Billy the Kid: Old West Hero or Coldblooded Killer?

this video is made possible by brilliant you'll learn more about brilliant later in today's video but if you would like to learn more about them right now go to brilliant dot org forward slash by graphics you'll also find a link in the description below it was America's first and most celebrated Western antihero it was claimed that he killed 21 men one for every year of his young life and the press portrayed him as a ruthless psychotic while die killer the reality was that Billy the Kid was none of these things and in this week's biographic s-- we go in search of the real Billy there is uncertainty as to the birthplace of the child who would become Billie thicket most historians believe that was the slums of New York City and the year was 1859 his birth name was Henry McCarty and he was the son of Irish immigrants who had come to America to escape the devastating effects of the Irish potato famine his mother's name was Catherine but we know nothing about his father except that he died when Henry was an infant when Henry was around six and his mother joins the post-civil war Exodus to the west in search of the better life that had so far eluded them in the new world they drained a wagon train and undertook the arduous journey over the Oregon Trail they got as far as Indianapolis Indiana their Carolyn met and married a man by the name of William Harrison Antrim Antrim had dreams of striking a rich and gold mines to the southwest and soon the makeshift family had relocated to Silver City New Mexico New Mexico in the early 1870s was like a foreign country to immigrants from the east it was mainly peopled by Mexicans and Native Americans the entire culture and religion was very different to what most Americans were used to French Spanish and Navarro were more likely to be spoken than English and most houses were mesas carved into the sides of rock formations in this hodgepodge of cultures violence was commonplace while many newcomers from the East would have recoiled at such an environment young Henry McCarty he embraced it he immersed himself in the Mexican culture spending most of his time in the Hispanic part of town by the time he was a teenager he could speak fluent Spanish and could even pass for a native Mexican with his sombrero and poncho whenever there was a public Mexican social event Henry would be there often with his mother the two would dance the Fandango together and talk easily with the Mexican elders unlike most of the Europeans in town Henry showed respect to the locals exhibiting a formal politeness to the older generation which won him a lot of praise he was remembered by the Hispanic community as a charming boy who was always happy [Music] [Applause] the humor was cruelly snatched from Henry's life when at the age of 15 he suffered the loss of his mother Catherine had been suffering from tuberculosis for some time it was hoped that the dry air of New Mexico would improve her condition but it wasn't to be Catherine died in 1874 leaving Henry in the possession of his stepfather William Antrim Andrew however had no intention of being tied down with a teenage boys look after he promptly abandoned Henry leaving town in search of more fertile gold diggings so at the age of 15 Henry was left on his own to fend for himself in a dangerous frontier town Henry now had to live off his wits he spent his time hanging around the saloons and prostitutes on the serious side of town sleeping in back alleys and boarding houses and running errands to pay his way he soon became involved in minor criminal activity meeting up with a hoodlum by the name of sombrero Jack Henry was recruited as a lookout while Jack robbed local businesses one of them was the local Chinese Laundry things fell apart when a loaded revolver that Jack had stolen from the laundry was found in Henry's possession boy was arrested and thrown into the local jail it was while sitting in that tiny jail cell that Henry made a fateful decision he could have sat and waited for the circuit judge to come to town and try his case but that may have taken months instead he decided to escape in doing so he honed a skill that would serve him to good effect many times over the next five years that was getting people to underestimate his abilities Henry talked his garden to allowing him to come out of his cell for a short period in order to stretch his legs he was still confined to the jailhouse and the door to the outside world was securely locked but there was also a chimney when his guard was out of the room Henry managed to squeeze his slide frame up the soot covered escape hole and onto the roof and then into the town plaza by the time it was discovered that he had escaped he was free of self a city and enroute to Arizona carrying no food supplies and without a horse Henry displayed an incredible physical and mental strength in crossing the desert plains of the southwest he quickly learned that he had to live off the land foraging where he could and stealing where he must the sixteen-year-old wanted fugitive made it across 500 miles of deserts before stumbling into a remote army outpost in eastern Arizona called Camp Grant's here he managed to find employment as a cook on a local ranch after hours he drifted to the local town where he took the gambling and hustling in the saloons the men he was now associated with included some hardened criminals and they quickly showed in the ropes before long he was participating in stealing horses outside of his ranch duties and his nefarious nighttime activities young Henry found the time to perfect his skills with a firearm he had managed via revolver and quickly discovered an innate ability to wield it with this skill came instant respect from those around him within a year of escaping the jail cell in Silver City Henry had developed into a character of note among thugs in the Arizona Territory he wore a brightly colored scarf around his neck and walked with the self-assuredness of a man many years older than his only seventeen years and it was at this time that people began to call him the kid it was August the 17th 1877 when the kid went from small-time crook to hardened killer the local blacksmith was a bully by the name of Frank Cahill on that night while drinking in a saloon Cahill had his sights set on Henry and he was throwing insults at the kid when the kid called him F son of a [ __ ] Cahill jumped him and proceeded to pound him on the saloon floor pins underneath the bigger man the kid managed to free his six-shooter he shot Cahill in the stomach and then quickly slid out from under him leaving the blacksmith to die he hightailed it out of town on the stolen