Cecil says de La Pena wouldn’t have known what David Crockett looked like. My thought is that Crockett was a pretty “big-time celebrity,”–nationally-known frotiersman, humorist, Congressman, “author” (with a ghost writer, of course) etc., and had such distinctive long, bony facial features that he was probably identifiable on sight to many people of the day. Didn’t a drawing of at least one of the two most famous portraits (one in formal attire and the one in buckskin with the dogs) serve as frontispiece to his autobiography.
Didn’t one of the Mexican women who lived through the events at the Alamo describe him as having a “woman’s face?”
From the only picture I have seen of him, he looked exactly the way Billy Bob portrayed him in the movie. But I seriously doubt that all that many people would have recognized him, or even new who he was - former frontiersman, washed-up congressman. This is before People Magazine, and before practical photography at that.
Though I live in Texas, I’m a New Yorker by birth, and have no dog in this fight! I have no emotional investment in the Alamo; I accept that there were both good and bad men fighting for both noble and ignoble reasons among the Texans and the Mexicans.
Moreover, I don’t have any expertise in evaluating and assessing old documents. So, I’ll offer no opinion as to whether the De la Pena diary is legitimate, let alone accurate. I’m happy to let the professionals determine that.
But humor me- just suppose that the De la Pena diary is both authentic and factually correct. Does this account REALLY change anything appreciably?
I mean, how is it a slur against Davy Crockett to suggest that a large number of Mexican soldiers could have taken him captive after he was out of ammo?
Moreover, if he died the way De la Pena’s diary states, well, he seems to have been mighty brave! He and his few remaining comrades endured torture and a gruesome death with as much courage and dignity as they could muster.
I can’t say for certain that it really happened that way (or that Crockett was definitely one of those last few Texans), but if it did, Crockett seems no less heroic to me, nor should he seem any less heroic to anyone!
Indeed, although Niepce had taken the first photograph in 1826, the first practical processes, the Daguerrotype and the Calotype, were not to appear until 1839. But, more to the point, photolithography was not developed until the 1850s, without which photographs could not be included in books or periodicals.
I dunno whether the diaries are fake or not, but as a Texan, I am here to tell you that if the Daughters Of The Texas Revolution (the nonprofit group that maintains the Alamo) could eradicate the idea that the Mexican version was true, they would do so, even if they had to resort to suicide bombings to do it. That bunch is RABID about revisionist history.
Books that the DTR doesn’t like do not appear in the Alamo gift shop. You can, however, buy that horrible John Wayne movie they named after the building, though…
I don’t know anything about the diary, but I do remember reading ca. 1960 (1963 at the latest) in a book for children that Crockett was executed after the battle, so either there’s another source or the diary was accepted pretty quickly.
As to “handwriting expert” Charles Hamilton, he was a collector and dealer of autographs with a talent for self-promotion, not a proper handwriting expert. Again, I don’t know anything about the diary, but where Hamilton deals with an issue where I do possess some expertise (the Cardenio question), he makes an ass of himself.
As a born-again Texan with Texas-born children and grandchildren, I have no problems with the authenticity of the diary.
What I find most delicious is an alternative not yet proposed.
Some other captive, knowing Crockett was dead and that no Mexicans
knew what he looked like, claimed to be Crockett and tried to bluff his
way out as a congressional junketeer.
Hey, it’s not like they checked his passport and driver’s license.
Actually, I think if it WAS Crockett – and that is the least unlikely
scenario – his attempt to talk his way out of that death trap
goes down as one of the boldest bluffs he or anyone else ever
tried to pull – and more credit to him!
I’d guess that’s just a typeface problem, Darklon. The correct spelling is “Pena”, but with a Spanish tilde “~” over the n and that’s what the column is using. Your browser is presumably just choking on this unrecognised character.
I don’t think that’s it because the “n” with tilde shows up just fine in other places. I’ll have to look at it with another browser to see if that makes a difference.
There are two ways to show “special” characters on a Web page. If you use HTML code, the n-with-tilde is coded as “ñ” and appears as ñ in everyone’s browser. If you enter it directly as the “ñ” character, some browsers will not show it, or will show it as an empty box, since this method only works if your computer is setup to use the same character set as the originating computer (admittedly the default for 99% of U.S. users).