Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  Once more it came at the expense of high feeling, and this time, even though Brent won, the influential men of the district had wearied of him. Though victorious, he appeared wounded fatally so far as future electability was concerned. Within three months of the balloting, men in Rapides looked about for another Adams-Clay man to run in Brent's place in 1828, even if such a candidate must run against Brent himself as well as a Jacksonian candidate. “I think any diligent man of popular habits who will take the pains can effect it,” an observer told Johnston in October. Surprisingly, the “diligent man” that some of them looked toward was James Bowie.59

  So successful had he been at cultivating the friendship of leading men in Alexandria that, despite the growing unsavory aroma of fraud attached to his name, some very important people considered putting him forward. Certainly there is no doubt that the nature of his land dealings was now common knowledge, and becoming more so all the time. His forgery, careless and not intelligently thought out, fooled few if any of the local population. Even the family friend William Sparks, who admired James, asserted that he lacked Rezin's ability to plan carefully and think things through, “and was without a particle of his genius.”60 Moreover, James Bowie boasted too much of his slow but steady success at hoodwinking the authorities. Longtime residents almost saw his land schemes thrown in their faces as Bowie exhibited them publicly, old Kemper referring casually to his “fraudulent claims.”61 One of the first things recent settlers to the area learned was Bowie's reputation. When Washington Bastian and his son Samuel arrived from Philadelphia around this time, they almost immediately heard stories of how Bowie “devoted himself to the forging of land titles,” of how land registrars refused to record his claims for confirmation, and even dark rumors of his waylaying and stabbing a man who had threatened to take him to court after buying a bogus claim.62 The last was hardly Bowie's style, but it did speak, even in rumor, to his ability to intimidate. The old hero Kemper, veteran of many a battle, confessed that fall that to some degree he feared James Bowie.63

  Yet none of this necessarily disqualified Bowie from being considered for Congress. After all, Brent walked under a cloud of suspicion of dishonesty scarcely less substantial than Bowie's. As for bullying and intimidation, while hardly savory traits, they could have their uses in frontier politics. Moreover, Bowie established the right connections with men like the Wells family, Isaac Thomas, General Cuny, and more. They would overlook his weaknesses since he stood on their side in the local squabbles of the day. In short, their support in sending him to Washington would earn them a useful quid pro quo when they needed favors from Washington. After all, Bowie was not the only shady land speculator; he simply did it on a vastly greater scale. If he could take on Graham successfully, it would be good for all of them. In fact, Bowie's success thus far with the General Land Office already attracted to him a certain aura of inevitability, as if he could accomplish anything. It stunned some. “Mr Bowie notorious for his land titles, came from Washington the warm & devoted friend of Brent,” Overton told Johnston in August. “He has been riding through Catahoula Washita & other Parishes ever since his return & he has acquired an influence since you left us that astonishes those that have witnessed its Progress; his success in these land titles have led the mob to believe that he is endowed with more than human energy & ability.”64

  Bowie recognized Brent's vulnerability before he saw him in Washington. Brent may have told him that he was considering making this next term his last. The two being of like mind and interests, Brent may even have promised Bowie his support should he choose to seek the seat in 1828. Setting aside the proven worthlessness of Brent's word, when Bowie returned to Louisiana and made what was now clearly revealed to be a politically motivated trip through the parishes of the district, he did not hesitate to let planters assume that Brent intended to back him. Already that summer Rezin won a seat in the legislature from Avoyelles, and John was reelected from Catahoula. The potential for advancement of the family's enterprises—and especially his own—by having two brothers in Baton Rouge and himself in Washington would be powerful.

  Moreover, Bowie counted on powerful support in Rapides. The Cunys and the Wellses backed him, and even Kemper was rumored to favor him, certainly in preference to Brent, suggesting that Bowie won his support either through intimidation or perhaps by the promise of being able to advance the de la Français matter if elected. “Jim Bowie of Rapides is the only man in the District who can turn Brent out,” Kemper reportedly told a friend, while Overton groaned to Johnston that “the Wells, Bowie & the Kempers have formed an alliance which if not holy will be sufficiently violent & from one of those named there will be a candidate for every office either in the gift of the people or of the executive.”65

  Bowie may even have announced his candidacy informally by August, with the election itself almost two years distant. From the first, however, men commented on the possibility with distaste. Speaking of Bowie's candidacy, Overton lamented: “[T]hus you see the unfortunate changes on our moral & political horison; men of independence who cannot stoop to low & dirty intrigue, are shunned as being out of fashion.” His implication, of course, was that Bowie would stoop to “low & dirty intrigue.” “What a state of things,” he exclaimed. “The most corrupt & daring are the most successful.”66

  Nor was Overton's suggestion that there might be violence entirely out of order. A renewed fight between Wright and Wells for sheriff promised fireworks. “The contest will be hard,” one man predicted. “It seems as if we now always demand to have our little society cut up by parties.” Wright, having offended many during his tenure as sheriff, now tried to make up with his old foes. Some of Senator Johnston's opponents, meanwhile, sought to damage Wright by associating the two, even though the senator came out staunchly for Wells. Manufacturers of rumors tried to divide all houses against themselves, and it appeared likely that the race would give birth to some surprising new amalgamations of factions, but none stranger than Kemper supporting Bowie.67

