JAMES BOWIE - A PERSPECTIVE
©  Jeffrey Dane  2001

(1796-1836)
Portrait of James Bowie, painted from life. The original is attributed to
George Healy.

"Bowie is debatably one of the most misunderstood of the Alamo defenders." - This observation by Western historian and author J.R. Edmondson is not only perceptive but enlightening, and seems to hit the proverbial nail on the head: even if only indirectly, it invites thought from the Western history devotee and investigation by the historian.

Behind the otherwise ordinary objects we find the revealing or persuasive stories about James Bowie with their specific anecdotal richness. Throughout the more than sixteen decades since his death, these tales have only deepened his seemingly impenetrable mystique and persona. Bowie was a Texan not by birth (he was Kentucky-born) but by adoption - just as Beethoven and Brahms were not Austrian (they spent their adult lives in Vienna) but German-born.

Some have claimed Bowie was a rowdy, a trouble-maker, a sot, a swindler, had shady business dealings, and that he might have been among the least admirable of the Alamo defenders. Others say he had a noble character; that he developed a kind of cultivation that belied his modest beginnings; that he was kindly and pleasant with strangers who, having heard of him, approached him to make his acquaintance; that he was absolutely courtly with women; and that he had that elusive quality of charisma - impossible to define, difficult to explain, hopeless to imitate, but very easy to recognize.

It's also been suggested that he would come to the aid of defenseless men - and that he would do so without solicitation. Though they're exceptional, there are such men, and an unusually distinctive, enviable and benevolent trait like this is remarkably revealing of a person's character.

Because he was far above us in some ways doesn't mean he had to be far above us in every aspect of general daily virtue. Like us, he had a full set of human weaknesses, and the personal frailties to which he was subject make him more, not less, of a human being. He may have been all of those things, and more - a colorful, multi-level nature precludes black & white judgments and two-dimensional descriptions. The preference, the very understandable human tendency in all of us, is to believe that his most positive attributes are what shaped the truest features of James Bowie's real nature.

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As a boy, Freud's disciple Theodor Reik recalled having passed Johannes Brahms on a Vienna street. Composer Igor Stravinsky, also as a youth, remembered actually seeing Tchaikovsky at a concert. Both youngsters lived long lives respectively into the sixth and seventh decades of the twentieth century. Conceptually, there might now be some living centenarian whose grandfather could have known James Bowie, or at least been in his presence and spoken with him.

This very real possibility increases the size and strength of the links in the chain that binds us to the world's history generally, to American history specifically and to Texas history in particular, but the bottom line is that Bowie's era is beyond the recall of any person alive today. With total lack of proof in some matters and conflicting accounts in others, it's a given we'll never have definitive answers to many Alamo questions - and by extension, to the resolution of some Bowie particulars. (His marriage to Ursula Veramendi is apparently documented but baptismal records for his "children" are elusive). Edmondson, an acknowledged authority on the subject of Bowie, wrote, "There are so many wonderful legends enshrouding him, but you almost have to take a Bowie knife to cut through the mythology to find the real man." We can be certain only of this: there are many things of which we just can't be sure.

In keeping with the nature of legends, contradictions about Bowie are legion. In dispute even now is whether the idea or design for the Bowie knife originated with James or his brother Rezin (prounounced REE-zin), and even the family name itself has two different pronunciations (BOO-ee and BOW-ee). It seems the former is the correct one, as indicated by the different phonetically written renderings of it by others in his era - before the age of mass media coverage and when standardized spelling wasn't yet the norm. The name is written in Mexican documents (wrongly spelled but phonetically right) variously as "buey" and "buy," and even as early as 1837 an Alabama law, rendered in English, regulated the sale and use of "booey" knives. Inquiries of ten different historians and scholars - in any field - can net twelve different findings, and the researcher is often handicapped by a rich assortment of obstacles.

Rendering by Edward Everett of the Alamo ruins, ca. 1846.  The Alamo church as it appears today. The distinctive contour of its campanulate roof has become so iconic that it effectively defines the Alamo in its photographs.

