By james art BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – It was on a sandbar not far from this spot on the Mississippi River near Vidalia, La., that frontiersman Jim Bowie made a name for himself and his knife. Born in Kentucky, Bowie grew up in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.
“Actually, I probably live ten or twelve miles from where Bowie lived in Catahoula Parish,” Stanley Nelson said.
Nelson is the editor of the Concordia Sentinel newspaper and has written several stories about Jim Bowie’s exploits in the area.
“There were a lot of fraudulent land deals in those days, and the Bowie brothers were involved in a lot of them,” Nelson said.
Jim Bowie was also a slave trader.
“He was a fighter. He did not take insults very easily. There was a feud involving an Alexandria sheriff. Bowie was involved in one party and the sheriff had his men in the other,” Nelson said.
It was an 1827 duel that turned into a deadly battle on the sandbar.
“The Bowie knife is real because we know the Bowie brothers made it. This bloody affair today we would say has gone viral. And so people across the nation reading about how he’s in this, this battle, uh, outnumbered. He’s been shot, he’s been stabbed, but he’s still able to, uh, behave,” Bruce Winders said.
With the sudden popularity of the knife, Bowie’s brother Resin made more knives.
“It was done on a plantation the Bowies had in Rapides Parish. This knife was commissioned from Resin Bowie by a jeweler named Searles in Baton Rouge. That’s what a lot of people think a Bowie knife looks like when they hear the word Bowie knife,” Winders said.
Winders is the historian at the Alamo in San Antonio, where Bowie moved and married after leaving Louisiana. He was part of a force of about 200 Texans who were heavily outnumbered but refused to surrender to the Mexican army.
How hard is it to separate fact from legend with someone like Jim Bowie?
“Legend is what most people know about James Bowie. He may have been so ill that he was unconscious, or possibly even dead during the battle. The Mexicans will say he is in his bed, not putting up much of a fight. Legend, you know, can’t take this. And so he pulls out his knife, he cuts, he shoots his guns, but you know, that’s where the legend’s support comes together,” Winders said.
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 sandbar in Louisiana.
More information about Jim Bowie and his famous knife can be found on the Heart of Louisiana website.
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