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Sunday, February 11, 2018

Bowie's Big Silver Hunt

Jim Bowie


They could see them in the distance; one hundred or more Tawakonis, Caddos and Wacos moving fast on their tracks.  They weren’t looking for a trade or share of provisions, but booty and scalps instead.  The eleven-man expedition quickly unpacked their mules at a grove of scrub oaks, and then formed a line of leveled muskets.  Fortunately, their leader was no stranger to a standup fight.  His name alone was firing the frontier spirits of Americans everywhere, especially those seeking a new life in Texas. 

Most people know Jim Bowie for his legendary knife and martyr’s death at the Alamo.  What they don’t know is Jim Bowie had an abiding passion for wealth – gained honestly or dishonestly.  More often, it was dishonestly on a massive scale.  While residing in Louisiana, his first big score came from illegal slave smuggling.  Slaves were in big demand to work the massive gulf state plantations, but they could only be obtained within the United States.   Along with his brother, Rezin, Bowie purchased smuggled slaves from the notorious pirate, Jean Laffite.  Based in Galveston, Lafitte lifted his human booty from Spanish ships in the Caribbean.  Claiming they were taken from shipwrecks, the Bowie brothers turned them into the local parish sheriff.  By law, the slaves were to be sold at auction, with half the proceeds going to the people who turned them in.  Bolstered by the proceeds, the Bowies always outbid their competitors.  After making a cool $65,000.00 (around $1.5 million today) they had to give it up when the local authorities got suspicious.

During the1820’s, Bowie turned his attention toward land speculation.  Land titles, in the Louisiana Territory, were questionable at best, a total quandary at worst.  Decades of French, Spanish and American rule led to a Gordian knot of land claimants.  Bowie took advantage of the confusion by forging Spanish land grants for 60,000 acres of prime Louisiana acreage, much of it in present day Arkansas.  To back them up, he purchased affidavits from false witnesses.  Speculating, especially in a frontier territory, usually got you more enemies than real estate.  Among those enemies was the Sheriff of Rapides Parish, Norris Wright.  In the Antebellum South, personal disputes were often settled by fists and dueling pistols rather than courts of law.   After Sheriff Wright made disparaging remarks about Bowie in public, an incensed Bowie confronted the sheriff in a hotel lobby.  Wright pulled out his pistol as Bowie picked up a chair to hit him.  He promptly shot him in the chest.  Fortunately, the bullet didn’t penetrate the skin, but left Bowie severely bruised.  The fight turned to fisticuffs, highlighted by Bowie biting Wright on the hand and losing a tooth in the process.  Friends pulled the two apart and carried Bowie to a hotel room.  From now on, he wouldn’t be caught without a weapon.  Flintlock pistols were too unreliable.  Instead, he would carry a large menacing knife provided by his brother.

The confrontation wouldn’t end there.  Their next exchange took place at a remote Mississippi River sand bar.  In front of dozens of onlookers, Wright dueled with a friend of Bowie’s; the friend’s second was Bowie himself.  When the duelers missed their targets, their seconds took out their pistols and started exchanging fire.  The gentlemanly duel turned into a farcical, no-holds-barred gunfight.  Bowie went down with three bullet wounds in his thigh and torso.  Wright moved in for the kill with his sword cane.  Before he could inflict a fatal stab wound, Bowie rose up and thrust his knife into Wright’s chest.  The Jim Bowie legend was born.

Like the smuggled slaves, Federal investigators began to unravel Bowie’s land claims.  For Bowie, it was time for new opportunities and distance from U.S. law enforcement.  Because it was in Mexico, Texas offered new possibilities.  After an amazing recovery from his bullet wounds, he headed out west to San Antonio.  It was there he met the former acalde, Juan Martin de Veramendi, and his charming daughter, Ursula.  Bowie presented himself as a wealthy entrepreneur looking to stake a claim.  Ursula was smitten with the legendary knife fighter; they married in April, 1831.  In addition to a reputation, he now had the Veramendi family’s wealth and status. 

Always on the lookout for a big payday, Bowie had heard tales of a lost Spanish silver mine in the San Saba region, a hundred miles northwest from San Antonio.  Using his in-law’s connections and money, he obtained the Mexican government’s permission to lead an expedition in search of the mine.  Unfortunately, the search was to be in territory held by the Comanches.  The Comanches were at peace with Mexico at the time, but that didn’t apply to their neighbors, the Wacos and Tawakonis.  The eleven man expedition rode out from San Antonio in the autumn of 1831.  Three weeks into the journey, they encountered a couple of Comanches and their captive Mexican interpreter.  The interpreter warned them of a large body of Wacos, Tawakonis and Cados in the area.  Near the San Saba River, they encountered a Tawakoni scout with hundreds of his friends right behind him.  A parley was attempted, but Rezin Bowie refused to part with any of their goods.  Severely outnumbered, the treasure hunters took their goods from the pack mules and arranged them like sandbags for cover.  The Indians launched an all-out attack after encircling the expedition.  Five of Bowie’s men became casualties.  Fortunately, they were better armed and held them off.  After the Indian chief was killed by a volley, many of his comrades met the same fate trying to carry his body from the field.  Realizing their attack was more hazardous to them than Bowie, they tried to set fire to the prairie grass and burn him out.  The fortune hunters frantically began pulling up grass and pushing away dead leaves to keep from being burned alive.  Luckily, the wind wouldn’t cooperate.  The fire that did reach Bowie was beaten out with buffalo robes.  Evening darkness brought an end to the attacks.  Out in the distance, Bowie’s men could hear the piercing wail of Indians mourning their dead.  Their losses too great to bear, the Indians left the scene.  Worried about future attacks, the six survivors built themselves a makeshift fort of rocks.  Bowie erected a flag pole, defiantly waving a small flag “to intimidate them and show them that there were still men ready for a fight.”  Though no silver was found, Texas found a new hero.  Bowie’s reputation rose to new heights in the aftermath.  His exploits bolstered Texan fortitude and later gave impetus to their growing discontent with Mexico.