WEBVTT - Part One: Jim Bowie: The Worst Texan 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:05.840 M podcasts. This is Robert Evans and that was the 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.319 introduction from Behind the Bastards, which is a podcast, which 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.400 is why I said the word podcasts. Today with me 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.040 in the room that is a digital room and not 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.759 a physical room because of the plague. Is Mr Billy 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:23.079 Wayne Davis. Everybody, Hey, Billy, how are you doing? How's 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:29.680 your quarantine going? It's doing pretty good exercising. Yeah. When 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.680 I saw you last over Skype, you look like normal Billy, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.360 and then suddenly this week you have a mustache and 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:40.720 a headband. It's coming together. It's been an interesting quarantine 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.720 week for you. I'm embracing it. You've got a cookery now, 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.800 which is a special type of curb Nepalese blade very nice. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.440 I want to the Gerber to see if I liked it, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:53.720 and then now I'm gonna get into Apoll and get 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.520 one proper. Yeah, I have a Nepalese blade smith that 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.360 I can point you towards. This is a podcast about 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:01.920 the worst pill in all of history. And Billy, you 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.440 and I have developed a couple of different niches for ourselves. 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.520 We're we're we have a lot of niches. One of 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.240 those niches is medical scammers. And this is not a 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.200 medical scammer episode because our other niche is weirdos from 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.200 the South. Today, we're going to talk about one of 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:22.800 the South's great, all time famous weirdo bastards, Billy Wayne Davis. 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.839 What do you know about Jim Booie? I know the name, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:28.600 Do you know what I mean? Like growing up in 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:32.000 the South, You're just like, yeah, you hear it. I 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.720 don't know what he There's like, I don't know exactly 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.720 what you did. You've probably heard of I'm gonna guess 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:39.280 everybody listening to this has at least heard of a 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:41.959 bowie knife, which is a great kind of knife, one 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.720 of my favorite knives. It's basically a small sword that 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.800 is a dagger because we call it one instead of 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.040 a small sword. UM, with a specific kind of curved 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.320 in point to the top of the blade. And it's 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:56.680 it's great for it was initially It's great for hunting 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.960 and skinning animals, and it's also great for waving around 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.000 drunkenly at a house party if you're me and nineteen 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.240 years old. Um. The one thing I am about him 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:13.119 is the the giant mutton had the horrifying facial hair. 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.680 He had gigantic mutton chops and he died at the Alumo. 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.320 Now I was I was a Texas boy. So in 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.640 in Texas school, you have a special class called Texas History, 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.400 and every Texas kid learns a lot about Jim Booie 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.600 and it's all wrong because they only teaches about Jim 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.720 Booie at Texas School. I know who Jim Bowie. Yes, yeah, 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.600 yes I do. I just came back. It froze and 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.799 everything came back, and then you said the Alumo and 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:45.280 I was like immediately on his motherfucker's Yes. Yeah, So 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:47.120 Jim Booie is a giant piece of ship because this 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.680 is my show. But he's also like a frontier legend, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.400 like he's one of those he's like David Crockett Um 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.720 or like wild Bill Hickock, like he's one of those 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.400 like wild West legends. So this is gonna be a 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.760 hoot of a tale. Um And yeah, let's just get 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:06.240 into it. So h James Bowie Um was born on 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:11.440 March tenth, uh in Logan County, Kentucky, in seventeen nineties six, 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.880 probably because again in Kentucky in seventeen ninety six, nobody 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.760 was super good at like birth certificates and the like. Um, 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.000 but that's that's a good guess as to when he 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.519 was born three or four days ago. Yeah, yeah, he 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.360 came into the world sometime round round about. Then it 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:33.320 was the year when we had that big flood on 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.640 the river. Yeah, that's kind of how people talked about 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.560 ship like that back then. So yeah, his brother gives 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.920 March ten six is as James Bowie's birthdays. Older brother 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.120 John gives that as the birthdate. And uh, John is 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.120 kind of the source of a lot of our information 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.160 on Jim Bowie's early life. But John and every other 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.960 member of the Bowie family are liars and unreliable narrators. 