The Robber Barons

Billy the Kid Reflection

December 14th, 2011 by Eric

For a long time, historians have concerned themselves with separating fact from fiction. In the case of mythical figures, however, the claim to have discovered the “truth” about one of them is a little preposterous. As Stephen Tatum points out in his book, it would be better to take all the interpretations of the figure and, instead of discarding those that seem unlikely, analyze them all to discover the historical context of the time periods that believed them. Billy the Kid is one such legendary figure, as the record of his life is filled with question marks and blanks. The facts of Billy the Kid’s life story are hazy, and to some extent, we can never know for sure what is true, so, beyond rudimentary information gathering, time would better be spent analyzing the how and the why of the myth.

Legendary Americans, by their nature, have lives that are difficult to pin down. Various facts about their lives can be determined to be probably true, and certain stories can be interpreted as almost certainly not true, but there is no way of knowing for sure. This ambiguity holds true for other historical figures as well, but the degree of certainty historians can attain for a figure like George H. W. Bush is well beyond that of someone like Billy the Kid.

The definition of the Kid depends on the reliability of the sources used. A combination of solid source materials can lead historians to approach the so called ‘real’ Billy the Kid, but they will never be able to actually discover him. After a while, the search for the truth yields diminishing returns, and historians will have come as close as they are ever going to get to knowing who Billy the Kid was in his own time. Even the sources from the period, such as the newspaper accounts of his crimes, are suspect, and the “official” book that Pat Garrett authorized was so sensationalized that it “ensured the Kid’s life after death in legend” (Tatum 184). Despite the uncertainty created by this, however, historians can establish certain events of the Kid’s life as true. The Kid’s death, for instance, took place in Fort Sumner in Pete Maxwell’s house (Utley). The fringe movement that supports the theory that he lived in hiding until 1937 is holding on to false hopes, but their tenacious grasp gives some insight into the time period they come from (Paige). Ironically, deaths usually cause the most controversy in legendary figures, but Billy the Kid’s is rather clear cut compared to the rest of his life, particularly his alleged crimes.

Billy the Kid’s murder count is an example of a fact that is difficult to pinpoint and almost certainly not worth the effort. The colloquial legend is that the Kid killed a man for every year of his life, for a grand total of 21 men (Paige). This number varies, depending on who is doing the telling, from 4 to 40 (Paige). Looking at it objectively, however, the exact number seems unnecessary. Reliable sources tell us that Billy the Kid killed at least one man, and general historical consensus says that he had almost no effect on the state of New Mexico in terms of politics, so what difference does it make whether he killed 4, 14, or 40 men? We would be better off determining what effects the legend of the Kid had, since we can actually see the legend as it currently exists.

Scholars must be careful, as Tatum points out, not to make the same mistakes with the legend that they made with the Kid’s life. The legend by itself is no more useful that the number of men the Kid killed. It needs to be analyzed in a historical context to yield anything worth knowing, and to achieve an even more complete picture, the analyzer ought to include his own study in the equation (Tatum 180). As he says, “the interpreter of the Kid is not subservient to any data, but is rather a participant in the creation of his evidence” (176). Historians often count themselves as objective observers, as people who peruse the record and assemble a credible narrative from their findings. Tatum says that while they do this, they are in fact creating more history, since future historians will look back and analyze their actions, and they should take this into account.

Some opponents might say that facts are the basis of history, and to downplay them would undermine historical scholarship itself. This is true, to some extent, since a complete disregard for facts would lead to everyone floating in the middle of conjecture-land. At the same time, however, too much focus on hard details leads to drifting in the same place. What makes some historians sure that 4 is the proper number of killings to credit the Kid with? The conjecture that the recorded murders were the only ones the Kid committed. They cannot prove this, however, considering the events took place over one hundred years ago, and this guesswork adds nothing of interest to the conversation about the Kid. Therefore, it seems more useful to learn the rudimentary facts and spend time on more tangible things, such as his legend.