horse and headed back to New Mexico now I wanted fugitive for the crime of murder the kid changed his name to William H bonny he wandered across the vast open spaces relying on the hospitality of Hispanic ranchers to provide him with a meal or a place to lay his head [Music] [Applause] meanwhile New Mexico was being targeted by Big Shot land speculators from back east they saw the mostly barren territory is a golden opportunity for speculation and they began buying up land parcels from Hispanic settlers usually a prices that were manifestly unfair to the seller those who didn't want to sell their lands likely we're going to find themselves facing violent persecution soon the eastern entrepreneurs had wrested control of every industry in the state from mining to the cattle industry and even the railroads the largest county in New Mexico was Lincoln which covered nearly 1/5 of the entire territory it was there in 1878 that a war broke out that would have a profound effect on the remaining years of beneath the kids life in the late 1860's a couple of Irish immigrants by the names of Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan had bought up the majority of Lincoln County and turned it into a huge cattle ranch they had secured extremely large military contracts to supply beef to Fort Stanton the Murphy Dolan monopoly in Lincoln County was called of the house and it was fiercely protected by a band of thugs known as the seven rivers gang they operated from a huge wooden building in the middle of the Lincoln Township and controlled every business in town in 1877 the House monopoly over Lincoln County was challenged first in court and then on the range by a Scottish born local attorney by the name of Alexander McSween teaming up with the law is a 23 year old recently arrived British aristocrat by the name of John Tunstall with a seemingly unending supply of funds to install was intense on creating his own cattle Empire in the county in this quest he enjoyed the support of the most successful and famous cattle baron in the entire country John Chisholm Tunstall began to recruit employees not only to work the cattle but also provide the protection that he knew would be needed when he came up against the house William Bonney rode into Lincoln County in mid 1877 and immediately proceeded to do what he did best and that was steel horses in short order he was coerced and thrown in jail it just so happens that the man he had been rustling horses from well that was John Tunstall when the Englishman confronted the teenage outlaw he declined to press charges instead he offered the kid a job as a member of the regulator's the team of cowboys that were his protection squad Billy he grabbed this offer with both hands in John Tunstall he had found a man who would give him a fair break he later said this of his employer Tunstall was the only man who treated me like I was decent and white the kid joins a group of men older than him as he learns the work of a cowboy it was long arduous often back-breaking work and they slept out with the cattle on the range for the leaders of the house Murphy and Dolan the idea of an upper-crust Englishman moving in on their territory was unthinkable like the kids parents they had escaped the famine back in Ireland and deeply resented the English over their unwillingness to provide relief now having found a new life in the new world where they again to be plagued by the power and the money of the English well that's something that they would never allow to happen Murphy and Dolan's power extended to control of the legal system that Lincoln County operated under they enlisted the aid of William Brady the corrupt sheriff to enforce a fake court order that confiscated all of the horses and cattle on the Tunstall ranch when Tunstall received the demands he thought it was some kind of mistake and proceeded to ride into town in order to sort things out on the way then he was met by the sheriff and a posse of men on their way to execute the court order still thinking he could reason with the lawman to install rode towards the sheriff but before he got close members of the posse they shot him dead to add insult to injury they then shot his horse 10 stalls body was soon found by the men who worked for him and taken back to his ranch for burial Billy was incensed at the cold-blooded assassination of his boss and he along with a group of hardcore other employees made a pact of vengeance against the house they made a hit list at the top of which was the sheriff of Lincoln County William Brady Brady's end came on April Fool's Day 1878 as he was taking his morning stroll through Lincoln Billy and his fellow regulators were lying in ambush and poured more than a dozen bullets into his body during the gunfight that ensued with Brady's deputies Billy was shot in the thigh three days later a shootout occurred at blazes mill this time two of the regulator's were killed as a result of the two incidents murder warrants were issued including one for Billy the conflicts came to a head when Alexander McSween rode from the Tunstall ranch with between 50 and 60 regulators on July the 14th 1868 some of the men strategically positioned themselves between buildings and on rooftops while others including Billy set themselves up in a house that belonged to McSween for the next two days they waited on July the 16th the new sheriff George Patton sent some men to kill the regulator's who were stationed on the roof of the saloon after one of their number was killed these men were forced to retreat heaven now send a message to Fort Stanton requesting military assistance the request was initially turned down but the military brass changed their mind the next day with that Colonel Nathan Dudley rode into town at the head of a troop of soldiers a standoff ensued for a couple more days then on Friday July the 19th all hell broke loose the regulator's were now all holed up in the McSween house a massive barrage of firepower was unleashed on this house with returned fire coming just as fiercely then the house was set on fire and then attempted to escape Alexander McSween was shot dead barely managed to kill the man who had felled McSween before making good on his own escape along with the other regulators now just before we get into the rest of Billy's life I do want to take a moment to thank the people who make this video possible and that would be brilliance I know a mid-roll ad is not great for the story here but these videos are long so I do hope you appreciate our need to have sponsors to make them possible brilliant are a learning platform which teaches through something called active learning unlike biographies which have