The passage and changes of time yield transformations. The Vienna building where Brahms lived for his last 26 years was demolished ceremoniously on April 3, 1907, exactly ten years after he died there. According to old Alamo plans and maps, Bowie's quarters (in the Low Barracks, now long gone) were located near what is now part of the vest-pocket park on Alamo Plaza. Aside from a few artifacts, all that remains of the Veramendi Palace are an old photograph of it and the actual front doors (through which Bowie himself passed), exhibited today in the Alamo's Long Barracks Museum. Bowie himself could walk about with his sheathed blade on his belt (Heaven help those who objected), but today one should not do the same even in the most outlying areas of the American West.

When we're dealing with someone of historic tradition and folklore, it can be difficult going beyond simple documentation, even if it's abundant. Many Alamo questions are still unanswered and will forever so remain, but one that prompts contention among historians and scholars, and the academics, involves those whose claim of a historic Alamo connection has no documentation. The fact is that history isn't composed solely of official decisions and descriptive records, and that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Parenthetically, and by way of comparison: I knew Leonard Bernstein when I was a student - but that he might never have "documented" this by mentioning my name in his letters does not mean that I didn't know him.

There's also no historical documentation that James Bowie ever killed anyone fighting in a duel per se. This may initially seem at odds with legend but should also lay to rest some Bowie questions and sharpen the focus of historical perspective, even if only slightly.

Anyone can report facts and reveal a mere shadow rather than the substance of a subject - but piercing the armor and entering the sanctum of personality and character is another matter. Our personal reports, about others or about ourselves, are subjective almost by definition and certainly by nature. The ideal researcher's goal is to revise not history but only the perspective and perception of it: he or she aims not necessarily just for a different picture but for a clearer one, even if what's accomplished is more a revelation of the subjective than a reflection of the objective.

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THE KNIFE

The whereabouts of the knife James Bowie had with him in the Alamo, and which he would have used to defend himself during the last moments of his life, is unknown - and forever lost to posterity even in the literal sense. We'll never know if it was taken by a Mexican soldier, or if it was destroyed with Bowie's remains in the funeral pyre in which the bodies of the Alamo defenders were ordered burned. Among other historical fields, this one has been plowed so often, each furrow being turned so many times, that expecting "the" Bowie knife to turn up now might be comparable to finding an ancient Greek ceremonial dagger lying loose somewhere in the Parthenon today. Still, there are some who believe a certain unusual, distinctive knife may have been one of those made for and owned by James Bowie himself.

Replicas of the studio prop knife (top) used in the Alan Ladd film "The Iron Mistress" - and (bottom) of the massive Bowie knife (14-inch blade) owned by artist, blade collector and Bowie historian Joseph Musso.

J.R. Edmondson's article, "The Brass-Backed Bowie," appeared in two successive issues (January & February, 1993) of Knife World Magazine. Reading almost like a Stephen King thriller, the article is positively riveting and assumes edge-of-your-chair "Twilight Zone" characteristics with nearly cinematic, Hitchcock-like overtones. It discusses the extraordinarily shaped and massive Bowie knife owned by California artist, blade collector and fellow Bowie historian Joseph Musso. The weapon is pictured in the article with the studio prop knife used in the Alan Ladd film, The Iron Mistress, based on the book by Paul Wellman. Though the handsome prop knife is unusually large, Musso's brass-backed Bowie is even larger: the blade itself is almost 14 inches long, making the weapon effectively a small sword - which is how Bowie's knife has been described.

The Knife World article offers if not "proof" then certainly some very convincing evidence that the knife was made ca. 1830 - interestingly, just when Bowie was in the prime of his life - very possibly by James Black in Washington, Arkansas. The initials JB appear on part of the quillon. While the letters could represent the maker's initials, some believe that the knife may have been made for and owned by James Bowie himself. Conjecture may be fruitless but it's still fascinating. Though we'll never know for certain if Musso's weapon is literally a Bowie knife, there are those who share a common view about it - a common feeling. Rather singular and historically almost unique of shape, positively frightening of configuration and monstrous in its size, there is an undefinable mood about it which is, in a word, unsettling, as though it has some hidden story to tell, if only it could speak. Inanimate, the weapon has no life of its own - but it seems to have a very distinctive and almost palpable presence, which can be sensed even in its photographs. This cannot be "explained." It can only be felt. Crockett himself (who seemed to prefer the name David rather than "Davy") left us his own impression of Bowie's knife, which he saw the first time the two men met: "I wish I may be shot if the bare sight of it wasn't enough to give a man of squeamish stomach the cholic, especially before breakfast." That the garden-variety hunting knife would be so described seems rather unlikely.