This legend remains, but the facts have long since evaporated. What’s left is only the interpretation of fact; the search for the real Billy the Kid is a fruitless struggle to discover the truth behind a legend that ultimately falls short of its goal. The pursuit of separating fact from fiction, while interesting, misses the larger issue of determining why certain time periods accept one version of events over others. So, to answer the question of what is true about Legendary Americans versus what is false, it isn’t really clear. Some things appear more factual than others, and some so much so that they should be taken as truth, but to distinguish between myth and reality ignores the fact that the two are intertwined, and the effort to shuck the myth from the history silences all those who believed the legend. Once we move on from such endeavors, we can finally begin to learn from our past.

Sources:

Page, Jake. “Was Billy the Kid a Superhero–or a Superscoundrel?” Smithsonian Feb. 1991: 137-49. Link.

Tatum, Stephen. Inventing Billy the Kid. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1982. Print.

Utley, Robert. “Billy the Kid Country.” American Heritage 42.2 (1991): 65-72. Link.

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Legends and Time

December 6th, 2011 by Charli

Most of the time when we think of someone who is legendary, we can also assume that the reasons for them being legendary are more so because of the legends than because of the facts. This could have part to do with us not knowing many solid facts about that person, or it could be that we are taking advantage of that person by imposing our own needs onto them. If you look closely into the stories of the legends you can find that the stories change from time period to time period and if you look even closer, you can find that the struggles and dreams of that time period are imposed onto that legendary person’s personality.

Billy the Kid is a perfect example of this. It’s true that there were other outlaws at the same time as Billy. Some of them may have even fit a better definition as an outlaw than Billy the Kid did. Or maybe there was someone who did more dangerous things or took more of a leadership role. Even if there was somebody who could fit all the criteria above, the fact still stands that we naturally have a tendency to project our wants and our needs onto someone or something. And who better to change than someone as malleable as Billy the Kid: someone that we really don’t know too much about, someone whose boundaries are so blurry that you can’t help but to cross them, someone we can demonize or angelize to help fit our own personal taste.

According to Robert M. Utley, “In the history of the American West he [Billy the Kid] rates scarcely a footnote” (Billy the Kid Country). This again points out the fact that Billy is more of a “tabula rasa” that is used for each generation’s ideals, frustrations, and wishes (Utley). Billy was a hero during the Lincoln County War and even showed some leadership skills, even though that’s not what we know him for, but afterwards, he just fell back into a position of normal teenage rebelliousness. During the last six months of his life, newspapers created a tall tale of him, which laid the foundation for the Billy the Kid that we know today. So if this is the only part of his life that we ever really focus on, then why is that we say Billy has killed one man for each year that he lived? Or why do we constantly find ourselves debating about whether Billy was a good kid who got caught up due to bad circumstances or rather he just started off a rotten tomato? What is it that made Billy “a tragic hero, a romantic hero, an antihero, a juvenile delinquent, a brilliant marksman, a terrible shot, a practiced dancer, a lady’s man, a slob, a short-tempered rube, left-handed, right-handed” (Page)? The answer is us. The reason Billy has been a devil reincarnation, a poor unfortunate soul, and everything in between is because we needed somebody to fill all those roles. Maybe there is somebody who could be better than Billy at being a evil villain with no feelings or being someone innocent who just got caught in the cross fire, and maybe they have some hard proven evidence of why there are perceived that way, but that person would be historical, not legendary. A strictly historical person doesn’t change when we need them to. If they were a villain during the Victorian times, they’re still going to be a villain during the Depression times. It takes someone we don’t have many facts about, like Billy the Kid for instance, to be legendary. We don’t know how many men he killed for sure so if we want him to be evil during the Victorian times, it’s okay for him to kill 40 men without thinking twice about it. And if we want him to be the good martyr during the Depression era, it’s okay for him to kill only four men because he was seeking justice. After all, there’s nothing that can actually tell us that we’re wrong.

