James Bowie
Nineteenth-century American pioneer · United States · On the map · Scientists · Lived 1796 to 1836 · aged 39
James Bowie was an American military officer, landowner and slave trader who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He was among the Americans who died at the Battle of the Alamo.
James Bowie is read about 691 times a day, in 31 languages.
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A Bowie knife![Rezin Bowie's account of an Indian fight in Texas in 1831 [with 1833 woodcut illustration]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/1833_Rezin_Bowie_-_An_Indian_battle_-_The_casket.pdf/page1-500px-1833_Rezin_Bowie_-_An_Indian_battle_-_The_casket.pdf.jpg)
Rezin Bowie's account of an Indian fight in Texas in 1831 [with 1833 woodcut illustration]
Woodcut illustrating Rezin Bowie's 1833 account of an 1831 Indian fight in Texas appearing in the Saturday Evening Post and Atkinson's Casket
James Bowie's 1831 report of Indian fight near San Saba from Brown's History of Texas, 1892
Antonio López de Santa Anna, president of Mexico, led the Mexican Army into Texas.
The Alamo, c. 1847
Sarcophagus in the Cathedral of San Fernando containing Bowie's ashesAbout this person
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.
