Crockett’s death: What do YOU think?

This is the classic image of David Crockett fighting to the death at the Alamo.

I admit it. I’m “eat up” with David Crockett.

Since researching the five or so years that Crockett lived in the Belvidere area of Franklin County, Tenn., for a July, 2011, Cooperator story, I have become fascinated and — oddly enough — emotionally invested in both the American myth and historical record of Crockett.

Like most guys in my 40s-50s age group, I grew up with the Hollywood image of Crockett, via actor Fess Parker, firmly branded upon my brain. Although the 1955 Disney movie “Davy Crockett” predated me by a decade, Parker’s portrayal of Crockett — and later Daniel Boone — essentially merged the two historical frontiersmen into one coonskin-cap-wearing, axe-throwing, Indian-fighting superhero for the next 20 years. All us boys were Crockett and Boone devotees.

I begged for an axe for my ninth birthday, but didn’t get it.

As an adult, I was aware that Crockett was a real man, was from Tennessee, and died at the Alamo, but, until I began digging a little, that was about it.

I’ve since learned that David Crockett was born in the Limestone community of (what is now) Greene County, Tenn., in 1786, moved to Franklin County around 1812, and became involved in the Creek War in Alabama for a few years before returning home to the Belvidere homestead he called “Kentuck.” He later moved to Lawrence County, where he was twice elected to the U.S. House of Representatives but was defeated in his bid for a third term, and subsequently headed off to Texas and a historic death at the Alamo.

After reading and watching every book, movie, article, and documentary I’ve been able to get my hands on over the last several months, and absorbing the opinions and theories of several historians and writers, I’ve reached a few conclusions of my own.

The first is, I’m proud of David Crockett, and Tennesseans should be, too.

Although I’m extremely proud of my North Carolina heritage, I’ve lived in Tennessee for more than 20 years and readily identify myself as a Tennessean. Those of us who appreciate our “Volunteer” nickname should take note that while Tennessee’s participation in Andrew Jackson’s Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 initiated our reputation as hard-fighting, dedicated volunteers, Crockett and his handful of Tennesseans who died for Texan independence cemented it. Walk around San Antonio for a few days like I did during a conference last year, and you’ll see plenty of evidence that Texans view Crockett as a god of sorts. His name and image are visible everywhere.

Is this adoration justified? I believe so.

As should be expected, there are differing opinions as to Crockett’s purpose for going to Texas. Was it really to defend a burgeoning republic? Or did he go there for less altruistic reasons, only to find himself stuck in desperate circumstances from which there was no escape? Regardless of his original motives, history shows that Crockett was there willingly, and had opportunities to leave after the situation became dire, but chose to remain.

And then, there’s the question — and controversy — over how he actually died.

In 1955, a diary written by one of Mexican Gen. Santa Anna’s colonels — Jose Enrique de la Pena — was discovered and published in Spanish. Twenty years later, Texas A&M University published an English translation and created a firestorm of debate.

It suggested that Crockett survived the battle, was captured, and unceremoniously executed.

While the diary appears authentic, it is an extremely controversial and polarizing document. Many historians still subscribe to and vehemently promote the classic image of Crockett fighting until he was overcome, because no less than three documented eyewitnesses claim to have seen his lifeless body surrounded by “heaps of enemy slain” at the conclusion of the battle, one Mexican regular with the Tennessean’s knife embedded in his chest.

The evidence is compelling for both theories, but having been raised in the northwest North Carolina mountains, only a couple of hours from where Crockett was born, I have some personal knowledge of the tendencies of mountain people. When I was a kid, we had an expression about some of the rougher folks that lived up in the “hollers.”

“You don’t cross them,” we’d say. “They’ll cut you!”

Based on what I’ve read about Crockett’s upbringing and formidable years, my guess is that he would’ve “cut you,” too. He was raised hard, left home at 13, and was an expert hunter before he was 20. By his 30th birthday, he was no stranger to death, having lost his beloved first wife, Polly, to (possibly) scurvy at only 27, fought in the Creek War in 1813 and ’14, and, by his own admission, had been involved in some pretty gruesome wartime activity.

Call me an idealist, but in the context of a desperate battle at the Alamo, I don’t see surrender as a component of Crockett’s character, even if he had been polished up a bit by his two-term tenure as a congressman. Whether he was fighting for Texas, his fellow volunteers, his own survival, or just out of sheer mountain meanness, I believe he went down swinging.

We’ll never know for sure. But we do know that his life and death inspired many Americans — not just those who live in states that start with “T” — to become even tougher, more imaginative, and more patriotic. And for those reasons, even if the real David might not have lived up to “Davy’s” hype, Tennesseans should be proud to call Crockett their native son.