This Musso knife matter is problematic - but the fact remains that if it was Bowie's own blade, it represents its own cumulative past. Do those who conclude it was James Bowie's knife believe it because they wish to? It may be so, but that it might have belonged to and been used by James Bowie is a possibility - unprovable, but there - with which we're still faced, and it must be if not "accepted" then certainly considered.

It's also worth noting that even in person the nearly-full-size reproductions of this piece (from Atlanta Cutlery's Museum Replicas in Conyers, Georgia) do not prompt the same kind of intensity of personal reaction as does even a photo of the actual Musso knife. We react differently when we see George Washington portraits by contemporary artists (including Gilbert Stuart, whose rendering of our first president graces countless schoolrooms and all of our dollar bills), and then visit New York's Pierpoint Morgan Library to gaze upon the 1785 life-mask [left] by Jean Antoine Houdon: predating the photographic era by more than half a century, the mask is the most accurate, realistic rendering we have of Washington's physical features and represents him effectively as he actually looked at age 53. Since history doesn't exist solely on the basis of written documents and official decisions, these are not merely anecdotal comments but distinct possibilities: in essence, even in its photo we may be looking at the blade of James Bowie.

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THE BOWIE MYSTIQUE

Some people, like Melville, van Gogh, and Alamo commander William Barret Travis became legends posthumously. Others, like Beethoven, Brahms, and Bowie had already reached nearly iconic status even during their own lifetimes. Bowie lived so long ago that the distance of time renders the contradictions and confusion about him almost impenetrable, and his reputation, evidently even in his own day, precipitated the creation of a historical petri dish in which the culture of The Adventurer grew and flourished. He became a legend so early in American history that the records are congealed with invention, fiction and fantasy, creating nearly insurmountable obstacles to the human features behind the mystique, if not clogging access to the man altogether. The results of his existence have become so profound they're almost intangible, though today towns bearing his name exist in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Texas (which also has a Bowie County); San Antonio itself has its own Bowie Street, and there is Bowie Creek in Mississippi.

Bowie's impact corresponds to the then-new and unprecedented early 19th-century views characterized by the Romantic era's perceptions of historic greatness. It could apply to almost every significant person who attained fame in life or after, but it seems to apply especially to Bowie as an American legend. He foreshadowed by decades the wild west and its own individual and collective legends, still in our consciousness today as the subject of countless books, and with the western film having been a Hollywood staple for decades. (It was precursored as early as 1903 by the 10-minute-long "The Great Train Robbery," filmed not in Wyoming but in New Jersey, and the plot of which was suggested by an actually train holdup - in Wyoming - on August 29, 1900, in which members of Butch Cassidy's group were involved).

Romantic notions of history evolved during Bowie's era; the image of the independent and self-sufficient man was then respected and in some cases even enhaloed, with The Adventurer and the aura that surrounded him an object of reverence, and his persona being seen by some as something bordering on divinity. (It's even more profound in the case of the composers, whose handwritten manuscripts, inert but still very much alive, can now bring a veritable fortune at auction). This was the Romantic view - "romanticized" now but quite real then. James Bowie was one of those responsible for the fostering and impetus of the nineteenth century Romantic sentiment in the United States.

We tend to admire those we can't emulate but would like to. We also tend to invest martyrs with heroism and heroes with martyrdom. Those who left life prematurely, at whatever age, prompt the most intriguing conjectures. Bowie's adventurous life and martyr's death at the Alamo exemplify this. As the knife bearing his name has become emblematic of him, his name and the very concept of the Alamo have become indelibly linked, if not altogether fused. His 40-year existence contributed as much to nineteenth century legend as to the depiction or representation of historical fact. Like most in his era, locale and circumstances, Bowie was a man of action more than of words, yet whatever written records he left reveal a degree of awareness, observation, and clarity of mind.