If we look back at Billy during some of these time periods, we can easily tell what was happening in our society. During the 1930s, Billy was a mature young man who was seen as good. He was just dealt the wrong hand by life. But in the end, he was given a chance to get away and start a new life. During this time we were also going through the Great Depression. A time when everybody was struggling and desperately needed something to help them believe that there was such a thing as a happy ending. So why is it that the same exact movie, Billy the Kid, was made in the 1940s with a more sinister Billy? This Billy seeks revenge and meets death with a smile on his face. During the 1940s, we were engaged in World War II and we were a generated so fascinated with wars that most of the great movies that were mane during that time were about wars. In the 1950s, we got The Left-Handed Gun, where Billy was young, wild, careless, and practically crazy. The 1950s is a time when we start getting ready for the next generation. Music like rock-n-roll and jazz come out. Music that, in essence, crossed socially accepted borders. Music that made it okay to talk about wild things, at least what was considered wild in those days, like relationships, sex, emotions, and racial equality.

We have also brought Billy back in the last few years. Brushy Bill Roberts came forth in 1949 and said that he was the real Billy the Kid and it was somebody else who was buried in his place. Although this took place closer to the 1940s and 1950s, it never really left us. It was requested to dig up the remains of Billy the Kid and his mother in 2004 to prove that the real Billy the Kid was in fact shot. We still concentrate on the fact that Brushy could possibly be Billy with movies like Young Guns II and television shows like Unsolved Mysteries. So what does this say about our generation? It could be that our generation is obsessed with the truth since we are always trying to separate myth from fact. It could also be that our generation loves scandals. After all we do thrive on shows like Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives and Gossip Girl and any other television show that is full of drama and scandals. We may not know what it is, but I’m sure the next generation will be able to tell us.

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Reading Questions

November 26th, 2011 by Eric

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?

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Roosevelt and race

November 23rd, 2011 by Charli

I think racism does was a large part of the reason why Roosevelt dishonorably discharged the black soldiers in the Brownsville incident. Roosevelt said he believed that blacks could gradually become socially equal with whites, but he felt like this would take several years and that they shouldn’t be given equality right away. He felt like it took whites thousands of years to change from savagery to being able to take care of themselves. In his mind, blacks were still in the savagery stage and they wouldn’t be able to change to civilized over night. He assigned some blacks to political offices because he believed that some of them were able to handle those positions, but he felt that blacks as a general whole was not ready for that type of responsibility. He felt that a race had to grow to be “fit” to govern themselves. According to him, “Such fitness is not a God-given natural right, but comes to a race only through the slow growth of centuries, and then only to those races which posses an immense reserve fund of strength, common sense, and morality” (Idea 97). He also had some racial reserves when it came to the military. He thought that there was a distinct difference in race when it came to fighting also. He felt like black soldiers fight well, but their color should be taken into account whenever there’s fighting for an extended period of time. He felt like blacks were too dependent on the whites and would not be able to become leaders themselves. He said that whites remained cool while the fighting was going on, but the blacks panicked and ran to the back of the line to protect themselves. He felt that this superstitious behavior and panic was due to their recent removal from savagery. When the threat of losing black votes was brought up due to this accusation, Roosevelt re-evaluated his public statement and said that it was a white captain’s fault that he thought that. He also said that he wouldn’t say anything against black soldiers, but there’s no proof that he changed his views privately. Although he did believe in the possibility of blacks becoming equal to whites, he still showed some racism against how he viewed blacks at that time.

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Jackson: Not Quite King, But Certainly Trying

November 23rd, 2011 by Eric

Though Andrew Jackson was viewed as both a man of the people and “King Andrew,” it seems that he was a man who took mandates from the people and enacted them with his authoritative ruling style and aggressive political behavior, much like a king might.

