HEART OF LOUISIANA: Jim Bowie

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – It was on a sandbar not far from this spot on the Mississippi River near Vidalia, Louisiana, where frontiersman Jim Bowie made a name for himself and his knife. Born in Kentucky, Bowie grew up in Louisiana’s Catahoula Parish.

“I actually probably live within ten or twelve miles of where Bowie lived in Catahoula Parish,” said Stanley Nelson.

Nelson is editor of the Concordia Sentinel newspaper, and has written a few stories about Jim Bowie’s exploits in the area.

“Back in those days, uh, there was a lot of fraudulent land dealing going on and the Bowie brothers were involved in a whole lot of that,” Nelson said.

Jim Bowie was also a slave trader.

“He was a fighter. He didn’t take insults very easily. There was a feud involving a sheriff from Alexandria. Bowie was involved in one party and the sheriff had his men and the other,” said Nelson.

It was an 1827 duel that turned into a deadly brawl on the sandbar.

“Is a bona fide Bowie knife because we know that the Bowie brothers had this made. This bloody affair today, we’d say that it went viral. And so people across the nation of reading about how he’s in this, this fight, uh, outnumbered. He’s shot, he’s stabbed, but he’s still able to, uh, to hold his own,” said Bruce Winders.

With the sudden popularity of the knife, Bowie’s brother Rezin has more knives made.

“This was made on a plantation that the Bowies had in Rapids Parish. This knife was commissioned by Rezin Bowie by, uh, a jeweler named Searles in, uh, baton rouge. And this is what many people think a Bowie knife looks like when they hear the word Bowie knife,” Winders said.

Winders is a historian at the Alamo in San Antonio, where Bowie moved and got married after leaving Louisiana. He’s part of a force of about 200 Texans, who are grossly outnumbered, but refuse to surrender to the Mexican army.

How hard is it to separate fact from legend with somebody like Jim Bowie?

“The legend is what most people know about James Bowie. He may be so sick that he was unconscious or he’s possibly even dead at the time of the battle. Mexicans will say he’s in his bed, he didn’t put up much of a fight. Legend, you know, can’t stand for that. And so he whips out his knife, he’s slashing, he’s firing with his pistols, but you know, that’s where the backed in the, in the legend come together,” said Winders.

Jim Bowie’s story is forever enshrined at the Alamo where he died. But his fame and legend began years earlier in a knife fight on a Louisiana sandbar.

More information on Jim Bowie and his celebrated knife can be found on Heart of Louisiana’s website.

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