Guide About Bowie Knife
History of Bowie knives.
Jim Bowie was an adventurer, merchant, rancher, and opportunistic landowner who, along with his brother Rezin, developed his activities in Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
His skill with the knife was legendary, and his death heroic, because he fought until the last moment against the Mexican soldiers who attacked “El Alamo”.
Both James and his brother Rezin had a soft spot for good knives. It has been proven that both acquired numerous copies from the best knife craftsmen of the time, some of which have been preserved to this day as testimony to this history.
Little is known about the true shape of the original bowie knife, or at least the one Bowie wielded when he defended his life against General Santana’s troops, except for more or less true and valid speculations. Certainly, long before their famous duel of 1827, it was common among the inhabitants of those wild and convulsed territories, the use of large knives, with blades between 9 and 12 inches in length, as a defense and combat weapon. made by manufacturers of surgical instruments, or by field blacksmiths, depending on the case.
As news of the duel spread, these huge knives became popularly known as “Bowie-like knives”, a phrase that would soon give way to a simpler name: “bowie knives”.
There is no exact pattern to define the characteristics of a true bowie, but we can say that they are large knives, with double guards and with blades over 7 inches to 18 inches and generous thickness. The shapes of these blades are varied, but they can be classified into two large groups: those that have a cut or “clip” at their end, and those with a lanceolate tip, although there were other blades with an almost straight back and a curved edge that ascended until meet the sharp tip.
The bowie knife manufactured in North American territory, varied from very fine pieces, made by artisans whose main trade was the making of surgical instruments, to very rough and robust pieces, improvised by simple blacksmiths from the frontier.
By the 1820–1830 period, representatives of Rodgers and Shon, the most important cutlery factory in Sheffield (England), were already in the territory of the New World, eager to obtain new markets, offering their lines of fine pocket knives, penknives and pocketknives, and the occasional hunting knife of regular dimensions, the kind usually produced in distant Sheffield. As these merchants delved into those wild new regions that were beginning to expand and populate to the West, they discovered that there was an even more interesting and untouched market to tap: locals were asking for knives “like Bowie’s.”