Looking at his response to crises such as the nullification situation, it seems as though Jackson knew what he wanted and would do anything necessary to achieve those goals. When South Carolina threatened to cancel the tariffs he was imposing, he swiftly let them know his displeasure and even ordered weapons to the state, in case he needed to fight the decision with force (Curtis 148). He attempted to solve the problem within the constraints of the American government through the several speeches, but he made it clear that he had no aversion to violence by introducing the Force Bill (Curtis 151). To be fair, he went through all this military posturing because he felt compelled to protect the interests of the majority, but it still displays his tendency to react harshly and perhaps even outside his jurisdiction to maintain his beliefs.

He did not care much what others thought of his actions, especially those inside his own party. Apparently, in pursuing his goals, he often neglected the wants of his own party and did not compromise as much as they would have liked (Wiley 204). This behavior indicates a tendency to rule rather than govern. Ruling indicates that there was not much room for argument or convincing, while governing suggests that he took all the side into consideration and tried to appease them all. Then there was the fact of the Indian removal. Whatever the prevailing opinions of the day, a true man of the people wouldn’t displace entire populations from their homelands. This is just another example of Jackson’s preoccupation with “majority rule,” something well established in the Constitution but imperfect in the world of public policy.

In a sense, Jackson was a man who took orders from the people and the Constitution, and then he enacted them without regard for dissent. Wiley notes that his critics said both grudgingly and critically, that “Jackson conquers everything” (206). Such a fierce spirit could have been dangerous in the White House, and indeed some say that his presidency was a complete mess, but in the end Jackson fought for the majority through whatever means necessary.

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Billy and Society

November 16th, 2011 by Charli

One of the questions that we want to focus on with Billy the Kid, and that we have focused on with other Legendary Americans, is the societal needs that Billy fit.

As I’ve did some research on Billy, I’ve noticed that there’s not many facts that are known about Billy and that all sources agree on. Last weekend, I found two articles that talk about how Billy’s image has been changed throughout the years in order to fit the needs of the people of those times. After reading those articles, I kind of did a little review of the materials that I had already found to see how Billy was portrayed during those times and why he was portrayed that way and what need did he need to fill for the society of the time. One of the biggest things that stick out the most in my mind is the difference of Billy, the character, in Billy the Kid and
The Left Handed Gun. I remember in one article that I read, it talked about how Billy was seen in the time that he was living. He seemed to be more well liked by the people who were around him, who weren’t outlaws. Some of the people felt that he was a scapegoat of The Lincoln County Wars and that was the reason he had to die. And it seemed as if the people didn’t side for the outlaws or for the law, because neither one of them were really the “good” people. This made a lot of since about why Billy was portrayed the way he was in Billy the Kid. In this movie, he seemed to be more of a good guy and more responsible. Even in the end Pat Garrett, who was part of the law and suppose to be against Billy, let him go instead of trying to shoot him.

By the time The Left Handed Gun came along, Billy wasn’t still seen in this innocent way and it really shows. He seems to be more reckless and childish and unstable. They show him as more of an outlaw whenever he decides that he is going to seek revenge. He is loved by the people of Mexico, but the people of New Mexico aren’t very big fans of him. There’s still a little pity for him because it shows that he only killed 4 people. And when he is shot by Pat Garrett while Billy is unarmed so he doesn’t seem too bad.

Today, Billy is seen as more of a murderer than an outlaw or a “good” guy. Today he is known as killing over 2o men and being more of a nuisance to his society and there’s not much pity felt about him dying or how he died.

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Ideas for questions

November 16th, 2011 by Eric

This week I thought I’d throw out some ideas for questions.

1. Billy the Kid filled a need in society every time his story became popular, sometimes filling more than one at once. What needs would he fill today? What needs do we even have today?

This question deals with our intended theme of needs in society. Along with looking at the history of Billy the Kid, it approaches the idea of legendaryness in modern times. Some of the needs I think we have in society are the need to stay powerful in a changing global climate and the need to reaffirm our identity after 9/11. I could see the Kid’s relationship with the Mexicans coming into play, but other than that I’m not sure how useful the Kid is in the present. Thinking about these needs might help the class pick out which figures are in the process of being canonized today, and why. We could also use it to transition to the question of whether we need legendary figures.

