Always for the Underdog: Leather Britches Smith and the Grabow War (review)

In Always for the Underdog, Keagan LeJeune has crafted an engaging, if idiosyncratic, study of the role of myth and place in the Neutral Strip of East Texas and Louisiana. Focused generally on the legend of Leather Britches Smith, LeJeune is actually more interested in the various ways in which “outlaws,” broadly defined, connect with and define a particular region. Smith, LeJeune argues, resonates throughout the Texas-Louisiana area because his story functions as a “potent symbol for the region’s uniqueness” and ultimately “embodies the landscape’s mystery and the residents’ ruggedness and tenacity.” (71) Overall, LeJeune attempts to untangle the folkloric myth inherent in the Smith story, but as this quotation suggests, he vacillates between a sober reappraisal of the legend and a very forgiving snapshot of the culture of East Texas and Louisiana.

The titular focus of the LeJeune’s study is Charles “Leather Britches” Smith, an outsider with a dubious past who continually transgressed the various boundaries—geographic, cultural, political, social—that defined the “Neutral Strip” in the early twentieth century. Smith’s life was just blurry and ambiguous enough to fit within a variety of narratives, and LeJeune does a fine job in detailing the many voices that claim ownership of the story. Along the way, LeJeune bounces around the legacies of people like Jean Lafitte and Aaron Burr in an attempt to discern the mysterious borders of this region’s past. More concretely, LeJeune situates Smith within the context of John Henry Kirby’s dominion and the labor issues that reverberated throughout the region surrounding the Sabine. Despite the rather misleading title, LeJeune’s main focus is on the concept of place and the various ways in which the cultural landscape of a particular area is defined by the ghosts of the past. In many ways, then, Merryville, Louisiana, in Beauregard Parish, is as much of the focus as Leather Britches because LeJeune is more intent on crafting a portrait of an overlooked area rather than a simple biography or mythography. Rooted in a number of interviews (and LeJeune has familial contacts to several of the main people cited in the book), Always for the Underdog provides a look into the place-mediated process of remembering.

Despite the strengths of the book, LeJeune maintains a rather unconventional style throughout Always for the Underdog that detracts from his scholarly aims. LeJeune, for example, shifts constantly between academic discussions of outlaw legends and much more generalized sections that are characterized by more platitudinous language. LeJeune’s interest in the personal works a bit better in the last chapter, however, as he examines the various celebrations of Leather Britches as related to the Merryville Living History Heritage Festival. Still, there exists a perceptible tension in the overall project as the author seems torn between a full-scale academic study of the contorted meaning of the past and a more informal discussion of people and places of modern Louisiana. More of an emphasis on the cultural apparatus of remembering would strengthen this book, but these issues aside, Keagan LeJeune’s Always for the Underdog is an intriguing look at the gnarled issues of community, memory, and the quest to understand the past on personal terms.