David Crockett: The Lion of the West

by Michael Wallis

  Crockett found that in the halls of Congress a genial disposition and quick wit could get him only so far. His vast repertoire of frontier yarns served him well when on the campaign stump but did not have the same impact or import in Washington. He never learned how to compromise. His fiercely independent spirit and belief that he was obligated to vote his conscience even if it was contrary to his own party took a heavy toll.

  Crockett’s stubbornness even extended to his own political party, much to the annoyance of the Democratic leadership. To win the passage of his land bill, he needed all the help he could muster, especially from the rest of the Tennessee delegation and from the supporters of Andrew Jackson, poised to become the next president of the United States. Even before he publicly broke from the Jackson crowd, Crockett took issue with key Jackson supporters and anyone else unwilling to fully support squatters’ rights in the western lands. This stance put Crockett squarely at odds with the wealthy planters and land speculators who financially supported Jackson.8 When Crockett’s break with Jackson and the others became known in 1830, Congressman James K. Polk, later to become President Polk, sniffed: “I have no other feelings towards Col. Crockett than those of pity for his folly.”9

  Throughout 1828 and into 1829, however, Crockett tried to maintain a relationship with everyone he could in order to push his land legislation. That definitely still included Old Hickory, who finally defeated his nemesis John Quincy Adams in the bitterly contested presidential election of 1828 and was sworn into office the following March. Jackson’s campaign had positioned the often-arrogant Tennessean as a self-made man of the people and the first president to be born in a log cabin. Adams, on the other hand, was characterized as an aloof aristocrat who, much like his father, lacked the political savvy required to garner support for any of his pet programs.

  Although Crockett’s political life consumed much of his time and energy during this period, he also had issues to face back in Tennessee. He wrestled with a substantial debt, and also tried placating Elizabeth, who was tired of her husband’s continued inability to keep the family solvent. She blamed much of Crockett’s troubles on his penchant for drink, lack of any business sense, and failure to maintain any semblance of a spiritual life.

  While Crockett had to endure Elizabeth’s personal assaults at home, he also had to suffer an onslaught of scurrilous stories and fabrications about his character, concocted by political enemies who smelled blood. Finally, on November 25, 1828, about a week before Jackson’s victory at the polls, Crockett reached his breaking point and struck back. On that date, the National Banner and the Nashville Whig published an embarrassing description of Crockett’s crude behavior at a dinner hosted by President Adams almost a year earlier, on November 27, 1827, to welcome new members of Congress to the capital.10 The planted newspaper stories presented Crockett as a complete bumpkin who sipped from the finger bowls and accused a waiter of stealing his dinner when the man was simply clearing the table for the next course. “I then filled my plate with bacon and greens,” Crockett was alleged to have said. “And whenever I looked up or down the table, I held on to my plate with my left hand” so no one else would take it away.11

  President Adams’s meticulously kept diary indicates that no such behavior occurred on that date. Adams noted that he received Congressman Lewis Williams of North Carolina, accompanied by “Crocket [sic] a new member from Tennessee.” In other notations about the occasion Adams wrote that “Colonel Crockett was very diverting at our dinner,” which more than likely meant the freshman legislator told some of his better frontier tales.12

  Humiliated by the guffaws in Washington circles, Crockett was upset when some of his constituents posed questions about his outlandish behavior at a presidential event. To counter the published stories, he contacted two highly respected congressmen who also were in attendance and asked them to write letters refuting such blatant lies. On January 4, just a day after they received Crockett’s request, Congressman James Clark, of Kentucky, and Congressman Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, of New York, responded with letters supporting Crockett.

  “I was at the same dinner, and know that the statement is destitute of every thing like truth,” wrote Clark, who had filled the congressional seat vacated by Henry Clay’s elevation to secretary of state and was an early organizer of the Whig Party in Kentucky. “I sat opposite to you at the table, and held occasional conversation with you, and observed nothing in your behavior but was marked with the strictest priority.”13 Verplanck, not only a veteran political figure but a respected man of letters, wrote in his letter of support to Crockett, “Your behavior there was, I thought, perfectly becoming and proper; and I do not recollect or believe that you said or did anything resembling the newspaper account.” Verplanck was a skilled writer of satire and a member of the “Knickerbocker group,” along with Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, and James Kirke Paulding, an author and public official who would soon become intimately involved with Crockett’s life.14

  The letters of denial eventually were printed in various newspapers, including the Jackson Gazette, but as Crockett geared up for a reelection campaign for another two-year term, yet another story, written by someone using the pen name Dennis Brulgrudery, described Crockett’s politicking style as a mixture of flattery, drunkenness, venality, and dishonesty.15

  In early 1829, while forced to defend his reputation and counter personal attacks, Crockett composed one of the more difficult letters he would ever have to write. It was scrawled to his brother-in-law George Patton in Buncombe County, North Carolina.16 In the long epistle Crockett spoke of the tragic news “of the death of our poor little niece Rebecca Ann Burgin.” The little girl had been killed in a horrible accident at Crockett’s farm in Tennessee while playing near the ox-driven grain mill that had been built several months earlier. “She was with my children…walking round after the oxen and stopped opposite one of the outside posts and caught her head against the post and mashed it all to peaces [sic]. Poor little creature never knew what hurt her. I thought almost as much of her as one of my own.”

