Rezin Bowie - Bowie Knife

Bowie Knife

One afternoon Rezin was huning and killed a rabbit. He was going to skin his rabbit when he hit a bone, his hand slid down and cut his fingers bad. So he made the Bowie knife to prevent this in the future. The knife he made had a huge blade that was nine and one-quarter inches long and one and one-half inches wide.

The following year, on September 19, 1827, James Bowie and Major Norris Wright attended a duel on a sandbar outside of Natchez, Mississippi, supporting opposing sides. The duel was resolved with a handshake, but other members of the groups, who had various reasons for disliking each other, began fighting. James Bowie suffered several serious injuries, and was repeatedly shot and stabbed, but managed to pull his knife and use it to disembowel Wright, who died instantly.

Newspapers picked up the story, which became known as the Sandbar Fight. Bowie's fighting prowess and his knife were described in detail. There is disagreement among scholars as to whether the knife used in this fight was the same kind of knife now known as a Bowie knife. Many different accounts exist of who designed and built the first Bowie knife. Some claim that James Bowie designed it and others attribute the design to noted knifemakers of the time. However, in a letter to The Planter's Advocate, Bowie claimed to have invented the knife, and many Bowie family members and "most authorities on the Bowie knife tend to believe it was invented by" Bowie. His grandchildren, however, claimed that Bowie merely supervised his blacksmith, who actually created the knife.

After the Sandbar Fight and subsequent battles in which James Bowie successfully used his knife to defend himself, his knife became very popular. Many craftsman and manufacturers made their own versions of the knife, and many major cities of the Southwest had "Bowie knife schools", which taught "the art of cut, thrust, and parry." His fame, and that of his knife, spread to England, and by the early 1830s many British knife manufacturers were producing Bowie knives, shipping many of them to the United States for sale. The design of the knife continued to evolve, and it is generally agreed to have a blade 8.25 inches long and 1.25 inches wide, with a curved point. It had a "sharp false edge cut from both sides" and a cross-guard to protect the user's hands.