William “Billy the Kid” Bonney was a legendary American outlaw who was also known as William Antrim, Kid Antrim, and William Henry McCarty Jr. Although his influence on Western expansion and settlement was negligible, Billy the Kid has become an essential symbol of the American “Wild West.” Stories featuring the dashing, dangerous, and youthful Billy the Kid have now been in circulation for more than a century, and they have been adapted, reinterpreted, and retold in virtually every medium imaginable. Billy the Kid is usually portrayed as a romantic figure in the mythology of the American West, but due to the scarcity of facts regarding his short life, analyses of his character can vary widely; descriptions range from a misunderstood orphan to a sociopathic villain.
This portrait of William Bonney (1859–1881), popularly known as “Billy the Kid,” dates from around 1880. Although he was born William Henry McCarty Jr. in New York City, Billy became an icon of the Wild West. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death, he cheated the hangman by escaping jail, only to be gunned down shortly thereafter by legendary lawman Pat Garrett, thus assuring both men abiding places in American legend. (Library of Congress)
Immediately following Bonney’s death in 1881, tales of an affable, good-looking, and “honorable” outlaw began circulating throughout New Mexico, particularly among the territory’s Hispanic population. Billy the Kid first emerged in legend as a sort of American Robin Hood, even though there is no evidence of William Bonney ever redistributing wealth in such a manner. Early stories often highlighted his wit and acumen, for which there is some historical evidence; his ability to speak both Spanish and English certainly attests to his intelligence and educational achievement. Early legends also presented him as an everyman hero, fighting against the corruption and injustices of institutional authority. Tales of his heroism and honesty were shared sympathetically in informal situations, offered as an unofficial, “truer” alternative to official depictions of Bonney as a killer and fugitive.
Many cities and states have claimed to be the birthplace of Billy the Kid, yet the documentary record shows that he was born William Henry McCarty Jr. in New York City in 1859. As a teenager, he made his way west with his mother and following her death from tuberculosis in 1874, he began committing petty crimes. In 1877 William Bonney—it was about this time that he started using an alias—killed his first man, William Cahill, who had been bullying him. Shortly thereafter, he became involved in the Lincoln County War, an 1878 range war over the distribution of dry goods in the New Mexico Territory. Following the killing of John Tunstall, a British rancher and merchant who had just moved to the region, Bonney joined a posse intent on punishing the murderers. News reports of the era often depicted the posse, which was known as “The Regulators,” as Billy the Kid’s gang even though his influence on their actions was by all accounts insignificant. Indeed, this is when the Billy the Kid legend began to develop, and these frequently exaggerated accounts of his exploits would eventually frustrate all of Bonney’s subsequent attempts to secure amnesty from the state.
In 1880 Billy the Kid was arrested by Pat Garrett, sheriff of Lincoln County and perhaps a close friend. Bonney was subsequently tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, yet he managed to escape from prison—the second documented jailbreak of his young life—before the sentence could be carried out. Three months later, Sheriff Garrett shot Billy the Kid. There are numerous, conflicting stories about how it happened, but it seems that Garrett was in the home of one of Billy’s friends, Pete Maxwell, when Billy unexpectedly walked in and was then shot by Garrett.
Whether he killed in self-defense or for more nefarious reasons, Billy the Kid’s reputation as a killer is central to his legend. William Bonney killed at least four men, but tales of Billy the Kid place the number of his victims as high as twenty-seven. The most commonly cited number of victims is twenty-one, one for each year of Billy the Kid’s life. This is the number identified in “The Song of Billy the Kid,” a ballad recorded by John Lomax in the early twentieth century: “There are twenty-one men I have put bullets through / And sheriff Pat Garrett must make twenty-two.”
Over time, legends developed that Billy the Kid did not die from his wound and that he had once again escaped death as he had at least twice before, perhaps with the help of his old friend Pat Garrett. These legends gave a measure of authority to claims made by as many as twenty men that they were in fact Billy the Kid. The most famous of these men was Brushy Bill Roberts. Roberts told a number of people in his Texas community that he was the real Billy the Kid. The stories spread nationwide, eventually drawing the attention of a variety of scholars and historians who have alternately promoted and refuted Roberts’s claim.
In the more than a century since his death, Billy the Kid has been discussed, represented, celebrated, and condemned in a variety of media. More than five hundred books have been written about him—the first was a dime novel released within two weeks of his death—and characters inspired by Billy the Kid have appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows. The American composer Aaron Copland wrote his most famous ballet about Billy the Kid (1938), and the outlaw is mentioned in countless popular songs. Moreover, Billy the Kid tourism, which is dependent as much on the legend of Billy the Kid as it is on documented history, remains a thriving industry as sites associated with Billy the Kid, the majority of which are in New Mexico, draw thousands of tourists annually.
Todd Richardson
See also Boles, Charles E. “Black Bart”; James, Jesse; Outlaw Heroes; Parker, Robert Leroy “Butch Cassidy”
Further Reading
Botkin, B. A. 1944. A Treasury of American Folklore. New York: Crown.
Gardner, Mark Lee. 2013. Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West’s Greatest Escape. New York: HarperCollins.
McGrath, Roger D. 1987. Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nolan, Frederick, ed. 2007. The Billy the Kid Reader. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Wallis, Michael. 2008. Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride. New York: Norton.