2. The Kid plays a role as an archive of the social needs of the past. How else might we have learned this information? What else causes him to be relevant to generation after generation?

This one looks to answer two of the goals in the class, which were “what can we learn by studying legendary Americans?” and “do we need to study legendary Americans?” We can learn information propagation techniques and social values as well the needs we discussed before. As for the second of those two questions, I think we need to study them in a manner that doesn’t continue the myths. They provide a very easy window into the past, allowing historians to find the proper context to interpret events through. However, if we eliminate them like a lot of the class wants to do, how will future historians get this information?

3. As his story evolved over time, Billy the Kid has oscillated between good and bad. How is this possible? What defines and what causes these shifts?

This question is designed to address the social construct of what we call good and evil. The shifts are possible because of changing social customs: we might even be able to draw some parallels back to The Honor Code. People’s views at the present define whether or not there was ever a “shift”. A society that views him as good will see a shift from bad to good around the 1930s. A society that sees him as bad will see a shift at the same time, but swinging the other way.

These could use a little more development, but I think they’re a good start.

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Tell it Like it Is/Was

November 16th, 2011 by Eric

As a nation, America has developed to the point where debunking legendary figures will not cause any real damage, and doing so would help the country prepare for the future.

Knocking myths off of their perches would cause some outrage at first, but there are not serious consequences to it. The motivations of Parson Weems’ storytelling are obsolete: America no longer needs myths to hold itself together; it has gained enough real history over time. The other cost would be depriving children of role models. The fear it, as Bruce Cole put it, “unless we have them, we don’t have anything” (Wineburg 2). The country’s colorful past, however, has provided other, factual characters to take the place of the myths that guided children in the past. Helen Keller, as Loewen argues, is many more times remarkable than people recognize, for her true achievements have been left out of the retelling of her story (10). Not only is she representative of perseverance and determination, but she also campaigned for her beliefs in an era when they were wildly unpopular. Teachers and authors can fill the void of role models without resorting to “heroification” by describing the remarkable aspects of a figure along with their shortcomings, and in the process they can explain the importance of perspective on history.

Moving away from legendary figures has several benefits, such as liberating the country from the constraints of long dead people and creating a more balanced outlook on the world in our youth. Propagating one-sided, continuously positive messages about American history and American heroes only handicaps students into later viewing the world in black and white. In reality, there will never be someone as infallible, wise, and virtuous as the mythical George Washington, and it is not really healthy for kids to think there is. As it is now, there is tremendous resistance to alter anything he or the rest of the Founding Fathers created, despite him being dead for several hundred years. Also, dismantling the canon of legendary figures would allow for more diverse heroes than we have now. As Frisch found in his unofficial study, people of all ages have a depressingly narrow set of famous people from before the Civil War, limited almost entirely to a set of twenty or so politicians and military figures (1138). By seeing fame as more than resulting from just political accomplishments, a wider variety of youth could find inspiration in their heroes.

With that said, history teachers should not be in charge of continuing legends in the classroom. They have the unique opportunity to teach the truth about the past, so it is important that they take advantage of it. By presenting a sterilized view of American history, teachers create students with unrealistic expectations of the country and of the world. They “keep students in intellectual immaturity” (Loewen 25). As a kid, I could remember wondering where the Roosevelts and the Edisons were today, great men with many successes and few mistakes did not seem to exist. All in all, dropping our unrealistic notions of what a person should be might encourage people to take a realistic approach to solving the problems at hand, leading to faster, more workable solutions.

