James Bowie Totally Explained

Everything about James Bowie totally explained

James "Jim" Bowie (April 10, 1796 – March 6, 1836), a nineteenth-century American pioneer and soldier, played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution, culminating in his death at the Battle of the Alamo. Countless stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history.
Born in Kentucky, Bowie spent most of his life in Louisiana, where he was raised and later worked as a land speculator. His rise to fame began in 1827 on reports of the Sandbar Fight. What began as a duel between two other men deteriorated into a melee in which Bowie, having been shot and stabbed, killed the sheriff of Rapides Parish with a large knife. This and other stories of Bowie's prowess with the knife led to the widespread popularity of the Bowie knife.
Bowie's reputation was cemented by his role in the Texas Revolution. After moving to Texas in 1830, Bowie became a Mexican citizen and married the daughter of the vice governor of the province. His fame in Texas grew following his failed expedition to find the lost San Saba mine, where his small party repelled an attack by a large Indian raiding party. At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, Bowie joined the Texas militia, leading forces at the Battle of Concepcion and the Grass Fight. In January 1836, he arrived at the Alamo, where he commanded the volunteer forces until an illness left him bedridden. Bowie died with the other Alamo defenders on March 6. Despite conflicting accounts of the manner of his death, the "most popular, and probably the most accurate" accounts maintain that he died in his bed after emptying his pistols into several Mexican soldiers.

Early years

James Bowie, born April 10, 1796 in Logan County, Kentucky (USA), was the ninth of ten children born to Rezin Bowie and Elve Ap-Catesby Jones. His father had been injured while fighting in the American Revolution, and in 1782 married the young woman who had nursed him back to health. The Bowies moved frequently, first settling in Georgia, before moving to Kentucky. At the time of Bowie's birth, his father owned eight slaves, seven horses, eleven head of cattle, and one stud horse. The following year the family acquired along the Red River. They sold that property in 1800 and relocated to Missouri before moving to Spanish Louisiana in 1802, where they settled on Bushley Bayou in Rapides Parish.
The Bowie family moved again in 1809, settling on Bayou Teche in Louisiana before finding a permanent home in Opelousas in 1812. The Bowie children were raised on the frontier and even as small children were expected to help clear the land and plant crops. All of the Bowie children learned to read and write in English, but Jim and his elder brother Rezin could also read, write, and speak Spanish and French fluently. The children learned to survive on the frontier, how to fish and run a farm and plantation. Jim Bowie became proficient with pistol, rifle, and knife, and had a reputation for fearlessness. As a boy one of his Indian friends even taught him to rope alligators.
In response to Andrew Jackson's plea for volunteers to fight the British in the War of 1812, Bowie and his brother Rezin enlisted in the Louisiana militia in late 1814. The war ended on that year with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, and the Bowie brothers arrived in New Orleans too late to participate in the fighting. After mustering out of the militia, Bowie settled in Rapides Parish, where he supported himself by sawing planks and lumber and floating it down the bayou for sale.

Land speculator

Shortly before their father died in 1818 or 1819, he gave Bowie and his brother Rezin each ten servants, and horses and cattle. For the next seven years the brothers worked together to develop several large estates in Lafourche Parish and Opelousas. they entered into a partnership with pirate Jean Lafitte in 1818 to raise money. The United States had by then outlawed the importation of slaves, and most southern states allowed anyone who informed on a slave trader to receive half of what the imported slaves would earn at auction as a reward. Bowie made three trips to Lafitte's compound on Galveston Island, where he bought smuggled slaves and then took them directly to a customhouse to inform on himself. The customs officers offered the slaves for auction, Bowie purchased them, and received back half price he'd paid, as allowed by the state laws. He could then legally transport the slaves and resell them in New Orleans or areas further up the Mississippi River. The brothers continued the scheme, collecting $65,000 for their land speculation.
Bowie and his brother John were involved in a major court case in the late 1820s over their land speculation. When the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory in 1803, it promised to honor all former land grant claims, and for the next 20 years efforts were made to establish who owned what land. In May 1824, Congress authorized the superior courts of each territory to hear suits from people who claimed they'd been overlooked. The Arkansas Superior Court received 126 claims in late 1827 from residents who claimed to have purchased land in former Spanish grants from the Bowies. Although the Superior Court originally confirmed most of those claims, the decisions were reversed in February 1831, after further research showed that the land had never belonged to the Bowies, and that the original land grant documentation had been forged. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the reversal in 1833. When the disgruntled purchasers considered suing the Bowies, they discovered that the documents in the case had been removed from the court; left with no evidence, they declined to pursue a case.