  By October, with the campaigning under way, passions and tempers rose. “The Country is again in a high state of excitement,” said Overton.68 The pages of the Red River Herald and the Lafourche Gazette echoed the furor for all to see. Renewed charges of voting fraud against Wright came from the Wells camp, and in the end they gave the ballot to Wells. “I have seen some faces in town as long as Don Quixottes,” Judge Bullard told Johnston when he saw Wright's backers a day or two after the election in early January 1827.69 Wright, for one, did not take the defeat with equanimity. Henceforward the Wellses and the Cunys were not just his political opponents but personal foes. And to their number he added James Bowie, who had naturally backed Wells in his successful bid.70 Moreover, it is not unlikely that, in his habitual vociferousness, Bowie may have said intemperate things about Wright. Wells was a friend, and Bowie entertained a fierce loyalty to his friends. “When he gave his friend his hand it was a pledge of fidelity never to be broken by him,” said Archibald Hotchkiss, an acquaintance from these days. “When he espoused the cause of a friend he would adhere to him to the bitter end.”71 If Norris Wright was Samuel Wells's enemy, then he was James Bowie's as well. Certainly the disgruntled Wright saw it that way.

  His new ambitions and the course of local politics seldom diverted Bowie from his true interest. He still pressed his fictitious claims in Lafourche.72 It characterized both Bowie's boldness and his poor judgment that he continued pushing the Martin claims even when Josiah Johnston and Graham became partners in a neighboring plantation. Who but James Bowie would press a bogus title next door to the commissioner of the General Land Office, the man even then trying to expose him? Johnston and Graham's overseer, C. Beaman, informed them of plantation affairs, including the frequently unpleasant relations with the Martins, who squatted on the Bowies' claims. In August he told Johnston that “the Martins & myself will continue friendly we are so at present & I no it best to keep so,” but he did not deny that “they have no friendship
for you.” Whatever the Martins did, said Beaman, they only acted as tools of “the head man James Bouy that … is the enemy of Geo Graham.”73

  And who but James Bowie, already under heavy scrutiny and suspicion for fraud, and actually trying to steal property virtually next door to his most dangerous enemy, would have the audacity to repeat the whole scheme yet again? This time his brother John joined him as partner and front, their aim set on Arkansas.74 The Spaniards had given few “floating” grants in the area because it was barely explored before it left their hands. Moreover, as part of the Louisiana Purchase, it had become a federal territory in 1819 and was as yet sparsely settled, conditions ripe for a harvest in bogus land claims. James Bowie knew how to pick the fruit. On May 26, 1824, Congress passed the first act calling for the presentation of land claims under Spanish grants, following it with another on May 22, 1826. As early as late 1825 James Bowie decided to go after land there, and whatever the precise nature of the brothers' arrangement, the plan was a repeat of James's Louisiana frauds. It helped that John Bowie knew some of the country and some influential men who might help. James would forge the Spanish grants and the transfers to his brother, and John Bowie would do all the actual selling, with the proceeds to be split between them.75

  James created the grants themselves in late 1825 or early 1826, and followed with more after the act of May 22, making some of the same mistakes he had made earlier. Gayoso always wrote his signature with a fine hand, but Bowie's forgeries were “but miserably imitated,” according to one observer; Miró's signature was free, rounded, and careless, while Bowie evidently wrote his imitation slowly, and with pointed letters. He made other equally serious errors. This time he also forged Spanish requétes or applications supposedly written and signed entirely by the original grantees, and yet it was evident that they were all in the handwriting of as few as two, and no more than four, different men. Moreover, while Bowie used the names of real men like Joseph Talbo, Juan Morian, Juan Toledano, and Bernardo Sampeyrac, they were known locally to be indigent hunters who could scarcely write their names, let alone a full document. Worse, Bowie wrote in an American script rather than Spanish calligraphy, used the same pen and ink and even the same paper for all of the documents, and wrote them all in the same handwriting, consistently misspelling the same common Spanish words. Yet in their content they purported to have been written over a thirteen-year period by dozens of different men. He also botched an attempt to age the papers by soaking them in water. In his ambition, the impatience that often characterized Bowie's dealings led him to become even more careless than before. He was bound to be caught.76

  He made the grants for tracts of 360, 400, 480, 520, and 560 arpents, which according to the acts could be entered in any land office in the territory, and he produced them in startling abundance, numbering more than 300 in all. Though the individual grants were less ambitious than his Louisiana forgeries, he and John and perhaps one or two others in the scheme produced enough false documents to lay claim to more than sixty thousand acres in Arkansas, nearly equal to the one hundred square miles of Louisiana that he had tried to gain. Anticipating the May 1826 congressional act, Bowie started making transfers of the requétes to his brother dating from April, and continued with them sporadically through the next several months. The same men witnessed all the conveyances to John, chiefly two squatters named Henry Hobb and John Cook.77

