James Bowie (/ˈbuːi/ BOO-ee[1][2][3])[a] (April 10, 1796 – March 6, 1836) was a 19th-century American pioneer, slave smuggler and trader, and soldier who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He was among the Americans who died at the Battle of the Alamo. Stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history and a folk hero of American culture.
Bowie was born on April 10, 1796, in Logan County, Kentucky. He spent most of his life in Louisiana, where he was raised and where he later worked as a land speculator. His rise to fame began in 1827 on reports of the Sandbar Fight near present-day Vidalia, Louisiana. What began as a duel between two other men deteriorated into a mêlée 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 a knife, led to the widespread popularity of the Bowie knife.
Bowie enlarged his reputation during the Texas Revolution. After moving to Texas in 1830, Bowie became a Mexican citizen and married Ursula Veramendi, the daughter of Juan Martín de Veramendi, the Mexican vice-governor of the province. Bowie led an expedition to find the lost San Saba mine, during which his small party repelled an attack by a large Native American raiding party. This enhanced his reputation, although they didn't find the mine.
At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, Bowie joined the Texas militia, leading forces at the Battle of Concepción 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 on March 6, 1836, with the other Alamo defenders. Despite conflicting accounts of his death, the "most popular, and probably the most accurate" accounts maintain that he died in his bed while defending himself against Mexican soldiers.[4]
According to his older brother, John, James Bowie was born in Logan County, Kentucky, on April 10, 1796 (Historical marker: 36° 46' 25"N 86° 42' 10"W).[5][6] In his 1948 book, Bowie Knife, historian Raymond Thorp gives Bowie's birth date as April 10 but does not support it with any documentation.[7] Bowie's surname was pronounced /ˈbuːi/ BOO-ee.[1][2][3][8] (Some reference works give the incorrect alternate pronunciation /ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee[8][9][10]). His ancestry was predominatly Scottish and English.[11][12]
Bowie was the ninth of ten children born to Reason (or Rezin) and Elve Ap-Catesby (née Jones, or Johns) Bowie.[13] His father was wounded while fighting in the American Revolutionary War, and in 1782 he married Elve, the young woman who nursed him back to health. The Bowies first settled in Georgia and then moved to Kentucky. At the time of Bowie's birth, his father owned eight African slaves, eleven head of cattle, seven horses, and one stud horse. The following year, the family acquired 200 acres (80 ha) along the Red River. They sold that property in 1800 and relocated to what is now Missouri. In 1802, they moved south to Spanish Louisiana, where they settled on Bushley Bayou in what soon became Rapides Parish.[14][15][16]
The family moved again in 1809, settling on Bayou Teche in Louisiana before finding a permanent home in Opelousas in 1812.[17] Raised on the frontier, the Bowie children worked from a young age, helping to clear the land and plant and cultivate crops. All the children learned to read and write in English, but James and his elder brother Rezin could also read, write, and speak Spanish and French fluently.[18] The children learned to survive on the frontier, learning how to fish, butcher meat, and run a farm and plantation. James Bowie became proficient with pistol, rifle, and knife,[19] and had a reputation for fearlessness. When he was a boy, one of his Native American friends taught him to rope alligators.[20]
In late 1814, in response to General Andrew Jackson's plea for volunteers to fight the British in the War of 1812, James and Rezin enlisted in the Louisiana militia. The Bowie brothers arrived in New Orleans too late to participate in the fighting.[21] After mustering out of the militia, Bowie settled in Rapides Parish.[15][22] He supported himself by sawing planks and lumber, and floating them down the bayou for sale.[15][23] In June 1819, he joined the Long Expedition, an effort to liberate Texas from Spanish rule.[24][25] The group encountered little resistance and, after capturing Nacogdoches, declared Texas an independent republic. The extent of Bowie's participation is unclear, but he returned to Louisiana before the invasion was repelled by Spanish troops.[26][27]
Shortly before the senior Bowie died, circa 1820, he gave ten slaves and horses and cattle to both James and Rezin. For the next seven years, the brothers worked together to develop several large estates in Lafourche Parish and Opelousas.[23] Louisiana's population was growing rapidly, and the brothers hoped to take advantage of its rising land prices through speculation. Lacking the capital required to buy large tracts,[28] in 1818 they entered into a partnership with pirate Jean Lafitte. By then, the United States had outlawed the importation of slaves from Africa. Most Southern states gave incentives for informing on an illegal slave trader: Informers could receive half of what the imported slaves would earn at auction, as a reward.[citation needed]