We live in an era where some amazing things are often taken for granted. The Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio, Texas, displays an unusual and very telling artifact: a large, sealed jar of earth from the Alamo grounds in San Antonio. That the soil was rescued and preserved soon after the final siege in 1836 bespeaks a revealing degree of reverence for what occurred at dawn on that Sunday, March 6th, and is a clear indication of the momentous significance with which the event was seen even then, certainly by the unnamed person who salvaged and saved that soil.

The sense of the Alamo's historical standing was perceived also by another, not so anonymous man. ". . .If they overpower us, we fall a sacrifice at the shrine of our country, and we hope posterity and our country will do our memory justice. . ." Thus wrote William Barret Travis from the Alamo itself on February 25, 1836, when the siege had already been underway for two days. That he used the word "shrine" in his dispatch, long before the Alamo became so known as a national symbol, seems very noteworthy - the more so, as his letter predates the realization that the defenders were to fight literally a losing battle. Indeed, Remember the Alamo! became a rallying cry even at San Jacinto, a mere six weeks after the Alamo fell.

Signature of His Excellency Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Peréz de Lebrón.

One man who paradoxically did not grasp the Alamo's importance to posterity was none other than Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Peréz de Lebrón. In his memoirs, written late in his life, he made only passing reference to that Bexar incident - but even a comment he made soon after the siege was very revealing: "It was but a small affair" ( -  to which one of his officers responded, "Another such 'victory' and we are ruined"). Santa Anna's statement not only shows us his own view but reminds us of a similar situation in antiquity: the paucity of information in ancient Egyptian writings about the Israelites leads scholars in that field to deduce that the Exodus was then perceived by the Egyptians merely as a nuisance border incident. The historical consequences of what happened there thirty three centuries ago, and more recently in Texas, are now matters of historical record.

Had photography appeared only twenty years earlier, we might have had a photographic image of Beethoven. Though we do have one Bowie portrait  (attributed to G.P.A. Healy) that was painted from life and which gives him a rather fierce look, had the camera been around even ten years sooner, we might have an actual photo of the already-famous Bowie or even of former congressman Crockett. Most of us are just passing through history. James Bowie and the knife that bears his name ARE history. What's most obvious, by its nature, often escapes our attention, so it may be worth noting that James Bowie and the other Alamo defenders were as alive then as we are today.

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AUTHOR'S BIO

JEFFREY DANE is a historian, researcher and essayist whose writing on various subjects appears in the USA and abroad in several languages, and in both print and online publications. He's a contributor to several volumes, including "On The Crockett Trail" by Rod Timanus (Pioneer Press, Union City, Tennessee, November, 1999); "An Illustrated History of Texas Forts," also by Rod Timanus (Republic of Texas Press, Plano, Texas, February, 2001); and "Leonard Bernstein - A Life" by Meryle Secrest (Alfred Knopf, New York, 1994). He was asked to write the Foreword for "The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts" by J.R. Edmondson (Rep. of TX Press, February, 2000). He's been called by some a real idealist and by others an ideal realist. Both views have merit. As a historian, if he had a choice of experiencing any single event in the recent history of the world, it would be the siege and fall of the Alamo ( - but, he freely acknowledges, "Only as an observer, not as a participant").

He favors the following human attributes: good sense and logic, and those who subscribe to it in concept and practice; people who admit when they're wrong about something, and those who accept - graciously, not grudgingly - his own apology when he acknowledges an error of his own; those who consider and weigh their options, make a decision, and stay with it; circumstances that promote a clear vision, where we can see something for its own intrinsic worth and gauge it on its own merits, viewing it (and hopefully accepting it) for what it is.

His dislikes are: screaming children; pomposity, attitude and arrogance in any form; those of the "know-it-all" mentality, and whose personal dissatisfaction and venting masquerades as "constructive criticism"; people who have a genius for making simple things needlessly complicated; men & women who are intolerant of another person's viewpoint and who fix only upon what suits them; the person who takes the easy way out by focusing on what something is not, and who first polls others to decide what his or her own opinion will be.

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