  Crisp agrees with this interpretation, arguing that racism was more a “consequence” than a “cause” of the Texas rebellion (41). So racism might have added to a conflict, but race itself is subordinate to more intense political and economic considerations. Hence, racism is not a “core explanation for the Texas Revolution.

But Sam Houston’s words seem so intense. How could it be possible that racism were not an enormous force in the Texas Revolution if Houston were using a terribly racist speech to persuade his volunteer army not to attack south (27-28)? Houston certainly intended his words to have a military impact, by keeping his men in an ordered and reasonable fashion. The fact that he suspected he could inspire his men with racism shows how much of it there must have been.

Under such an interpretation, it seems reasonable to think that the Texas Revolution was an entirely racist rebellion, and that it was simply intolerable for people of Anglo descent to be forced to live under “’half indians’” (38). But this could not be the case. So much of the lore involving the Texas Revolution involves a repitition of the battle for American Independence. Settlers in a new land were oppressed by a foreign tyranny and needed to fight for independence. One surely could not say that the American Revolution was fueled by racism. From this we see that a revolution is fully capable of occuring for non-racist reasons.

A final support for the idea that racist was not the core of the Mexican revolution involves Sam Houston’s protection of the Tejanos of San Antonio from the racism of the white invaders. In other places, “even Tejanos who had actively supported the Revolution” were subject to racist violence. The fact that Sam Houston sought to help them shows that he was not an intense racist (at least not of the most extreme sort). But the general violence shows the general racism present. Why the contrast between commander and commanded? My guess is in agreement with an idea of Crisp. I think that the war began for non-racist reasons, but once people needed their troops to fight visciously in battle, they created racist rhetoric to motive the troops. From this perspective, Houston’s racist speech does not show the racism that caused the war. Instead, it shows how racism can be utilized in times of strife for political and military gain.

Disney’s philosophy was quintessentially American. That is not to say that all Americans agreed with him, but rather that anyone hearing his philosophy would recognize the American influence. The belief in the power of the self-made man reaches deep into the history of the nation. Disney admired the power of the individual to help himself, and his belief was justified for him based on his own experience: Roberts and Olson describe Disney as “bumping out of Midwestern poverty” (Roberts and Olson 230). In a wonderfully revealing quote (not to mention surprising—could one imagine Mickey Mouse saying such a thing?), Disney proclaims:

“It’s the law of the universe that the strong shall survive and the weak must fall by the way, and I don’t give a damn what idealistic plan is cooked up, nothing can change that.” (233)

There it is, his philosophy laid bare. In short, it is a vigorous justification of capitalism, and the “idealistic plan” could be nothing other than the Cold War threat of communism. Perhaps a moment of passion spurred such a blunt declaration. After all, Disney was outraged at the unions who smeared his name. Indignant at the affront of labor against management, Disney believed that “the entire mess was communistically inspired and led” (234). So it seems that the union debacle intensified Disney’s original belief in the goodness of the individual. For Disney now, the individual was not only good, but almost sacred, and he must fight with all vigor to maintain his independence.

Roberts and Olson argue that a part of this transformation was the emergence of Donald Duck, who represented Disney’s frustration with bureaucracy and his affection for strong willed individuals who can independently take matters into their own hands. If this is the case, then we can see Disney’s Davy Crockett, supremely individual and American, as an extension of this trend.

But here we encounter a strange paradox, something that was always a bit of a confusion for American ideology: How can one support both the individual and the group simultaneously? It was a problem faced by the founding fathers when they emphasized personal liberties but also needed to maintain a stable government. The Cold Warriors faced the same dilemma: For them the individual triumphed over the group, yet at the same time it was necessary to stick together as Americans. Disney surely must have recognized that to some extent the individuals must act like a collective if they want to win. If this is true, then we can see a perfect reflection of Disney’s vision for America in his Davy Crockett. Not only is his Davy a hardworking, independent self-made man—he also decides to go to Texas, against the advice of Georgie, because there are “Americans in trouble” (242). The resolution of the conflict between individual and group—in short embracing them both and simply disregarding the logical gap—was likely necessary for America to win the Cold War. So Disney thought, and so thought his Crockett.

I’ve found a website discussing facts and myths regarding Billy the Kid. This is doubly fascinating, because not only can we uncover some of the real facts about the man (or maybe he should be called “boy”), but we can also learn of some of the untrue things that are thought about him. These untruths are not random. They do not come merely from failures in historiography, but rather are the product of what people wanted to believe about the Kid. An analysis of the misconceptions should give us some clues about why the Kid became a legend in the first place.

One interesting myth is the idea that Billy, at age twelve, killed his first man because the man insulted his mother. It is easy see how this idea came about: Around that time, Billy did flee as a result of a crime he committed. But the crime was simple shoplifting. Somewhere in the train of history, someone made a leap of logic to conclude that Billy fled his hometown to escape the consequences of a murder. It is true that somebody had to make an error, but it is too much of a coincidence that so many of the “errors” in the history of the Kid tend to increase, not decrease, his mythic aura. This particular error suggests that the Kid firstly had an extremely rash temper and secondly had an immense devotion to his mother, so much that he could not stand to see her insulted. These are both, in a way, mythic traits. From Homer’s Achilles to Shakespeare’s Romeo, we see the appeal of characters blinded by passion who pursue their goals in spite of the social norms that object. Billy killing the offender of his Mom makes a good story.

Sometimes negative traits can work to make a character legendary. Other myths surrounding the Kid involve his ugliness, his illiteracy, and his drunkenness. Unlike the story regarding the killing of the man who offended Billy’s mom, these ideas of the Kid are less grounded in fact: There was no evidence to suggest he drank heavily, and the letters that the Kid wrote in jail attest to his literacy. If any of the bad traits has some basis, it might be the ugliness, considering the only authentic picture of the Kid in an only moderately appealing ferrotype photograph. However, contemporaries of the Kid described him as being reasonably attractive.

Without basis in fact, why jump to the conclusion that the Kid was an ugly, illiterate, drunkard? I think the main reason is because these “facts” put the Kid into a narrative. I imagine the story of a courageous boy who loves his mother. Despite these admirable traits, his lack of attractiveness and education lead society to scorn him. What’s more, some bad luck leads him to exile, so he drinks to cope with the pain. The distortions of fact make the Kid into a tragic hero, which in turn makes him legendary.