Who were they?
Daniel Boone
Davy Crocket
The guys at the Alamo
Gen. Custer
Crazy Horse
Geronimo
Sitting Bull
Robert E Lee
Abe Lincoln
Wyatt Earp
Buffalo Bill Cody
This is just a few I can think of but you merkins possibly have your own ideas so let’s have 'em and also the reason you reckon they were heroes
My heroes have always been the people that post polls in In My Humble Opinion insted of Great Debates. 
Off to IMHO.
Custer, really? Wasn’t he a giant fucknut?
As to the OP, your list appears (to me) to be based on a mishmash of people who got great PR then or whom we look back on and admire now. Are you looking for people whom we should admire or people who were admired in their own day?
I’d drop Custer like a hot brick, today, although he worked the press to garner an admiring claque in his day. I suspect that the Indians you named were only admired (if at all) at the very end of the 19th century–and Geronimo probably had to wait until the 1950s, or so.
Sadly, a loot of them aren’t known. I recall reading about one of thesde guys from the Revolutionary War that I had never heard of. The guy had a fantastyic career, but not a good press agent. And to my shame, I can’t recall his name now.
How many people have heard of Henry “Ox” Knox? I hadn’t until a few years ago. Now I seem to see his name all over, but I’ll bet he’s still not well known
He was a Boston bookseller who was interested in artillery (God knows why, but that interest was vital to his career). Reportedly immensely fat. He was a volunteer at Bunker Hill. When Washington came Massachusetts, he put him in charge of artillery, and had him haul the captured cannons from Fort Ticonderoga (On the Hudson River) to Boston so they could point them ast the British stationed there.
Knox brought the cannon all the way across New England to Boston (in winter, IIRC, but it’s impressive no matter when. Try driving from Boston to Ticonderga and imagine dragging cannon all that way. Now imagine doing it without roads.) The British saw the cannon, and the Americans were able to drive trhem out without firing a shot. How’s that for heroism?
Then Knox accompanied Washington to New York and the disastrous campaign there, escaped to New Jersey, then across to Pennsylvania, and crossed the Delaware with Washington for the suvccessgul attack on Trenton. At this time, Washington, getting into the boat, was supposed to have said to Knox (who was in the way) “Move that fat ass, Harry, but not too fast, or you’ll swamp the boat.”
He was at Morristown, Valley Forge, and many key battles, including Yorktown, and was eventually made the first Secretary of War under Washington.
Not bad for a fat bookseller.
Among the former–Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Charles Sumner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Joshua Chamberlain. Among the latter–Andrew Jackson and US Grant, who were heroic as generals, but had certain, ah . . . issues as Presidents.
Freddy the Pig: Andrew Jackson was actively evil, U.S. Grant was merely incompetent and too trusting when it came to his friends.
Tibidabo: Custer had great PR. His wife, who long outlived him, sued people who said bad things about him and even affected at least one movie IIRC. People thinking of him as a vain and pompous loser is relatively recent.
:smack: :smack: humble apologies
Well obviously as a Brit I have to base my knowledge of American “heroes” on what you guys have given to us by way of films.
Custer? a fucknut?
Surely not, don’t destroy a childhood image of Errol Flynn standing there alone blazing away until cruelly cut down by a screaming horde of blood crazed injuns.
Yes, I am looking for people who you admire today rather than then
Harriet Tubman: Abolitionist and former slave who at great personal cost and danger brought over 70 slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
Sojourner Truth: Former slave, abolitionist, women’s right activist, and author of the speech Ain’t I A Woman?
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Pioneers in the cause of women’s suffrage.
Harriet Beecher Stowe: Abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, called by President Lincoln “the little lady who caused this big war.”
Dolly Madison: Rescued invaluable treasures from the White House, including Gilbert’s portrait of Washington, before the WH was burned by the British during the War of 1812.
Sacagawea: Helped guide Lewis & Clark across the North American continent, interceding at least once to save them from hostility by Native tribes, and did it all with a baby on her back.
Robert E. Lee?? American hero? That makes no sense.
I only ever heard of Sacagawea after watching Night at the Museum
Surely REL was at least a hero to the South
There’s plenty of evidence for his vanity and his show-offiness, which was probably known at the time. I don’t think anyone thought of him as a “loser” until after Little Big Horn. He was a pretty successful soldier and knew his stuff. According to Dee Brown, the Indians called him “Iron Backside” (which Thomas Berger more believably rendered “Iron Ass” in “Little Big Man”) because of his willingness and ability to spend long ttime in the saddle.
And I get the impression most of those films were Westerns. I’m a little surprised you didn’t list the Lone Ranger. 
You do know that Davy Crockett was one of the guys at the Alamo, right?
I’ll throw Meriwether Lewis and William Clark out there for consideration.
Well sure, for leading an army trying to break away from the U.S.
C’mon even I know he’s not real.
Now then Tex Ritter and Hoppy plus Gabby Hayes…thems real critters
Read a history of the battle. It didn’t have to be a massacre, but Custer’s idiocy made it one.
[ul]
[li]Abraham Lincoln tops the list. He’s got great name recognition and he freed the slaves.[/li][li]Frederick Douglass isn’t as well-known, but he was a slave and he was one of the prominent voices of the Abolitionist movement.[/li][li]Helen Keller just barely fits your rubric (she lived 1880-1968) but she is very well-known and her life story is widely used for inspiration.[/li][li]Thomas Edison (1847-1931) fits better, and he’s one of the best-known American inventors. Pretty much everyone knows he invented the light bulb (which is highly debatable) and the phonograph (though not the record, as his used cylinders).[/li][li]Lewis and Clark are very well-known and highly regarded. The bicentennial of their peregrination was a big event around here and all along their route.[/li][/ul]
Really? I guess making all those Golden Dollars wasn’t a very successfulpublicity-making move, then.
I’ve known about her ever since I was in grade school, but then again, that’s a US upbringing. You couldn’t avoid reading about her when they brought up Lewis and Clark.
You could if you lived in England