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Heroification

November 15th, 2011 by Charli

I do believe that “heroification” in American History textbooks is a problem. I think the two examples that James Loewen gives of Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson are perfect examples of how some things about our legendary Americans are silenced. I know that the only thing I ever heard about Helen Keller, whether it was the things she went through or her quotes, were from her childhood. I honestly thought that she died at an early age since I never really heard of anything from her older years. Reading this article is the first time that I have hear of Helen Keller living til 1968.

As far as Woodrow Wilson goes, the only thing I could really remember about him was that he was one of the presidents. I’m not saying that he was a boring president, but it seemed like he kind of blended with the other ones. Some stood out cause of things they did or things that happened to them while they were the president like Nixon and the Watergate Scandal, JFK’s assassination, Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, William Howard Taft getting stuck in the tub, Bill Clinton and his alleged affair, etc. I don’t remember ever reading about his racial segregation of the government and the military interventions in different countries. Wilson would be much more memorable if textbooks actually talked about those points in the higher grades without trying to shift the blame to someone else other than Wilson.

I think it’s important that if we are going to think of somebody as a legendary American, than we should know everything there is to know about them, even the bad things or the things we find socially incorrect. I don’t think it needs to be introduced right away, but it should be gradually introduced. I think middle school would probably be the appropriate time to start administering the truth to students. That way the students won’t be so young to need “protection” but gradually introducing them to these things would be more realistic then having most of the people seem perfect.

Another point that Loewen brings up is that the people that we study in the history books aren’t looked to as role models. I know many kids who look up to popular stars of today that have their mistakes and indecent behaviors posted all over magazines and the TV. I have not heard of many kids today whose role models are people that they have studied in their history books, the perfect American icons. Showing the mistakes of people from the past that we still consider legends today will make them seem more realistic and easier to relate to and make learning about them more interesting.

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Billy’s Death

November 9th, 2011 by Charli

One of the most changed facts that I have found about Billy is the way that he died. Some articles say that Billy was shot in his sleep by Garrett. Some say that he was shot in a draw. Some accounts say that Garrett shot Billy in the back because he didn’t have the nerve to shoot him face to face. Some people claim that Billy isn’t actually dead and that they are Billy the Kid. In The Left Handed Gun, Billy was shot by Garrett when he pretended to draw, but didn’t have a gun. In Billy the Kid, Billy wasn’t even shot. Garrett pretended that Billy escaped and there was no possibility of him being caught. In Pat Garrett’s account, him shooting Billy seemed more like a self defense measure . http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/billythekid.htm. Garrett shot Billy after Billy raised his pistol to Garrett’s chest. A fact that just recently came up is that murder charges were brought up against Garrett for shooting Billy. http://www.badhombres.com/outlaws/billy-the-kid.htm .

One man, “Brushy Billy” Roberts, a man from Texas, claimed that he is Billy the Kid. http://crisrodrigues.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Billy-The-Kid-Really-Dead. A lawyer named William Morrison was told by one of his clients that Billy wasn’t actually dead. The client said that he fought against Billy in the Lincoln County Wars and Billy the Kid was now living by the name “Brushy Billy”. Morrison was interested in this claim so he talked to some of the other people and found that most of them believed that Billy wasn’t dead. Morrison finally sought out Brushy to figure out if the claim about him being Billy the Kid was true. Brushy told Morrison that it was true and asked him to help get a pardon from New Mexico’s governor that he was promised back in 1879. Brushy showed Morrison scars that were the same as the ones Billy the Kid obtained while he was an outlaw and took him on haunts of Billy’s in Lincoln County to prove that he was actually Billy the Kid. According to Brushy, Billy was shot in the head and shoulder and passed out from the pain. When he came to, Billy’s girlfriend informed him that Billy Barrow, his partner, was killed and would be buried in Billy the Kid’s place. There is some belief that Pat Garrett knew he killed the wrong man, but he went through great measures to keep it covered up. Brushy had a heart attack and died shortly after his pardon was denied.

There are many stories surrounding Billy’s death which brings up the question why does the way Billy died matter and if Brushy really was Billy, than how does that change what we have thought about Billy’s history so far?