Three Roads to the Alamo
Page 28
Bowie stayed in the Crescent City until late in February, but though still feeling the effects of his wounds, he could not remain idle. That winter he started making substantial land sales, and by April had realized more than $33,000, seeing at last the kind of money he had dreamed of, though his Sutton report claims remained stalled. He even started buying Caillou land legitimately, and signed over another parcel to settle a $4,000 debt of Stephen's. He had $25,000 or more remaining in hand, though given his lifestyle, much of that was committed in debts. Still, he must have had more cash in his purse than ever before in his life.34
Naturally he only wanted more. “One usually finds that love of money is either the chief or a secondary motive at the bottom of everything the Americans do,” said Tocqueville just a few years later. “It is odd to watch with what feverish ardor the Americans pursue prosperity and how they are ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it.”35 That was James Bowie to the life. Rezin often complained of his brother's impetuosity, saying that “James is too impatient to wait for events; he will hurry them before matters are ripe for action.”36 James tired of waiting for action on the Kemper claim. Now, even though he had previously agreed with Thomas that his partner should make the Washington trip instead, he changed his mind. On his own and with the assistance of Montfort Wells, he secured the necessary testimony and affidavits—some of which may have been forged, since the government seemed to have satisfactory evidence that the Spanish arms were never received or used—and as many of the supporting documents as he felt he needed. Then, without even consulting Thomas, he left his power of attorney with Rezin and Stephen to handle the March and April land sales, and around the first of March took ship once more from New Orleans.37
When he heard that Bowie had left without telling him, Thomas took the news badly. It is evident that he never fully trusted Bowie, a feeling based as much on knowledge of his partner's dealings as on the fact that the two shared some similarities of character. As soon as he heard, Thomas shot a quick letter to Senator Johnston, enclosing one to be handed to Bowie when he arrived in the capital. Scolding Bowie for going on without telling him and, he feared, without proper preparation of the documents in the case, Thomas went on to specify that if his partner should still be successful in getting the $40,000 or more out of the government, he did not want Bowie to bring his share back with him. Rather he wanted it left with Johnston as his authorized agent.38
In accompanying correspondence to Johnston, however, Thomas became far more candid. He knew thanks to the assurances of men of high standing that the material facts of the Kemper claim were quite provable, but Thomas did not trust “the precipitancy of Mr. B. and his loose manner of doing business.” Worse, he suffered a mounting fear that Bowie might just be successful and have the entire settlement turned over to him on behalf of both partners. He implored Johnston to receive his half if Congress appropriated the money. “I have my motives for making this request,” he said, adding that “they will suggest themselves to you, without the necessity of my mentioning them.” He asked emphatically that his money should not come south unless in Johnston's keeping, and finally dropped any attempt at subtlety for his reasons, saying frankly that “I fear if he gets the possession of it it will be more difficult to get it out of his hands than those of the government.” Preferably Johnston should insist on calling in person with Bowie to receive the payment, and if Bowie mounted any objection to Johnston receiving his half, then Thomas begged Johnston to get the State or the Treasury Department to suspend and hold his payment until he could come to Washington in person to collect.39
Johnston never gave Bowie the letter from Thomas.40 In all probability the occasion to do so did not arise, because no approval was forthcoming on the Kemper claim during Bowie's visit to Washington. Moreover, by mid-April, with Bowie apparently still in the city, Johnston received a warning from a representative of Kemper's heirs that “a person has gone on to Washington with a view to obtain payment of this claim under a pretended transfer of it from de la Français.” Having looked into the matter, the attorney told Johnston that “in my opinion there is no genuine transfer.” Indeed it was not genuine. The problems that the late Kemper thought he saw in Bowie's power of attorney from the fictional Jose de la Francia were all too apparent, and typical of the careless mistakes he made in his land grant forgeries. For a start, there was no Jose de la Francia, and Kemper had apparently known it, and now so did Kemper's heirs' attorney. The man who appeared on Bowie's behalf before De Armas in New Orleans was an impostor paid by Bowie to pretend to be someone he was not. Most people, including Kemper who actually knew Henri de la Français, referred to him by the French version of his name, suggesting that de la Francais himself did so as well. Bowie's man, however, appeared with a Spanish name, but then unwittingly gave himself away as being neither Spanish nor French. The man did not write out the recorded power of attorney himself but rather dictated it to the notary, and De Armas, being himself the son of a Spanish Creole, used the proper acute accent over the e in the deponent's name when he wrote “José.” However, when the presumed de la Francia himself signed the document, he omitted the accent, a mistake that not even a semiliterate Spaniard or Spanish Creole would make in his own name. And if he were really French instead, and stating and signing his name on a Spanish form for some reason, there was still a problem, for a Frenchman would have written a cedilla beneath the c in Francia, making it Françia. Yet there was none, again a mistake a real Frenchman would not make in his own name. Consequently, whether the government allowed it or not, the original de la Français claim still legally belonged to Kemper, meaning that whatever remained of the $40,000 after paying the de la Français debt, belonged rightfully to Reuben Kemper's family.41 In that case Johnston would hardly act for Thomas in a fraudulent claim, nor would he even need to see Bowie, for whom he must by this time have entertained a considerable distaste.