  With the hopeful prospect before him of confirmation of the claims by Congress, Bowie decided shortly before the Wells-Wright election to travel north into Arkansas in person to start inspecting the areas where he hoped to lay his locations once the claims were approved, and then he expected to go on to Washington once more to renew his campaign to get his Louisiana claims confirmed.78 Most likely accompanied by his brother John, he rode north in November and December and looked at the land in Hempstead County in the southwestern part of the territory, around Clarkesville in the northwest, near the future capital at Little Rock in the center, surrounding Batesville in the northeast, and around Helena on the Mississippi shore.79 This kind of wide-ranging expedition was what he enjoyed most, and John easily saw the pleasure his brother took in scouting the wilderness “where natural inclination also gave the employment a charm peculiarly pleasant to him.”80 It could be dangerous work, of course. Even in Louisiana, when surveying the lands he claimed, Bowie rode armed. His friend Madison Wells recalled that “Bowie was constantly in danger of his life,” especially from squatters whose presence he did not welcome and whom he had to evict.81

  Like most men of the time, he probably carried a sword cane when in Alexandria, and perhaps a small pistol in his belt or pocket. Out in the backwoods, however, he would have carried two handguns or more. They were unreliable at best, their flintlock mechanisms prone to misfire and the powder loads themselves often apt to absorb so much moisture from the humid climate that they would not ignite. He would also carry a knife, useful for marking a trail, skinning game, and as a last resort should his pistols fail him. He was past his thirtieth birthday when he rode into Arkansas and back, but while he must have had more than one rough-and-tumble tavern brawl or disagreement with a squatter, to date no serious violence attached to his name. If he ever drew those pistols or that knife against another man, posterity preserved not an inkling of the incident. That was about to change.82

  For some reason Bowie canceled his plans for the trip to Washington and instead unexpectedly took passage on a steamboat from Helena, his final land stop, down the Mississippi and thence up the Red River, reaching Rapides around December 12. True to form, he injudiciously boasted about the land he expected soon to acquire. Indeed, his Arkansas forgeries were known to Kemper and a few others even before Bowie made the trip.83 Kemper himself may have played a part in Bowie's decision to come back early. Somehow Bowie learned that Kemper, faced with undeniable proof of the invalidity of the de la Français claim, had gone ahead and signed a treaty with the presumed heirs to transfer to them those claims of his own amounting to nearly $32,948, plus enough interest to bring the total close to $40,000. The U.S. Treasury had issued warrants approving all those claims as far back as 1818-20, and now the only obstacle to payment was securing an appropriation from Congress.84 It was far more than he owed them, but he was old and ailing and well knew that he might not live to see his warrants paid. This way at least he could assure that he had honored what he insistently regarded as an obligation. For Bowie, meanwhile, it meant a sudden reversal of fortune. The spurious de la Français claim that had been worthless the past summer was suddenly worth several times its face amount. If he could prove that he had lawfully acquired title to the debt, then Kemper's $40,000 was his.85

  Perhaps he also felt that, with the election imminent, his friend Samuel Wells needed him near at hand. John Bowie, too, had to be back now, because he was due to take his seat in the state house for the first session of the Eighth Legislature on January 1, the same day that Rezin would take his seat for the first time, and James's friend Montfort Wells was now going to Baton Rouge to represent Rapides.86 Bowie's own future political interests may also have required him to come home. If he had been injudicious in what he said against Wright during the campaign for sheriff, so, too, did Wright respond in kind. Bowie's old friend Ham recalled that Wright “made statements derogatory to Col. Bowie's character.” Given Bowie's already widespread reputation for questionable land dealings, as well as the knowledge of what he was doing in Arkansas at the moment, it is not hard to guess the sort of things Wright said, charges against Bowie that could damage Wells, thanks to their close association. Worse, such things could compromise his congressional chances in 1828, and worst of all Wright said them with Bowie absent and unable to defend himself. It was exactly the sort of action designed to transform Bowie into a vengeful fury.

  It is just possible that he got word of it all while in Arkansas, but if not he certainly learned soon enough on his return. The very day that he stepped off the boat in Alexandria on December
13 or 14, friends—possibly including his brother Rezin—met him at the wharf and told him what Wright had been saying. That was all Bowie needed to hear. His rough traveling gear was packed in his baggage—on the boat he would have dressed in his town clothes, which did not provide a convenient place to carry a hunting knife—but he may have had a pistol in his pocket, and a clasp knife, and that was enough. Bowie marched up the riverbank and through the town streets to Bailey's Hotel. There he found Wright among his friends and without hesitation demanded to know if what he had heard was true.

  It was a moment of confrontation not uncommon on the frontier, and all too common in Rapides. “The men are ‘sudden and quick in quarrel,’” lamented the master of the College of Rapides. “The dirk or pistol is always at hand.”87 In fact the political, speculative, and family feuds made violence of this sort so prevalent in Alexandria that the governor had just recently appointed a new judge to deal with it: “The commission of murders, riots and offences against the laws of the state have become so frequent,” complained the town's Louisiana Messenger only a few weeks earlier, “that few men are assured of safety.”88