  In the same letter, Crockett also explained that he was attempting to alter the course of his life by giving up spirits and that he intended to imbibe nothing stronger than cider. “I trust that god will give me fortitude in my undertaking,” he wrote. “I have never made a pretention [sic] to religion in my life before. I have run a long race tho I trust that I was called in good time. I have been reproved many times for my wickedness by my dear wife who I am certain will be no little astonished when she gets information of my determination.”17

  In March 1829, just after he watched the swearing-in of Andrew Jackson as the seventh president of the United States, along with Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Crockett launched his own campaign for reelection to the Twenty-first Congress of the House of Representatives. When newspaper smears accused him of every sin imaginable, including adultery, drunkenness, and gambling, Crockett replied with humor and sarcasm. “They accuse me of adultery! It’s a lie. I never ran away with any man’s wife that wasn’t willing…they accuse me of gambling! It’s a lie; I always plank the cash…and, they accuse me of being a drunkard! It’s a d—d lie, for whisky can’t make me drunk.”18

  Although Crockett’s chief opponent was once again Colonel Adam Alexander, he remained quietly confident of victory throughout the reelection campaign. He may not have been able to get his land bill through Congress, but it was not for any lack of trying. He knew that effort would be in the voters’ minds when they went to the polls, and he was correct.

  In the August election Crockett was rewarded with another term in Congress. Alexander gathered 3,641 votes and two minor candidates pooled a total of 168 votes. Crockett received 6,773 votes for a plurality of 3,132 votes.19

  While he basked in another clear victory over Alexander, Crockett had to wonder exactly who was most responsible for all the defamatory stories and ugly accusations that had been heaped on him both before
and during the campaign. He had his suspicions that the responsible parties were not only the Whigs but also some Jacksonian Democrats. As the new decade came around, Crockett realized that he had become a man without a party.

  TWENTY-NINE

  TRAILS OF TEARS

  WITH THE BEGINNING of the 1830s, time was running out not only politically but physically as well for David Crockett. He had reached his midforties, then viewed by some as the beginning of old age. Taking into consideration his vigorous lifestyle, the privations he had endured, and his many near-encounters with death, Crockett remained in fairly good physical shape. There was the occasional flare-up from the malaria and some old wounds that ached, but for the most part Crockett was fit.

  With a growing number of legislative critics, Crockett realized that his physical stamina and mental alertness were essential to gaining passage of the Tennessee land bill and for his own political survival. Detractors from all camps were angry that, when it came to support of the measures they sponsored, Crockett left no room for compromise.

  Early in his second term, Crockett became a leading opponent against any further appropriations for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He firmly believed that the academy—founded in 1802—was an inherently elitist institution “managed for the benefit of the noble and wealthy of the country.” Crockett’s negative feelings about the academy no doubt resulted from some of the treatment he had received during the Creek War, including his superior officer’s failure to act on his scouting report until it was corroborated by another commissioned officer. Crockett felt so strongly about this matter that he even proposed the abolishment of the academy.1

  In speaking at length on behalf of his proposed resolution, Crockett stressed: “A man could fight the battles of his country, and lead his country’s armies, without being educated at West Point.”2 He also pointed out that Andrew Jackson and several other past military heroes had not attended the academy and yet became effective leaders. “Gentlemen were not up to the task of commanding soldiers,” said Crockett. They were “too delicate, and could not rough it in the army because they were too differently raised.”3 Crockett’s proposal was quickly tabled and soon quietly died, but not before alienating him even more with other legislators from all political persuasions.

  On February 24, 1830, just a day before Crockett offered his resolution concerning the abolition of West Point, another important proposal was introduced in Congress—President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. The passage and enactment of this legislation would be remembered as one of the darkest moments in the nation’s history.

