![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper explores the emergent legend of Colton Harris-Moore, the Barefoot Bandit, to locate its place within American folk legendry. Analysis builds off the work of Eric Hobsbawm and Graham Seal, highlighting how folklorists might re-envision classifications and representations of banditry in constantly changing yet specific populations and environments.
Notes
[1] At the time of the writing this paper (11 February 2001), the primary Barefoot Bandit page on Facebook.com had well over thirty-three thousand friends/members (Citation“Facebook—Colton Harris-Moore, The Barefoot Bandit”). Also, several individuals claiming to be Harris-Moore had opened message-posting accounts on the popular social site, Twitter.com.
[2] Although not addressed in this paper, Harris-Moore, as an apparently footloose wilderness rebel, also fits the model of two other popular American folk characters discussed at length in other works: the American wildman and the “McCandless type.” See Miner (Citation1972), Slotkin (Citation1998), Bartra (Citation2000), Lawlor (Citation2000), and Schmitt (Citation2008) for a more detailed discussion.
[3] “‘The kid has become Jesse James,’ says Bob Tangney, owner of Haley's Bait Shop & Grill in [the Camano Island area]. ‘All my employees love him. But our sheriff isn't too happy’” (Tresniowski and Lewis Citation2010, 136).
[4] Author Bob Friel has excellently documented the spread of Harris-Moore's legend in a variety of communities, through face-to-face interaction and through mediated channels, in the Camano Island area itself and around the world (Friel Citation2011).
[5] See in this connection: http://www.google.com/search?client = safari&rls = en&q = corrido+of+Gregorio+Cortez&ie = UTF-8&oe = UTF-8; INTERNET [accessed 4 April 2011].
[6] Woody Guthrie's ballad “Pretty Boy Floyd” is available from http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Pretty_Boy_Floyd.htm; INTERNET [accessed 4 April 2011].
[7] Idem.
[8] The full lyrics to the song are also posted on the webpage, available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 66hgvV9KSek; INTERNET [accessed 29 November 2010].
[9] This page, too, includes lyrics. See also “YouTube – The Barefoot Bandit-Jose Picazo” and Citation“YouTube—Run, Colton, Run.” YouTube.com, 20 July 2010 [accessed 29 November 2010]. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = RduFxvZ1A_k; INTERNET.
[10] Only one ballad encountered in my research seemed critical of Harris-Moore, pleading with him to turn himself in. K. C. Thomas Crow's “Ballad of the BareFoot Bandit,” posted on 11 July 2010, still sympathises with the Barefoot Bandit, however (Citation“YouTube – Colton Harris Moore ‘Ballad of the BareFoot Bandit’ (short version)”), and, in its using of his story as a warning to others like him, adheres to Meyer's twelfth element of the American outlaw legend (1980, 111–12).