Famous People

Jim Bowie Legend Runs Through Parish

One of Opelousas’ most famous citizens was Jim Bowie, inventor of the Bowie knife and one of the men who died at the famous Battle of the Alamo.

Bowie was born in 1795 on a plantation near Elliot’s Branch, in Sumner County, Tenn. He was one of 10 children of Rezin Bowie and Elve Ap-Catesby Jones. The family moved to Louisiana in about 1802, when Rezin Bowie received a Spanish grant of some 800 arpents on Busley Bayou in what is now Catahoula Parish in northwest Louisiana.

Two years later, Rezin Bowie took his family to Opelousas. It was said that he killed a man in Catahoula Parish. As that story goes, Rezin was thrown in jail after killing the man, but claimed that it was self-defense. While he was in jail, the witnesses left the Catahoula Parish area. According to the story Rezin’s wife then smuggled a gun into the jail and broke her husband free. As they left, they told the jailer that they would be back for the trial. Sure enough, they showed up with the witnesses in tow, and Rezin was acquitted. In the Opelousas area, Rezin raised sugar cane and also went into the lumber business, establishing a sawmill on Bayou Courtableau.

At the age of 18, Jim Bowie and his brothers built a sawmill on Bayou Boeuf and floated logs down the bayou to Opelousas. Bowie frequented New Orleans, where according to a persistent legend, he met Jean Lafitte and entered into the slave smuggling business with him.

By this time it was illegal to bring slaves into the United States, but there were no penalties for trading in slaves already in the country. When slave smugglers were caught, the slaves were seized and sold at government auction, but there was no real penalty for the smuggler. It is said that the Bowie brothers would buy slaves from Lafitte, then they would report each other to U.S. Customs authorities as smugglers. The Customs authorities would seize the slaves, sell them at auction and as was required by law - pay a portion of the proceeds as a reward to the tipster.

The Bowie brothers would buy back the slaves - and also collect the reward. The slaves, because they had been auctioned by U.S. authorities were now legally in the country and could be sold again at a profit.

Jim Bowie sold his holdings in Opelousas in 1824 and went to Texas. It is said that he lived for a winter with some Indians who showed him the location of the “lost silver mine of San Jaba,” but that he could never relocate it. He was granted Mexican citizenship in early 1830, a necessity for someone who wanted to hold land in Texas. He was married in San Antonio in 1833 to Ursula DeBermandi, the daughter of the vice governor of Coahula and Texas.

One story says that Bowie lived for a while at Ils de Grand Bois in Vermilion Parish. That story says that one day Bowie rode his horse to Abbeville and forced the release of a man who was being held on suspicion of murder.

Jim Bowie died at age 37 at the Battle of the Alamo in March 1836.

This article was taken from the “The Daily Advertiser’s History of Acadiana” series , No. 4 - St.. Landry Parish, Sept. 30, 1997