Bowie himself left Washington disappointed but not defeated. Though unable to convince the State or Treasury Departments to authorize Congress to recognize the Kemper claim and appropriate the money to pay him, his tenacity in this scheme matched his determination on his land deals, and after all, they were starting to pay off. He simply must wait, muster more testimony, and gain more influence in the capital.42 If he made more efforts on behalf on of his Sutton report claims north of Red River, there, too, he came away with nothing to show. But what probably disturbed Bowie most of all was Brent. After all but promising him two years earlier that he would back Bowie for his congressional seat in the 1828 election, the slippery Brent had now determined to run again himself.
Worse yet, when Bowie got back to Louisiana sometime in late April or early May, he found that none of the support he had—or thought he had—in 1826 still backed him. No men of influence came forward to endorse his candidacy. His best friends and strongest supporters, such as Kemper, Samuel Wells, and General Cuny, were all dead. Even Isaac Thomas would hardly support him, being in the first place a Jacksonian and in the second highly distrustful of Bowie. Two years earlier, men like Kemper declared that only Bowie could defeat Brent and even urged him to declare himself, while Brent seemingly promised his own support. But by the time the campaign opened in 1828 Brent had gone back on his word—as usual. Moreover, the notoriety of the Sandbar brawl could not have helped his reputation, and the continuing and expanding stories of his land frauds proved even more damaging among the honest voters. Being so closely tied to Brent may even have worked against Bowie, for disgusted as voters were with the congressman, they would not be likely to support one who was seen as his ideological protégé. As a result all of Bowie's support either died or evaporated.
It rankled even more that Brent proved so vulnerable this time. The presidential contest dominated the campaigning as never before. Now it was Jackson against Adams, and Brent came out against him back in December, charging that Old Hickory was no friend to the planters, wi
th his stands in favor of a heavy duty on the bagging needed for cotton bales, and against a high duty on imported sugar.43 Brent predicted Adams's reelection, moreover, in the face of the widespread rise in support for the people's candidate. In the coming election all states but two would vote by actual popular ballot, rather than leaving their electoral votes to be committed by their legislatures. All that boded well for Jackson, and Brent failed to see it.44 Worse, Brent joined those who stooped to personal slurs against Jackson, including the charge of immorality because he had unwittingly committed bigamy when it turned out that his wife Rachel was not yet divorced when they wed. As usual Brent decided to campaign from Washington, but only wounded himself the more that summer when he sold his Louisiana plantation and thus became virtually a nonresident. As a result, when the election came, Johnston's friend the old crippled rheumatic Gen. Walter Overton defeated him handily, garnering nearly as many votes from Brent's former supporters as from the Jackson camp.45
Bad as the result was for Brent, it seemed worse for Bowie. Where Brent had been a useful ally in Washington, Overton openly disliked and distrusted Bowie and stood far too close to Johnston. Thus Bowie's ties to influence in Congress substantially diminished. But that was nothing compared to the disappointment he felt at not having been in the contest himself. He could have beaten Brent, of that he was certain. Indeed, that year almost anyone could have beaten Brent, and with the prize seemingly so easily within his grasp—with all the attendant influence and chance for profit that it promised—Bowie's denial of the chance to take it must have mortified him. It did not help that his brother John resigned from the legislature in order to attend to the Arkansas business, and Rezin gave up his seat as well, thus dramatically diminishing even his ties to influence in Baton Rouge.46
It left James Bowie feeling bitter and disillusioned. He was through with Alexandria and the feuding cliques of Rapides. His involvement with them had gotten him shot once by Wright. He had risked his life out of loyalty to them on the sandbar, and still carried the pain of his wounds every day. When he needed their loyalty they either let him down or betrayed him. His brother saw it eating at him when they met. “He had not been well used, or properly treated by some of his political friends,” said John.47 Bowie needed steady excitement, challenges, changes of scene. Even though a heavy motive for gain certainly inspired the land swindles, still they carried about them an added element of adventure, not unlike the Laffite slave enterprise, the thrill of challenging the authorities and besting them. Election to Congress would have opened whole new vistas, some of them for profit, undoubtedly, but also thrusting him into the highest society, placing him next to real power and influence. He had seen New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and in his imagination he had seen himself walking their fashionable thoroughfares and looking very much at home.
