One line in this song about Davy Crockett mentions that he had 'a big axe to grind against Old Hickory,' the latter of course meaning Andrew Jackson. Now Jackson was a hickory that axes often broke against, including Crockett's. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies, especially the Indian Removal Act, led to the end of his Congressional career. Crockett had served under Jackson in the Tennessee militia during some of the wars with the Creek, and found that he preferred hunting game for the soldiers to killing Indians. That is not the worst thing to discover about yourself. A frontiersman might well have more in common with the Creek or the Cherokee than he did with the folks in Washington. His opposition to their forcible removal was part of an honorable discovery that, having fought them, he didn't hate them.
Just a few years later he took a band of volunteers and marched to Texas, where he died and came home to legend.
No comments:
Post a Comment