  Crockett’s Indian philosophy differed substantially from Andrew Jackson’s and from that of his diehard supporters, who pushed his controversial legislation through both houses of Congress. The legislation gave Jackson the power to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the tribes were to give up all their lands in exchange for lands to the west. The Indians most affected were the southeastern tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and eventually the Seminole. They were all too familiar with Sharp Knife and his paternalistic view of Indians from long before he became president. Some of them had fought against him and others had battled alongside him as allies. All of them knew that Jackson considered them an “ill-fated race.”4

  Yet Jackson’s betrayal of his former allies and his fierce advocacy of removal amounted to one of the most appalling periods in this nation’s relationship with American Indians. “If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes, I would have killed him at Horseshoe,”5 said Tsunu Iahunski, a Cherokee veteran of the Creek War who fought on Jackson’s side. Tsunu Iahunski was originally named Gulkalaski and had become acquainted with Andrew Jackson years before the bloody clash against the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. He was the Cherokee known for having saved Jackson’s life during the battle by slaying a Creek warrior who had Jackson at his mercy. When the Indian Removal Act was being considered, Cherokee Chief John Ross sent Gulkalaski to Washington to appeal to Jackson and ask him to reconsider uprooting tribal people from their ancestral homeland. After he heard Gulkalaski’s plea, Jackson reportedly snapped at him, “Sir, your audience is ended, there is nothing I can do for you.” After that, Gulkalaski became known as Tsunu Iahunski, or “One who tries, but fails.”6

  In an effort to maintain their tribal independence, the southeastern tribes, especially the Cherokees and Creeks, adopted many of the elements of the white world. This meant abandoning the old ways—the traditions and customs that the whites frowned on and considered pagan and offensive. Many of the prosperous mixed-bloods accepted the whites’ religion and lifestyle. They dressed like whites, ate the same type of food, started a plantation culture that included the keeping of black slaves to work the fields. Part of the rationale was tribal survival, with the hope that the whites would leave them alone if they became more like them. In the long run none of it mattered. Jackson and his troops eventually moved the tribes westward, sometimes at the point of bayonets down several “Trails of Tears” to Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma, where they were referred to as the “Five Civilized Tribes,” a pejorative term still used by many.7

  “Andrew Jackson has been saddled with a considerable portion of the blame for this monstrous deed,” Robert V. Remini, one of Jackson’s biographers, wrote of the Removal Act.

  He makes an easy mark. But the criticism is unfair if it distorts the role he actually played. His objective was not the destruction of Indian life and culture. Quite the contrary. He believed the removal was the Indian’s only salvation against certain extinction…. Yet he practiced a subtle kind of coercion. He told the tribes he would abandon them to the mercy of the states if they did not agree to migrate west.8

  Jackson’s own words serve as the best evidence of how he felt about Indian people and their tribal lands. In a message delivered to Congress in late 1830, several months after the Removal Act became the law of the land, Jackson spoke of his hope that relocation to a distant land would help the tribes “cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized and Christian community.”9 He went on to say:

  Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people…. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement…. May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more zealously than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and by a speedy removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be threatened.10

  Although some historians tried to present a balanced picture of Jackson’s role in Indian Removal, it is clear that Jackson had no real concern whatsoever for the Indians—“the children of the forest”—whose lives he disrupted. To this day there remain traditional Cherokee and Creek people in Oklahoma who refuse to handle or even touch twenty-dollar bills, which since 1929 have been imprinted with the image of Andrew Jackson. These Indian people find commemorating Jackson’s presidency on legal tender an insult to the memory of ancestors who died along “the trail where they cried.” Some equate having Jackson’s picture on the money to printing Adolf Hitler’s face on the bills. Through the years, there have been petitions calling for the U.S. Treasury Department to remove Jackson from the twenty-dollar bill. One of the candidates suggested as a suitable replacement is John Ross, the much-revered chief who led the Cherokee Nation during the horrors of Indian removal.11

  David Crockett, however, is still remembered by many Indian people in Oklahoma as one of the few white men in government who had the courage to stand up to Jackson and
vote against his Indian Removal Act.12 Crockett may not have been the most vociferous opponent of Jackson’s removal legislation, but he was the lone member of the entire Tennessee congressional delegation to vote against the bill on May 24, 1830, when it passed by the narrow margin of 102 to 97.13 Cherokee Chief John Ross wrote Crockett a letter of thanks for his courageous stance. It was a brave act and, some have said, a politically naive vote. Crockett stood his ground against all of his colleagues, his president, and, as he well knew at the time, the vast majority of the citizens he represented. It took little time for the news to reach voters in West Tennessee that the man they had put in office, primarily to help turn old tribal land into farms for squatters and settlers, had betrayed them.

  In the final pages of his 1834 autobiography, Crockett wrote about casting his vote against Indian Removal, which he described as an “infamous” measure. “I opposed it from the purest motives in the world,” wrote Crockett.

  Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favourite measure of the president, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in every thing that I believed was honest and right; but further from this, I wouldn’t go for him, or any other man in the whole creation; that I would sooner be honestly and politically d—nd, than hypocritically immortalized…. I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and one that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment.14