Bowie made three trips to Lafitte's compound on Galveston Island. On each occasion, he bought smuggled slaves and took them directly to a customhouse to inform on his own actions. When the customs officers offered the slaves for auction, Bowie purchased them and received back half the price he had paid, as allowed by the state laws. He could legally transport the slaves and resell them at a greater market value in New Orleans or areas farther up the Mississippi River.[29][30] Using this scheme, the brothers collected $65,000 to use for their land speculation.[30][31]
In 1825, the two brothers joined with their younger brother, Stephen, to buy Acadia Plantation near Thibodaux. Within two years, they had established there the first steam mill in Louisiana for grinding sugar cane.[15][23][32] The plantation became known as a model operation, but on February 12, 1831, they sold it and 65 slaves for $90,000 (~$3.03 million in 2023). With their profits, James and Rezin bought a plantation in Arkansas.[23]
In the late 1820s, Bowie and his brother John were involved in a major Arkansas court case over land speculation. When the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory in 1803, it promised to honor all former land grant claims made to French and Spanish colonists. 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 those who claimed they had been overlooked.[citation needed]
In late 1827, the Arkansas Superior Court received 126 claims from residents who claimed to have purchased land in former Spanish grants from the Bowie brothers. 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.[33][34] When the disgruntled purchasers considered suing the Bowies, they discovered that the documents in the case had been removed from the court. Left without evidence, they declined to pursue the lawsuit.[35]
Bowie became internationally famous as a result of a feud with Norris Wright, the sheriff of Rapides Parish. Bowie had supported Wright's opponent in the race for sheriff, and Wright, a bank director, had been instrumental in turning down a Bowie loan application.[36] After a confrontation in Alexandria one afternoon, Wright fired a shot at Bowie, after which Bowie resolved to carry his hunting knife at all times.[37] The knife he carried had a blade that was 9.25 inches (23.5 cm) long and 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) wide.[38]
The following year, on September 19, 1827, Bowie and Wright attended a duel on a sandbar outside of Natchez, Mississippi. Bowie supported duelist Samuel Levi Wells III, while Wright supported Wells's opponent, Dr. Thomas Harris Maddox. The duelists each fired two shots and, because neither man had been injured, resolved their duel with a handshake.[39][40] Other members of the groups, who had various reasons for disliking each other, began fighting. Bowie was shot in the hip, and, after regaining his feet, he drew a knife, described as a butcher knife, and charged his attacker. The man 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 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 large knife.[41][42] Wright died instantly. 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 removed the bullets and patched Bowie's other wounds.[43]
Newspapers picked up the story and named it the Sandbar Fight, describing in detail Bowie's fighting prowess and his unusual knife. Witness accounts agreed that Bowie did not attack first, and the other combatants had focused their attack on Bowie because "they considered him the most dangerous man among their opposition."[44] Bowie's reputation as a superb knife fighter was set across the South.[32]
Scholars disagree as to whether the knife Bowie used in this fight was the same design as the blade, now known as a Bowie knife, fabricated by a knifemaker in Arkansas who created another renowned large blade known as the Arkansas toothpick. There are multiple accounts of the design and fabrication of the first Bowie knife. Some claim that Bowie designed it, while others attribute the design to noted knife makers of the time.[45] In a letter to The Planter's Advocate, his brother Rezin claimed to have designed the knife.[46] Many Bowie family members, as well as "most authorities on the Bowie knife tend to believe it was invented by" Rezin.[47] However, Rezin Bowie's grandchildren said that Rezin only supervised his blacksmith, who was the designer of the knife.[48]
After the Sandbar Fight and subsequent battles in which Bowie used his knife in self-defense, the Bowie knife became very popular. Many craftsmen and manufacturers made their own versions, and major cities of the Old Southwest had "Bowie knife schools" that taught "the art of cut, thrust, and parry."[49] Bowie's fame, and that of his knife, spread to Great Britain, and by the early 1830s, many British manufacturers were producing Bowie knives for shipment to the United States.[50] The design of the knife continued to evolve, but a Bowie knife is now generally considered to have a blade 8.25 inches (21.0 cm) long and 1.25 inches (3.2 cm) wide, with a curved point, a "sharp false edge cut from both sides", and a cross-guard to protect the user's hands.[51]
