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James Bowie was born in Logan County, Kentucky, on March 10, 1796. Bowie was the ninth of ten children born to Reason (or Rezin) and Elve Ap-Catesby Jones (or Johns) Bowie. Bowie migrated with his parents to Missouri (1800) and then to Louisiana (1802).
At 18 James Bowie left home, clearing land and sawing timber for a living. Later he reportedly engaged in the slave trade with his brothers John and Rezin. With the latter, he also bought and improved a sugar plantation in Louisiana, where he served for a time in the state legislature and spent much time in New Orleans society.
After he reportedly killed a man in a duel, Bowie went to Texas about 1828, where at Bexar (now San Antonio) he became friendly with the Mexican vice governor, Juan Martín de Veramendi. He assumed Mexican citizenship, acquired land grants, and married Veramendi’s daughter, Ursula (1831). He was one of the thousands of U.S. settlers and adventurers who swelled the non-Mexican population in Texas, and restrictive Mexican legislation to curb the newcomers soon interested him in the Texas revolutionary movement.
As a colonel in the Texas army, he fought with distinction in several battles and finally joined Col. William B. Travis in the gallant defense of the Alamo, an abandoned mission house in San Antonio.
James Bowie played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution, culminating in his death at the Battle of the Alamo. Stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history and a folk hero of American culture. He was listed as a noteworthy soldier, pioneer by Marquis Who's Who.
Bowie was married to nineteen-year-old Maria Ursula de Veramendi, the daughter of his business partner. The couple had two children, Marie Elve (b. March 20, 1832) and James Veramendi (b. July 18, 1833).
