The Real Billy the Kid

by Miguel Antonio Otero

Miguel Antonio Otero, Jr. (1859-1944), the scion of a powerful Nuevomexicano family, served two terms as Governor of New Mexico Territory. But many years before that, he met a less fortunate young man almost exactly his own age: a shackled prisoner named William H. Bonney, Jr., but better known as Billy the Kid. "I liked The Kid very much, " Otero writes of his encounter, adding: "Nothing would have pleased me more than to have witnessed his escape." First published in a limited edition in 1936, The Real Billy the Kid is a landmark biography of the infamous Western outlaw: his brief childhood, gunfights, encounters with the Apaches, entanglement in the murderous feud known as the Lincoln County War, and finally his friendship with the man who ultimately killed him, Sheriff Pat Garrett.

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not unbiased in it's presentation of persons and events, Otero's book is extremely insightful into the accounts sympathetic to Billy the Kid. The narrative is filled with details provided by first person accounts and should be read by anyone interested in The Kid's life or the events of the Lincoln County War. My main problem with the book is the postmodern lense by which the author of the introduction seems to frame the original work of Otero's contrasted with the account written by Pat Garrett. John-Michael Rivera seeks to pervert these competing accounts into a battle over Anglo-American colonialism and the suppression of Native American and nuevomexican culture (Garrett's account) versus the celebration and embrace of what New Mexico was truly like in territorial New Mexico (Otero). By my reading of Otero's narrative, as a native born New Mexican myself, (I have not read Garrett's account), I merely accepted the narrative as accurate echoes of how New Mexico still is and feels today. Otero's account feels authenticly New Mexican. Rivera's entire premise is based on the intentionality of Otero to subvert Garrett's Anglo-American colonial revisionism which I find to be a chasmic leap and a fiction. Rivera's postmodern, liberalistic introduction should only be read after Otero's work , if Rivera's introduction must be read at all.

[Calli Barton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've enjoyed reading about Billy the kid and figuring out who he really was. It seemed like he always had a bad reputation for a murdering, thug, senseless killer. A lot of that was not true and just sheer publicity from the newspapers and stories made up at that time, making him extremely popular in the wrong ways. Some things that have been said never actually happened.
In the end Its a tragic story for the kid. Being hunted down all the time for crimes he never committed. Being blamed all the time for pretty much anything bad that happened in the Lincoln County War. He just wanted to be left alone to get an opportunity to start over and live his life. He never got that chance. He wasn't innocent, he was a thief, and murdered some people but through self defense and protection. Not saying it was right but he had his reasons and being orphaned at such a young age of 12. Poor kid. He never got his chance. He grew up too fast and died too fast. Tragic...

[ػᶈᶏϾӗ]

I am extremely upset with Amazon and UPS for not delivering this book during the 2-day Amazon Prime span. I had to read this as an ebook. Honestly, it's not my favorite piece of history. There's a lot of confusion for me what happened when, and who all these folks were. It's generally not a history I'm familiar with, and it was definitely written in a time and place for a local audience, people who'd be familiar with the legend if not the history. So my difficulty comes from me being an outsider. On the whole, though, having finished it, the Lincoln County War is interesting. Nuevo Mexico must have been an exciting place to live. Less exciting if you were one of the people being robbed of your land and livelihood by encroaching anglos and their cronies in Santa Fe, probably. I'm not sure I see Billy the Kid's effect on the bigger picture from this biography....