The Legend
Like many folk heroes who have acquired legendary status, many of the facts about his life have been obscured by time, embellishments, and the variation inherent in oral histories. According to legend, he was an excellent marksman and had a way with animals that allowed him to track and find them with uncommon aplomb, qualities which alleged to have helped him evade law enforcement. Legend also ascribes to him the values of respectfulness, temperance, and obedience, which are contrasted with his brother's laziness, disrespectfulness, and short temper. (In some versions of the story, his brother is called "Ramón".) Legends also dramatize his many narrow escapes, his humiliation of the Texas Rangers, and his impassioned courtroom pleas to simply be tried by the law of the land rather than prejudicially because of racist attitudes.
Read more about this topic: Gregorio Cortez
Famous quotes containing the word legend:
“We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“The legend of Felix is ended, the toiling of Felix is done;
The Master has paid him his wages, the goal of his journey is won;
He rests, but he never is idle; a thousand years pass like a day,
In the glad surprise of Paradise where work is sweeter than play.”
—Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)