Bowie knife

Bowie became internationally famous as a result of a feud with Norris Wright, the sheriff of Rapides Parish. Bowie had supported Wrights's opponent in the race for sheriff, and Wright, a bank director, had been instrumental in turning down Bowie's loan application. After a confrontation in Alexandria one afternoon, Wright fired a shot at Bowie. The uninjured Bowie was enraged and tried to kill Wright with his bare hands. Wright's friends intervened and stopped the attack, after which Bowie resolved to carry his hunting knife on his person. The knife he carried had a huge blade that was long and wide. Other members of the groups, who had various reasons for disliking each other, began fighting. Bowie was shot in the hip; after regaining his feet he drew a knife, described as a butcher knife, and charged his attacker. The attacker hit Bowie over the head with his empty pistol, breaking the pistol and knocking Bowie to the ground. Wright shot at and missed the prone Bowie, who returned fire and possibly hit Wright. Wright then drew his sword cane and impaled Bowie. When Wright attempted to retrieve his blade by placing his foot on Bowie's chest and tugging, Bowie pulled him down and disemboweled Wright with his knife. Wright died instantly, and Bowie, with Wright's sword still protruding from his chest, was shot again and stabbed by another member of the group. The doctors who had been present for the duel retrieved the bullets and patched Bowie's other wounds.
Newspapers picked up the story, which became known as the Sandbar Fight, and described in detail Bowie's fighting prowess and his knife. Witness accounts agreed that Bowie didn't attack first, and the others had focused their attack on Bowie because "they considered him the most dangerous man among their opposition." The fight cemented Bowie's reputation across the South as a superb knife-fighter. However, in a letter to The Planter's Advocate, Rezin Bowie claimed to have invented the knife, and many Bowie family members and "most authorities on the Bowie knife tend to believe it was invented by" Rezin. Rezin Bowie's grandchildren, however, claimed that Rezin merely supervised his blacksmith, who actually created the knife.
After the Sandbar Fight, and subsequent battles in which Bowie successfully used his knife to defend himself, the Bowie knife became very popular. Many craftsmen and manufacturers made their own versions, and major cities of the Southwest had "Bowie knife schools", which taught "the art of cut, thrust, and parry." His fame, and that of his knife, spread to England, and by the early 1830s many British manufacturers were producing Bowie knives for shipment to the United States. The design of the knife continued to evolve, but today a Bowie knife is generally considered to have a blade long and wide, with a curved point, a "sharp false edge cut from both sides", and a cross-guard to protect the user's hands.

Establishment in Texas

After recovering from the wounds he suffered in the Sandbar Fight, Bowie decided in 1828 to move to Texas, at that time a state in the Mexican federation. The 1824 Constitution of Mexico banned religions other than Roman Catholicism and gave preference to Mexican citizens in receiving land. Bowie was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith in San Antonio on April 28, 1828, sponsored by the alcade (chief administrator) of the town, Juan Martin de Veramendi and his wife Josefa Navarro. For the next eighteen months Bowie travelled through Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1829, he became engaged to Cecilia Wells, who died in Alexandria on September 29, two weeks before their wedding.
   On January 1, 1830, Bowie left Louisiana for permanent residency in Texas. He stopped at Nacogdoches, at Jared E. Groce's farm on the Brazos River, and in San Felipe, where Bowie presented a letter of introduction to Stephen F. Austin from Thomas F. McKinney, one of the Old Three Hundred colonists. On February 20, Bowie took an oath of allegiance to Mexico and then proceeded to San Antonio de Bexar. Bowie was elected a commander of the Texas Rangers later that year. Although the Rangers wouldn't be officially organized until 1835, Stephen F. Austin had founded the group by employing thirty men to keep the peace and protect the colonists from attacks by hostile Indians. Other areas assembled similar volunteer militias, and Bowie commanded a group of the volunteers.
   Bowie became a Mexican citizen on September 30, 1830, after promising to establish textile mills in the province of Coahuila y Tejas. To fulfill his promise, Bowie entered into partnership with Veramendi to build cotton and wool mills in Saltillo. With his citizenship assured, Bowie now had the right to buy up to eleven leagues of public land. He convinced fourteen or fifteen other citizens to apply for land and turn it over to him, giving him 700,000 acres (280,000 ha) to speculate with. Bowie may also have been the first to induce settlers to apply for empresario grants and then buy the land from them. The Mexican government passed laws in 1834 and 1835 that stopped much of the land speculation.
   On April 25, 1831 Bowie married nineteen-year-old Maria Ursula de Veramendi, the daughter of his business partner, who had become the vice-governor of the province. Several days before the ceremony he signed a dowry contract, promising to pay his new bride 15,000 pesos (approximately $15,000) in cash or property within two years of the marriage. At the time Bowie claimed to have a net worth of $223,000, most in land of questionable title. Bowie also lied about his age, claiming to be 30 rather than 35. The couple built a house in San Antonio, on land Veramendi had given them near the San José Mission. After a short time, however, they moved into the Veramendi Palace, living with Ursula's parents, who supplied them with spending money. The couple had two children, Marie Elve, born March 20, 1832, and James Veramendi, born July 18, 1833.