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.840 So it's really we really take this all with a 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.200 grain of salt. I know people like that and they 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.840 tell you that liars do it. Hey, now I'm gonna 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.760 tell you the story. But keep in mind, I make 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.920 a lot of stuff up. Keep in mind, what would 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.960 the moonshine? I can't keep much much together about my 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.120 own back story. Yeah, the Booe families a bit like that, 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.440 and they have financial motives for telling a bunch of 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.480 saying a bunch of fun ship about Jim Bullie. But 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:23.640 I don't think they have much in the way of 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.840 financial motives about lying about his birthdates. That's probably more 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:28.880 or less accurate, at least as well as they could 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.080 remember it. So uh Jim was the ninth of ten 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:37.279 children born to Resin, which I think was just sort 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.839 of so basically our easy I n is how his 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:41.720 dad's first name was spelled, and it was supposed to 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.160 be Reason, but they weren't great at spelling in Kentucky 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.320 back in the seventeen hundreds, so they wrote it out 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:52.120 as Resin Um. So he was this Yeah, you know what, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:57.200 not bad for modern Kentucky spelling they're doing right, You 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.039 get the gist of it. So, yeah, he was the 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.960 son of Resin Boo and uh An Elvy Booi and 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.080 his parents came to the United States as part of 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.599 a massive Scottish migration across Appalachia and into the Old 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.800 South Old South. The Booey family were basically the archetypal 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.279 early White Americans pioneers down to the core of their marrow. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.160 Resin had a habit of moving on to wild land 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.000 in the frontier, developing it by building homes and orchards 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.400 and stuff, and then when other people would come in 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.520 and move in around him. He would get angry because 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.520 he didn't like being around other people. He wanted to 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.159 be out in the middle of nowhere, and so he 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.240 moved somewhere else and start building a homestead again until 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.840 civilization or whatever caught up with him. This was kind 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.080 of like how Jim Bowie's dad liked to live first 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.840 house slipper. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what he's doing. 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.560 He's like gentrifying. Yeah, he's like he's basically gentrifying, like 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:50.159 the woods. Yeah yeah, but then he hates it and 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.719 he's got it. Like, yeah, you could call them early hipsters. 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.840 But instead of like you know, enjoying artists lofts and 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:04.120 uh artisanal coffee houses, he liked fighting bears with machetes. Um, 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.880 every time I see alize of place, these people shut up. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.360 That's kind of resins attitude. So the point of making 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.200 is he he wasn't just going about this like make 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.200 a home and a living for himself and his family, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.120 like he needed to be at the bleeding edge of 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.919 the frontier. And so Jim Booie's early life as a 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.080 child consisted of many moves. You know, they'd spend a 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.200 couple of years somewhere, and then his father would grow 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.000 frustrated by the fact that there were human beings within 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.640 a half mile of them, and so they'd move somewhere else. Liked. 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.880 I realized, like these people, there's a there's a level 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.440 of even though all these people are spoilers, slave owners 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.039 and colonizers and monsters, there's a level of respect you 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.480 have to have to anyone who is like, there's people 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:49.800 within a mile of me, I'm gonna go move out 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.039 to the middle of nowhere with an hatchet and build 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.240 another home, like like they're they're tough, is Yeah. I 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.560 just keep thinking, I'm like, I'm not as stubborn as 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.560 I thought. There there's there's a TikTok r. That's that's 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.280 that's like where the wife comes in, it's like, honey, 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.400 we have to move. The neighbor said, hi, and that's 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:15.920 these people. Yeah, yeah, that's resin Booie friends, Billy, what 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:17.920 were you saying? I'm gonna call you booeye a couple 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.720 of times and as I'm certain I like it, I 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:27.040 don't remember, Oh good, fantastic. Well, uh yeah. So now 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.800 the Booie family, when Jim was young, tended to live 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.160 all the spots they pick. We're along the Mississippi River, 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.000 and they basically moved down the Mississippi as like people 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.640 filled up the area above them. UM and moving dot 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.320 day for the Booey family meant they would build by 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.320 hand a flat bottom boat, toss all of their ship 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.760 onto it, and then sail down the Mississippi to find 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.840 a new place to live. So that's what. That's what 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.720 like the U haul of the day is, Yeah, you 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.760 just wake up here. Ship Dad's boat. Dad's making a boat. 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:02.880 God damn it. Yeah. Now Will Jim Bowie's first memories 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.200 probably would have been in the Twapay Township in what 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.040 is now Missouri uh and what was then still under 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.520 French control and part of their new Madrid district now. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.360 The name Twapati came from the original inhabitants of the land, 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.520 the Apple Creek band of the Shawnee tribe. They'd been 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.400 forced out by white men via unspeakable violence and disease, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.760 and young Jim would go on to spend much of 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.280 his childhood playing in camps that they had abandoned all 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:32.640 throughout the forests and swamps around Twapty Township. UM. Now. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.320 His earliest memories from age four to six would have 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.400 been pretty relaxed. Bowie family children weren't expected to work 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.760 much at that age, and Jim would have spent much 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.720 of his time relatively unsupervised in the middle of the woods. Um. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.840 The Booey men were in general uh given to spending 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.679 a lot of time alone in the middle of nowhere. 