just a nice way to learn about people's lives nothing about science it's trickier I don't know if you've ever had to sit down with a science textbook I have and I read them and there's a whole lot of stuff that makes me think what hold on a second and then you end up reading the page six times over and you're still not taking it in well brilliant solves that problem with active learning brilliant give you something super short to read it's really easy and then you immediately apply it to a problem you rinse and repeat that and suddenly you're understanding all sorts of stuff that you really didn't think you'd be able to I've been using brilliant and you should just go try it just to see how easy it is to suddenly be understanding all these complex subjects it's really brilliant just making them super easy to grasp you can support by graphics by going to brilliant or /bi graphics and now let's get back to the kid [Music] by now billiard developed into a seasoned killer he was now wanted for multiple counts of murder in different jurisdictions still he was able to find refuge with the Hispanic sheep herders who viewed him as a fighter for their liberty against the Anglo robber barons the firestorm that had erupted in the heart of Lincoln County forced authorities to act indictments were issued for the arrest of billion two other regulators for the murder of Sheriff Brady a new governor of New Mexico Territory was also appointed the man given the job was Lew Wallace a former Union Army General and future author of the book Ben Hur Wallace set out for Lincoln County with direct instructions from President Rutherford B Hayes to restore order but Wallace encountered a population who were too terrified to get involved and so was unable to secure any witness testimonies as to what had been occurring then he received a letter from a man calling himself William H Bonney the kids offered to testify against the members of the house in return for full amnesty and swalot agreed Lillie testified before a grand jury with his testimony leading to indictments against a number of House members including leader James Donen then he had lived up to his side of the deal but unfortunately the governor did not live up to his skipping town before the amnesty he could be formalized with the governor gone most of the indictments against the House members they were dropped but those against the regulator's they remained Billy fled town before he could be arrested while the other regulars fled in New Mexico Territory Billy decided to stay put and eke out a living as a cattle and horse Rustler over the next few months he harassed the ranchers of the house Empire in the process becoming the most wanted man in New Mexico the newspapers of New Mexico most of which were simply mouthpieces for the House demonized the kid blaming him for every misdeed in the territory in 1880 the editor of the Las Vegas Gazette first names the outlaw Billy the Kid the name for which he would forever be known [Music] [Applause] by the summer of 1882 he still roams the territory Billie had made a base for himself at Fort Sumner some hundred miles from Lincoln by now Lincoln had a new sheriff and his name was Pat Garrett and he was single-minded with his obsession to capture Billy the Kid Garrett was a tenacious determined man he and his posse tracked Billy and his gang over the winter of 1880 two of the outlaws were killed in a shootout with the others being cornered in a cabin at a place called stinking Springs after a tense standoff Billy finally came out with his hands in the air the kid was transported by train to Santa Fay and put on trial for the murder of Sheriff Brady he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging the next and supposedly last stop was Lincoln where he was held in a second-story room of the Lincoln County Courthouse it was there that he was to wait for his date with the noose but well Billy he had other plans on April the 28th 1881 in the early afternoon Billy told his guard that he needed to use the Privy the guard escorted him in shackles to the outhouse on the way back as he went up the stairs to his room but he managed to slip out of his hand shackles he turns and wrestled with the guards managing to grab his gun the man turned to flee but Billy shot him dead the kid then made for one of the rooms in which he knew there was a shotgun quickly loading it he ran to a window and looked down on the street to see another guard Bob Olinger who had been eating his lunch across the way come running to investigate Billy called out hello Bob before blasting him with both barrels with both guards dead Billy then raced downstairs he commandeered a horse and was away Billy's daring escape made him the most famous outlaw in the country but it also made him a three-time cop killer this changed Pat Garrett's mind now he wanted to hunt him down and kill him despite this and he chose to remain in New Mexico the reason being is that he had fallen in love with a 16 year old girl by the name of Polly to Maxwell back in Lincoln Garrett was receiving information as to the whereabouts of the kid they were being supplied by the older brother of Polly two-piece Maxwell who was not happy about this romance he told Garrett that Billy was in Fort Sumner Garrett finally moved on the intelligence he stole into Fort Sumner on the evening of July the 14th 1881 with two deputies alongside him they went straight to the home of the max posting the due deputies on the front porch she'd been to the house from the back and made for the bedroom of Pete Maxwell at this very moment Billy was approaching the porch in the dark he could only just make out the shape of the two men there and he called out who is it but there was no reply at this Billy cautiously backed through the open doorway inside Garret and Maxwell were sitting on the bed on seeing the figure Maxwell leaned over and whispered it's him Garrett leveled his six-shooter and fired Billy the Kid fell dead never knowing who had fired the fatal bullet so I really hope you found their video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe brand new videos just like this two times a week or so do check out brilliance you'll find a link to them in the description below and as always thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Biographics

Views: 1,237,617

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler, billy the kid, who was billy the kid, what happened to billy the kid, billy the kid bio, biography of billy the kid, billy the kid execution, old west, old west heroes, old west characters

Id: Gt303JRUCsE

Length: 19min 5sec (1145 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 19 2018