San Saba Mine

Shortly after his marriage Bowie became fascinated with the story of the "lost" Los Almagres Mine, said to be west of San Antonio near the ruin of Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission. The mine had been operated by local Indians before being seized by the Spanish. After Mexico won independence from Spain, government interest in the mines waned. A number of hostile Indian tribes roamed the area, including Comanche, Lipan Apache, and Karankawa, and without government troops to keep the tribes at bay, mining ceased. It was believed that after the Mexican citizens left the area, the Lipan Apaches took over the mines. In the meantime, a party of friendly Comanche Indians rode into San Antonio, bringing word of the raiding party, which outnumbered the Bowie expedition by 15–to–1. The citizens of San Antonio believed the members of the Bowie expedition must have perished, and Ursula Bowie began wearing widow's weeds.
To the surprise of the town, the surviving members of the group returned to San Antonio on December 6. He set out again with a larger force the following month, but returned home empty-handed after of searching, . Captain William Y. Lacey, who spent eight months living in the wilderness with Bowie, described him as a humble man who never used profanity or vulgarities.

Texas Revolution

Texian rumblings

Between 1830 and 1832 the Mexican legislature passed a series of laws that seemed to discriminate against Anglo colonists in the province of Coahuila y Tejas, increasing tension between the Anglo citizenry and Mexican officials. In response to the rumblings, Mexican troops established military posts in several locations within the province, including San Antonio de Bexar. Although much of the military supported the administration of Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led an insurrection against him in 1832. Anglo colonists in Texas supported Santa Anna and General José Antonio Mexía, who led soldiers into Texas to oust commanders loyal to Bustamante.
After hearing that the Mexican army commander in Nacogdoches, Jose de las Piedras, had demanded that all residents in his area surrender their arms, Bowie cut short a visit to Natchez in July 1832 to return to Texas. Several months later, a cholera epidemic struck Texas. Fearing the disease would reach San Antonio, Bowie sent his pregnant wife and their daughter to the family estate in Monclova in the company of her parents and brother. The cholera epidemic instead struck Monclova, and between September 6 and September 14, Ursula, her children, her brother, and her parents died of the disease. Bowie, on business in Natchez, heard of his family's deaths in November. From then on, he drank heavily and became "careless in his dress". The scouting party left with 92 men, many of them members of the New Orleans Grays who had just arrived in Texas. After discovering a good defensive position near Mission Concepción, the group requested that Austin's army join them.
On the foggy morning of October 28, Mexican General Martín Perfecto de Cos led a force of 300 infantry and cavalry soldiers and against the Texian forces. Although the Mexican army was able to get within 200 yards (183 m), the Texian defensive position protected them from fire. As the Mexicans stopped to reload their cannon, the Texians climbed a bluff and picked off some of the soldiers. The stalemate ended shortly after Bowie led a charge to seize one of the Mexican cannons, at that time only 80 yards (73 m) away. Cos retreated with his troops, ending the Battle of Concepcion. One Texian and ten Mexican troops had been killed.

Grass Fight and commission difficulties

An hour after the battle ended, Austin arrived with the rest of the Texian army to begin a siege of Cos and his men. Two days later, Bowie resigned from Austin's army because he didn't have an official commission in the army, and he disliked the "minor tasks of scouting and spying".
On November 3, 1835, Texas declared itself an independent state, and a provisional government was formed with Henry Smith of Brazoria elected provisional governor. Austin requested to be relieved of his command of the army, and Sam Houston was named army chief. Edward Burleson was chosen as temporary commander of the troops in San Antonio. Bowie appeared before the council at some point and spoke for an hour, asking for a commission. The council refused Bowie's request, likely from lingering animosity over his land dealings. Instead, Bowie enlisted in the army as a private under Fannin. As they returned to San Antonio, Bowie took 60 mounted men to intercept the party, which they believed carried valuable cargo. In early January 1836, Bowie went to San Felipe and asked the council to allow him to recruit a regiment. He was again turned down, as he "was not an officer of the government nor army."