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.880 Jim's formal education would have been basically non existent. His 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.439 mother Elvi, taught her children the alphabet, but that was 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.000 about all she knew, so that was about all they learned. Um. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.280 After two years in Twopity, it got too developed for 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.040 resident and the family moved now. During this time, much 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.800 of the southeast was still run and owned by France, 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.280 and the French government saw Americans as an ally in 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.600 their endless, bloody war against English people, which is the 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:19.080 only war that really matters in my opinion. That's that's yeah. Now, 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.320 they were happy to allow Americans to settle in the 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.800 Louisiana territory, and they offered generous terms on land grants 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.520 for them to do so. The Bowie family kept moving south, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.960 and by eighteen twelve they'd staked out a claim on 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.640 buyou vermillion in the Atta Kappas parish just south of 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.000 opelousas Uh. They got into the timber cutting business, and 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.280 by now Jim was coming up into a young adult, 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:41.679 so he was able to help the family business, as 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:45.280 did all of his many brothers. The Bowie boys were close, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.000 and for most of his life, Jim Bowie's primary business 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.199 partners would be his kin. He was raised with a 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.840 love of exploration and constant motion, as well as an 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.160 abiding appreciation for owning enslaved human beings. His grandfather had 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.319 owned people, as had his father. The Bowies weren't but 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.480 they did not and did not have large fields full 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.400 of enslaved people, but they kept small families of field 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.679 hands enslave to help them with their work. And I'm 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.680 gonna read a quote now from the book Three Roads 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.079 to the Alamo that describes sort of how slavery was 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.040 practiced within the Bowie family. It's gonna sound like it's 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.280 making a different point than it is at first, but 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.840 just just listen to the whole quote. Typically, for land 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.959 owned by small farmer slaveholders, Bowie plantations enjoyed benign, even 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.360 familial relations between blacks and whites. They certainly wore for 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.200 where for Uncle Reza, who never married, but who fathered 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.800 a son named James by a slave mistress around sometime 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.320 around seventeen ninety, and thereafter openly acknowledged him, gave him 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.240 his freedom and the family name, and brought him to 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.880 Louisiana with the rest of the clan. The Black James 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.080 Bowie remained in cattle cata Hula while the rest moved south. 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.280 For years to come, he steadily did land and loan 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.160 business with both John Senior and Junior, even buying and 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.839 selling slaves himself, and achieved some minor position in the 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:58.199 community near Sicily Island, wherever Bowie blood flowed, clanned loyalty followed. 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.760 In later years, the family were remembered well stories of 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.920 resins Young Uh, stories of resins Young James's closeness to 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.680 an old slave woman named Mandy, of the little kindnesses 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:09.520 he did for her, and of the advice she passed 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.439 on to the boy. There was never any question that 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.920 the Buoye slaves were property, though, and with the exception 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.079 of a few favorites like old Mandy, they were usually 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.880 sold with the land whenever a buoy moved on. So 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.640 you've got a really complicated relationship with slaves here. To 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.840 the point where some of the Boweymen have children, um 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:28.880 with with their slaves, and those children are seen as 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.480 Buoy's and are generally live lives as freed people. Um. 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.680 And you have like certain older slaves that are beloved 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.120 and considered almost a part of the family, but also 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.880 almost um includes a lot of wiggle room. And as 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.199 much as the Buoys pretended to have familiar relations with 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.559 their slaves, they sold them, um whenever they would move, 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.000 because these people were in the end property to them. 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.839 And this is kind of like, this is a pretty 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.439 normal sort of master slave relationship to exist in the 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.480 era at the time with among people who are moving 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.360 a lot like we don't we mainly talk about sort 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.000 of the old plantation system, but that hadn't really gotten 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.320 going in a big way at this point. Um. And yeah, 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.160 that's kind of how the Booey family dealt with slavery. Um. 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:15.280 It's it's yeah, I don't know, it's weird, it sucks, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.840 but yeah, it was bad. It's just it's very clear 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:24.199 they've viewed them as livestock. They've used that's it's it's 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.439 it's more messed up than even just that though, because 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:29.800 you know, the buoys were a close knit family. You 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.000 had a lot of different uncles and brothers all living 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.320 together with their families, and when one of them would 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.880 make another human being with a slave, that that person 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.280 was considered to be a buoy and a member of 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.959 the family. Um, but that person's black cousins and and 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.480 and you know, half brothers and stuff would be sold 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.880 off as property. So it's this it's really kind of 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:54.719 weird to wrap your head around. I don't even know. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:56.360 I can't even really get into the head of the 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.440 people who would comfortably do that, who could like recognize that, like, well, 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.559 this one's got my blood, so he's family, and we're 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.760 gonna treat him like family. But these other people who 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.640 have are related to him, but not to me. I'm 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.600 just gonna sell like a dishwasher. It's really strange. It's 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.319 such a weird flip of the coin in their head 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:23.280 where they've made this is the line for us. It's bizarre. Yeah, 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:25.720 it's hard for me to get my head around in anyway. 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.280 And I should note here that because I my longtime 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:33.000 co worker uh is Sore and Bowie, I'm going to 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.920 regularly pronounce the Bowie name in a number of different ways, 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.079 and it's going to frustrate people and they can just 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.080 they can just deal with it. Yeah, deal with it people. Yeah, 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:48.520 it's just gonna happen. Sorry. Yeah, So the Bowie family 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.640 patriarch had to kill other human beings at least once 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.080 while the Bowie boys were children. When the family moved 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.400 to Louisiana, they found squatters on their land. A disagreement 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.240 in suit, and Resin killed one of the squatters. He 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.360 was jail. Yeah, yeah, and this was not uncommon because, like, 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.640 land ownership was kind of a murky idea back then, 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.200 you know. Yeah, so was the idea of squatting too, 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:16.480 where you're just say in court you're not you're yeah, 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.080 you're not gonna see me in court. I'm just gonna 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.680 shoot ye right now. Yeah. So Residin killed one of 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.800 these squatters and like it went to trial and he 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:26.560 got jailed in the wake of the fight while they 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.400 were waiting for a trial, and his wife actually got 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.880 a bunch of guns together and one of her slaves 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:33.720 and busted him out of jail. So this would have 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.440 been a pretty early memory of Jim's Booie is his 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.440 like mom and one of their slaves busting their dad 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:44.160 out of jail for murdering a guy. Um, yeah, so 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.920 that's cool. That's that's that that puts an imprint on 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.040 your foundation as a person. I think, yeah, that the 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.720 law is something that you can manipulate via having enough guns. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.160 I think would have been yeah. Yeah. So Jim's their 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.320 brother also named Resin, left home to go have dangerous 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.960 adventures when he was about nineteen, and this was desperately 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:07.720 hard for young Jim because he was very close to 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.000 his brother. A few years later, when the War of 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.040 eighteen twelve came to Louisiana, Jim was finally old enough 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.720 to follow Resin when he enlisted. Uh James, another one 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.800 of the Bowie brothers, described Resin Jr. As a perfect 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.960 rowdy and Jim hisself was noted to be even wilder 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.720 and even less thoughtful than his older brother. They were 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.920 both very excited for their chance to go off and 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.760 kill English people. Tragically, they arrived too late. The war 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.720 ended without them having to fire a shot. The Bullie 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:36.960 brothers were still in the militia, though, and they remained 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.560 in it for a couple of months after the battle, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.120 taking on boring patrol duties and spending their off duty 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:46.160 time in the city of New Orleans. Somebody, we'll hang 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:51.080 out for a couple of moments. Yeah, yeah, that's basically 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.320 what happens. But they don't get a chance to shoot anybody, 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.880 and they muster out with about twenty one dollars each 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.760 for their troubles. So yeah, that's that's kind of Jim's 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.400 a man now, like he he doesn't get his chance 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.160 to murder anybody, but he's got twenty one dollars in 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.960 his pocket. He's like seventeen years old. That's as much 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.600 of an adulthood as you, um, you get at that 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.800 that period in time and his high school graduation and 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.560 in New Orleans. That's a good place to be seventeen 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.480 with the pocket full of money. That is a good 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:23.800 place to be then and now, well no, not now 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:29.640 because of the coronavirus, but then yeah, yeah. Uh so 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.640 Jim was frustrated at the fact that his war experience 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.520 hadn't ended with him getting to shoot anybody. Um, but 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.520 he also, you know, it was exciting still. You know, 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.480 he got to do some patrols and stuff as part 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.720 of the militia. He got to get wasted in New 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.040 Orleans and his taste of being out in the world 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.400 made it impossible for him to return home. Um so 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:51.680 he took to the same basic tactic as the men 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:53.840 his father had murdered a couple of years back, and 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.760 started squatting on a patch of land above Bayou Booth 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.760 in Opalosis h James Bowie, Jim's older there, and I'm sorry. