The readings for our group are:

Owlspace:
“Miguel Antonio Otero II, Billy the Kid’s Body, and the Fight for New Mexican Manhood” by John-Michael Rivera (2000)
“History of Billy the Kid” by Charles Siringo (1920)
Las Vegas Newspaper accounts of Billy the Kid’s jailbreak and death (from 1881)
“Inventing Billy the Kid” by Stephen Tatum (1982)

As well as these two articles online:
“Was Billy the Kid a superhero–or a superscoundrel?” by Jake Paige
“Billy the Kid Country” by Robert Utley

Here are some questions to consider:

1. In the time since his death, Billy the Kid has been portrayed all over the moral spectrum. What allows us to change our perceptions of good and bad like this? What events in Billy’s life helped make him so morally ambiguous?

2. Tatum states in his book that Billy the Kid filled a need in society every time his story became popular, sometimes filling more than one at once. How does the process of filling needs change his story? What needs would he fill today? What needs do we even have today?

3. Looking at the newspaper articles from 1881 and the book from 1920, both describing the same events, can you see a shift in the way Billy the Kid is portrayed? If you do, what does this tell us about these two different time periods?

4. Tatum argues that interpreters of the past are often engaged in a fruitless and ultimately useless quest to transmit the truth of a figure to the people of the present. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

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.

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.

This past week, like promised I did some more extensive research on Henry Ford. Previously there was not much about Ford that I knew about. My dad works for GMC so I did know they are rival companies. I did, however, find some pretty interesting facts about Ford that I didn’t know before. One of the facts that I did vaguely remeber before I started researching him more is that he is responsible for the assembly line and mass production. Also, that he was credited with mass production of inexpensive goods with high wages for workers.

Some things that I didn’t realize about Ford was how big his impact was on dealerships in the country and on other continents. I also didn’t realize that Ford worked so closely with Thomas Edison. I think I had a little knowledge of Ford and Edison having some sort of connection but I did not realize that Edison was the person who approved of Ford’s automobile experimentation. Also, I don’t believe that I was very aware of how in power Ford needed to be. Even after he turned his presidency over to his son, he still had final decision authority and overturned some of his son’s  decisions. He tricked the stockholders into selling their shares so that the buisiness could stay in the family. Also, Ford was responsible for raising the wages. After Ford raised the wages, other companies were forced to raise their wages since they were losing some of their best workers. It also benefited Ford because it saved him money with training, and the employees were also able to afford the cars they were helping to produce.

Since I have did my research on all three legendary Americans, I can honestly say that I am more interested in Billy the Kid than I am in any of the others. What draws me more to Billy the Kid is the fact that there are more legends about him than there are facts about him. I know for some people that would really bother them, but it’s actually more enjoyable for me. I know, for me at least, that I would be more interested in learning more about him and the myths and I think that the myths about him would stem more questions. Al Capone and  Henry Ford seemed not to have many legends behind them. If they did, I did not reach a point in  my research where I could find them. After Billy the Kid I would be interested  in Al Capone because I feel that Henry Ford is more of a well known person and it would be more beneficial to learn about somebody that we are less familiar with.

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