Battle at the Alamo

After Houston received word that Santa Anna was leading a large force to San Antonio, Bowie offered to lead volunteers to defend the Alamo from the expected attack. He arrived with 30 men on January 19, where they found a force of 104 men with a few weapons and a few cannons but little supplies and gunpowder. Houston knew that there were not enough men to hold the fort in an attack and had given Bowie orders to remove the artillery and blow up the fortification. Bowie and the Alamo captain, James C. Neill, decided they didn't have enough oxen to move the artillery someplace safer, and they didn't want to destroy the fortress. On January 26, one of Bowie's men, James Bonham, organized a rally which passed a resolution in favor of holding the Alamo. Bonham signed the resolution first, with Bowie's signature second.
   Through Bowie's connections due to his marriage and his fluency in Spanish, the predominantly Mexican population of San Antonio often furnished him with information about the movements of the Mexican army. After learning that Santa Anna had 4,500 troops and was heading for the city. He refused to answer to Travis, who called an election for the men to choose their own commander. They chose Bowie, infuriating Travis. Bowie celebrated his appointment by getting very drunk and causing havoc in San Antonio, releasing all prisoners in the local jails and harassing citizens. Travis was disgusted, but two days later the men agreed to a joint command; Bowie would command the volunteers, and Travis would command the regular army and the volunteer cavalry.
   Fearing for the safety of his wife's relatives in San Antonio, Bowie asked her cousins Getrudis Navarro and Juana Navarro Alsbury, as well as Alsbury's 18-month-old son, Alijo, to stay inside the walls of the Alamo. Bowie had been ill, and two doctors, including the fort surgeon, were unable to diagnose his illness. Travis became the sole commander of the forces when Bowie was confined to bed. Santa Anna and his army reached the outskirts of San Antonio de Bexar several days later and began a siege of the Alamo on February 24. The Mexican army raised a red flag to warn the defenders that no quarter would be given.
   Travis sent Juan Seguin to recruit reinforcements on February 25, and arrived. Thirty-five years after the Alamo fell, a reporter identified Louis "Moses" Rose as the only man to have deserted the Texian forces at the Alamo. According to the reporter's version of Rose's account, when Travis realized that the Mexican army would likely prevail, he drew a line in the sand and asked those willing to die for the cause to cross the line. At Bowie's request Crockett and several others carried the cot over the line, leaving Rose alone on the other side. After its publication, several other eyewitnesses confirmed the account,
   Bowie perished with the rest of the Alamo defenders on March 6, when the Mexicans attacked. Santa Anna ordered the alcade of San Antonio, Francisco Antonio Ruiz, to confirm the identities of Bowie, Travis, and Crockett. After first ordering that Bowie be buried, as he was too brave a man to be burned like a dog, Santa Anna later had Bowie's body placed with those of the other Texians on the funeral pyre. Various eyewitnesses to the battle gave conflicting accounts of Bowie's death. A newspaper article claimed that a Mexican soldier saw Bowie carried from his room on his cot, alive, after the conclusion of the battle. The soldier maintained that Bowie verbally castigated a Mexican officer in fluent Spanish, and the officer ordered Bowie's tongue cut out and his still-breathing body thrown onto the funeral pyre. This account has been disputed by numerous other witnesses, and it's thought to have been invented by the reporter. Other witnesses maintained that they saw several Mexican soldiers enter Bowie's room, bayonet him, and carry him, alive, from the room. Various other stories circulated, with some witnesses claiming that Bowie shot himself and others saying he was killed by soldiers while too weak to lift his head. The "most popular, and probably the most accurate" version is that Bowie died on his cot, "back braced against the wall, and using his pistols and his famous knife."

Legacy

Despite his continual pronouncements of wealth, Bowie's estate was found to be very small. His possessions were auctioned for only $99.50. His larger legacy is his position as "one of the legendary characters of the American frontier". Bowie left a "frustratingly sparse paper trail" of his life, and, for many, "where history failed, the legends prevailed." Beginning with that article, "romanticized stories" about Bowie began appearing in national press. In many cases, "these stories were pure melodrama, with Bowie rescuing some naïve planter's son or damsel in distress." and Bowie has appeared as a character in each. From 1956–1958, Bowie was the subject of a television show, The Adventures of Jim Bowie, which was set in 1830s Louisiana Territory. The show, which starred Scott Forbes, was based on the 1946 novel Tempered Blade.
Bowie is also the namesake of rock star David Bowie, who was born David Robert Jones. Jones changed his name in the 1960s because he feared his name was too similar to Davy Jones, a member of already famous The Monkees. He chose the surname Bowie because he admired James Bowie and the Bowie knife.

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