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.400 The Booey names are all very complicated because there's multiple 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.760 James and multiple Resins and John's. It's very frustrated. We 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.439 forgot what we name the other one. We named him 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.000 the same one. The feeling you get from the Bowie 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.879 brothers names is that they were expecting. The parents were 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.600 expecting most of them to die, and then they didn't 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:21.760 because the Bowies tended to be pretty tough, and so 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:23.359 you wind up with a bunch of kids. We have 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:28.840 the same fucking name name James. Yeah. We didn't expect 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.119 as many of them would make it eight teen, as 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.520 did I'm gonna make a boat. There's people over here, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:40.399 yeah yeah, so. Uh. James Bowie, another one of Jim's 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.000 another one of Jim Bowie's older brothers, would later describe 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.960 eighteen year old Jim Bowie this way. Quote he was Yeah, sorry, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.879 John Bowie, Jim's older Ye, Jesus, I'm sorry. The booing 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.879 names are so fucking competent. How many siblings does he 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.880 have to? They all have weird he has Tim has Tim? 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.120 Are they all? Jim just sucks? Jim? John Right, there's 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.920 a couple. There's a resident in there, Yeah, resident Jr. 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.760 It's very frustrating. But Jim Bowie's older brother would later 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.080 describe Jim at eighteen this way quote. He was young, proud, poor, 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.280 and ambitious, without any rich family connections or influential fringe 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.600 to aid him in the battle of life. After reaching 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:21.800 the age of maturity. He was a stout, rather raw 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.159 boned man of six ft height, with a hundred and 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.239 eighty pounds, and about as well made as any man 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.160 I ever saw. His hair was light colored, not quite red. 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.320 His eyes were gray, rather deep set in his head, 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.560 very keen and penetrating in their glance. His complexion was fair, 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.600 his cheekbones rather high. Taken together, he was a manly, 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.080 fine looking person, and by many of the fair ones 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.119 he was called handsome. The fair ones or women he 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.800 was possessed of, and his brother a little bit Yeah, 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.399 you know, you get the idea that maybe some boowie 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:55.879 brothers got up to some some things. They were in 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:00.480 French country. It wasn't weird good looking brother. I got 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.960 some sexy brothers, and I know from sexy brothers. He 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.359 was possessed of an open, frank disposition, with a rather 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.560 good temper unless aroused by some insult, when the displays 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.359 of his anger were terrible and frequently terminated in some 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.359 tragical scene. So he was a friendly guy unless he 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.520 got angry, in which case he got really violent. That 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.360 he had a pretty fair temper unless he made him mad. 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.240 That's what he just said. That's literally what he's saying. Oh, 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.480 I forgot. You just learned the alphabet I forgot. Yeah, 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.879 that's your only education. Uh. He was never known to 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.840 abuse a conquered enemy, or to impose upon the weak 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.960 and defenseless. A man of very strong social feelings. He 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:39.760 loved his friends with all the ardor of youth, and 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.080 hated his enemies and their friends with all the rancor 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.800 of the Indian. He was social and playing with all men, 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:46.920 fond of music and the amusements of the day. It 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:48.920 would take a glass in a merry mood to drive 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.600 dol caraway, but seldom allowed it to steal away his 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.720 brains or transform him into a beast. This is what 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:56.960 his brother claims, and a lot of it's lies because 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.800 he was a famous drunk um. But yeah, that's that's 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.680 that's how his his older brother described him at eighteen UM. Now, 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.919 by any accounts, Jim Booie was a pretty good frontiersman. Um. 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.120 He squatted on land, chopped and sold cypress wood, which 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.040 he saw down in the planks, and then floated down 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.480 by the river into town. He also hunted a great 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.520 deal uh and his brother John wrote that he developed 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.280 a particularly painful way of hunting bears uh quote. In 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:26.800 the summer season, when the bears were constantly ravaging little 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.360 patches of green corn of the early settlers, he adopted 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.200 the following novel plan to entrap them. After finding a 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.440 place where they usually enter the field, he would find 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.639 like a stump, a tree stump that was kind of 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.879 hollow on the inside, and he'd filled the inside of 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.479 the stump with spikes that were facing inward, and then 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.960 he'd pour honey into the stump, and so the bear 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.399 would stick it snout in the stumps. The stump to 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.120 get honey, and then as it pulled its head out, 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.000 the spikes would gouge into its face, and so its 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.520 head would be trapped inside the log like with with 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:00.480 iron spikes gouged into its mouth. And then while the 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.320 bear was like in horrible agony trying to free itself 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:05.399 and blinded because it's head stuck in a stump, he 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.800 would just shoot it in the head. I mean, I 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.119 feel like he went a step Barbara for that, but 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.360