Davey Crockett

After seeing the Lecture and reviewing the assigned text, please view this video: http://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=v2Tu8NskR-E The background of the video: 1. The movie the video clip is from is called Davey Crockett, produced by Disney. It is a great example of popular history-- more of a 'legendary" or mythical view of the events as opposed to anything based on specific and real facts. 2. The music behind the video is just as interesting: the Alamo by a very well known American musician, Johnny Cash. 3. Davy Crockett was a legend in his own time, a common name that all Americans knew, and many Europeans. He was a senator, mountain man, explorer, advocate for Native American rights, and eventually died when he and a number of revolutionaries were overrun in Mexico during the Texas War of Independence in the 1830's. Assignment: This movie clip of the final moments of the battle, with Crockett swinging his musket defiantly at the vengeful Mexican soldiers before he is killed, is based upon popular legend from the actual days of the battle. There is no actual proof that Crockett was alive during the final attack, and in fact the Mexican troops reported him already dead when they stormed the fort. Regardless, the event made Crockett a martyr in American society in the 1830's, so much so that songwriters and screenwriters are still singing his tale in the current day. Your opinion: After reading about the Texas Revolution in the text, and then seeing this video which is not unlike the heroic stories told about the Alamo in the 1830's after the event, how much might popular myth of the famous celebrity Davey Crockett, the last defender of the Alamo, have influenced Americans to support a war with Mexico a decade later? Would news of your favorite celebrity making a final stand in a fort somewhere abroad during an overwhelming attack cause you to feel more supportive towards a war with that country, even though he or she was participating in a revolt against the accepted government of that country? Finally, how might the legends and celebrity of Crockett and the Alamo have influenced American opinion regarding the start of the Mexican American war a decade later?