In 1828, after recovering from the wounds he received in the Sandbar Fight, Bowie decided to move to Coahuila y Texas, at that time a state in the Mexican federation.[52] The 1824 Constitution of Mexico banned religions other than Roman Catholicism and gave preference to Mexican citizens in receiving land.[53] Bowie was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith in San Antonio on April 28, 1828, sponsored by the alcalde (chief administrator) of the town, Juan Martín de Veramendi, and his wife, Josefa Navarro.[54] For the next 18 months, Bowie traveled through Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1829, he became engaged to Cecilia Wells, but she died in Alexandria on September 29, two weeks before they were to be married.[32][55]
On January 1, 1830, Bowie left Louisiana to live in Texas, permanently. He stopped at Nacogdoches, at Jared E. Groce's farm on the Brazos River, and in San Felipe, where he presented a letter of introduction from Thomas F. McKinney, one of the Old Three Hundred colonists, to Stephen F. Austin. On February 20, Bowie swore an oath of allegiance to Mexico and proceeded to San Antonio de Bexar.[32] At the time, the city was known as Bexar and had a population of 2500, mostly of Mexican descent. Bowie's fluency in Spanish helped him to get established in the area.[56]
Bowie was elected a commander of the Texas Rangers later that year, with the rank of colonel.[57] Although the Rangers would not be organized officially until 1835, Austin had founded the group by hiring 30 men to keep the peace and protect the colonists from attacks by hostile Native Americans. Other areas assembled similar volunteer militias. Bowie commanded a group of volunteers.[58]
Bowie renounced his American citizenship and became a Mexican citizen on September 30, 1830, after promising to establish textile mills in the state of Coahuila y Tejas.[58] To fulfill his promise, Bowie entered into partnership with Veramendi to build cotton and wool mills in Saltillo.[59] With his citizenship assured, Bowie had the right to buy up to 11 leagues of public land. He convinced 14 or 15 other citizens to apply for land and transfer it to him, giving him 700,000 acres (280,000 ha) for speculation. Bowie may have been the first to induce settlers to apply for empresario grants, which could be sold in bulk to speculators, as Bowie had.[59][60] The Mexican government passed laws in 1834 and 1835 that stopped much of the land speculation.[61]
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 then, or $429,000 today[62]) in cash or property within two years of the marriage. At the time, Bowie claimed to have a net worth of $223,000 ($6,380,000 today), mostly in land of questionable title. Bowie also lied about his age, claiming to be 30 rather than 35.[63]
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 to live with Ursula's parents, who supplied them with spending money.[64] The couple had two children, Marie Elve (b. March 20, 1832) and James Veramendi Bowie (b. July 18, 1833).[65]
Maria Ursula, her parents, and both children died in September 1833 during a cholera epidemic that swept through the South and along major waterways.[32]
Shortly after his marriage, Bowie became fascinated with the story of the "lost" Los Almagres Mine (also known as the lost San Saba Mine and the lost Bowie Mine), said to be northwest of San Antonio, near the ruin of the Spanish Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba.[38] According to legend, the mine had been operated by local Native Americans before being seized by the Spanish. After Mexico won independence from Spain, government interest in mining waned. A number of native groups roamed the area, including Comanche, Lipan Apache, Tawakoni, and Tonkawa. Without government troops to keep hostile natives at bay, mining and mineral exploration were impossible. Some believed that the Lipan took over the mine after the Mexican citizens left the area. [65]
After obtaining permission from the Mexican government to mount an expedition into Indian territory to search for the legendary silver mine, Bowie, his brother Rezin, and ten others set out for San Saba on November 2, 1831. Six miles (10 km) from their goal, the group stopped to negotiate with a large raiding party—reportedly more than 120 Tawakoni and Waco, plus another 40 Caddo. The attempts at parley failed, and Bowie and his group fought for their lives for the next 13 hours. When the raiding party finally retreated, Bowie reportedly had lost only one man, while more than 40 Indians had been killed and 30 were wounded.[31][38][66] In the meantime, a party of friendly Comanche rode into San Antonio bringing word of the raiding party, which outnumbered the Bowie expedition by 14 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.[67]
To the town's surprise, the surviving members of the group returned to San Antonio on December 6.[67] Bowie's report of the expedition, written in Spanish, was printed in several newspapers, further establishing his reputation.[68] He set out again the following month, with a larger force, but returned home empty-handed after 2+1⁄2 months of searching.[32]
Bowie never talked about his exploits, despite his increasing fame.[69] 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.[70]
Between 1830 and 1832, the Mexican Congress passe