If the betrayal of his supposed friends denied him new horizons in the East, so be it. He could look in other directions. The unquenchable appetite for cheap or free land had already drawn his attention west to Texas two years before, in 1826, and there things changed rapidly. The Mexicans actively encouraged North American settlers, and their congress passed successive laws in 1823 and 1825 to stir immigration. The requirements were few: A settler must embrace Catholicism and obey the laws of Mexico. With slavery officially outlawed in the country, Americans presumably would have to leave their slaves at home, though both immigrant and native Texians circumvented the law with little difficulty. In return every settler could have one league—4,428 acres—of grazing land for cattle, and one labor—177 acres—for farming, as an outright grant, not subject to taxation for six years. The first grants went to empresarios like Stephen Austin, who themselves brought in settlers, but after 1825 the government sold grants directly to immigrants. Marital status also influenced grants, as subsequent laws provided that a single man would get only one-fourth of a league, a married man the full league and one labor, and a man who married a Mexican woman would get an extra quarter league in addition to the rest. The cost for a grant was only $30 plus expenses, and not payable until four years later. As for the empresarios like Austin, they received eleven leagues for every 200 families they brought in, to a maximum of nearly forty-two leagues, of which the empresario himself could keep up to eleven. In short, out of the vastness of Texas, a man might acquire enough land on long-term credit that he could sell it for more than enough to satisfy the debt and then some, well before the debt came due. And if a man had real ambition, he could become an empresario and get his land entirely free of charge by bringing in other settlers.48
Even without his penchant for land speculation, James Bowie could not have been unaware of the situation in Texas. For several years past the local press carried articles on Texas colonization. Men from the colony frequently passed through Rapides on business, and accounts “by a gentleman direct from Austin's settlement” frequently appeared in Alexandria papers. Bowie could hardly fail to pay attention when such articles declared that “land certainly can be readily obtained.”49 The Natchez and New Orleans press published the successive colonization laws, including the clause about men who married Mexican nationals receiving extra land.50 Moreover, a fair volume of the letters coming into Rapides either came from or talked about Texas. Friends like Littleton Bailey talked of relocating west of the Sabine, and already the cry went abroad that debtors in the Southwest ran out on their bills. “Whenever an individual becomes somewhat embarrassed,” complained a friend of Johnston's, “he crosses the Sabine with all his property & then remains in perfect security.”51 As far away as Kentucky, the ledgers in counting houses and the dockets in courts revealed entries beside unsettled cases of debtors that they had “gone to Texas.” James Bowie himself may have gone to Texas in the spring or summer of 1826 just to investigate, once he learned of the new land laws.52 It would have been like him to cast his eye west.
With his Louisiana schemes finally on the verge of paying off, and with the Arkansas frauds still to oversee, he did not contemplate actually moving to Texas then, but now everything changed. He was not yet done with Louisiana, though he had finished with Rapides, but for an adventurer and speculator like “Big Jim Bowie,” as some called him, a new horizon always lay in the offing. For a man living on the edges of violence and the law, it was almost a necessity.
He left from Natchez in late May or early June after spending some time with his brother Stephen, perhaps a few hands of cards with Nevitt and the other gamblers at the Natchez Hotel, and withdrawing enough money to cover the journey.53 If he thought of making the trip entirely overland by horseback, recent rains put that out of the question. Ordinarily the route would have been due west on horse from Natchez to the mouth of the Ouachita, and then straight on to Natchitoches. But a major flood inundated the whole region now. Avoyelles lay underwater, and people left many towns deserted. Even Alexandria was a ghost town at the moment, reachable only by steamboat on the Red.54 That, then, was the way he would have to go. Ordinarily a huge raft of driftwood trees blocked the Red to navigation from Alexandria, but with this flood vessels could get all the way to Natchitoches.
Natchitoches—called “Nackitosh” by its inhabitants—had been a frontier outpost for more than a century, the conduit through which flowed most of the goods and raw materials, much of them contraband, between Louisiana and Texas. The Spaniards once came there to buy their supplies, and stories still passed across its tavern tables of the Dons paying with bars of silver from long lost mines. This was the jumping off place for Texas, a haven of rough characters fleeing from the law or poverty who could lose themselves in a polyglot society of American frolics, Spanish fandangos, French balls, and Indian pow-wows.55 It was the kind of society that James Bowie relished, and though he had been there before, he probably stayed a few days this time, easing the aches that travel aggravated in his wounds, outfitting himself for the rest of the journey, and resting before an arduous overland trek. Besides, he could learn much in “Nackitosh�
�� from eastbound travelers—where the inns would be on the road, where he could find water, where to go to look into land and settlement, perhaps even vague stories about where those silver mines might be found.
When he left Natchitoches, Bowie rode a well traveled frontier road with mile markers and signs apprising him of the distances to places ahead. Frequent houses and occasional log cabin villages along the way offered refreshment in the pleasant, undulating country, much of it through dense pine forest as he approached Cantonment Jessup, where two companies of scruffy frontier regulars occupied the last U.S. Army outpost.56 Then he crossed the Sabine at Gaines's Ferry and set foot in Texas. Once across, he reached first San Augustine, the place he chose years before for the mythical purchase of many of his forged land grants. Then he proceeded on the La Bahía Trace, passing through Lorenzo Zavala's grant lands, past Peter Ellis Bean's sawmill, to Nacogdoches, the first real town in Texas.