What is a Natchez Bowie Knife?

BlackKnight86 said:
When you think about it, though, if you can't know the historical truth with any kind of accuracy, should you invest too much time in caring?

I stumbled upon the following article when I was reading up on Shiva Kai knives:

http://www.defensereview.com/shiva-ki-custom-fightin-bowie-knife-big-fast-and-mean/

I was fascinated by the connection that the author drew between the bowie style and the cutlass/Spanish fencing of the period. Is it true? No idea. But it does seem plausible; and if it is true then history lent Jim Bowie's name to a particular design/style of knife and fighting that developed around it, regardless of the knife that he actually used.

I kind of like the look of Cold Steel's Natchez. The question that I prefer to ask is, if this knife had been around back then, might Jim have carried it?
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I have a CS Nachez and I think old Jim would have liked it :)

As for Mr. Ki I know him and have a few of his knives and I definitely think Jim would have liked his stuff

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As for what influenced the Bowie ..... I do believe because new Orleans was a major sea port and the strong French and Spanish influence there at the time that fencing and European sword play was a major role in its development.

A lot of fun reading out there to speculate on. That's for sure :)
 
Here is custom knife maker John Fitzen's take on what the J Bowie's knife at the alamo was.

[video=youtube_share;gHxKHe1S6RM]http://youtu.be/gHxKHe1S6RM[/video]

This is one of my favorite old fighting knives.

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Ben Lilly's knife he used to hunt and kill mountain lion and grizzly bear.
 
marcinek said:
I think you are missing a critical point. They mean the same thing....nothing.
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Got it.

I thought the original Bowie was the Rambo Bowie, so named for the Rambo Sandbar Fight, which settled the Alamo dispute in favor of the Texans.
 
JParanee said:
The Knife that won the west :) Ruled the South first.

When the Bowie became a fashion statement the cutlerys in Sheffield England produced what the dime novel and papers of the time where writing about in mass quantities to supply the masses

Like Bagwell says in his book, Louisiana was the Mecca of culture when Chicago was a outpost and New York a shanty town, and every guy getting off a boat to go trapping , market hunting, mining etc. was looking for one.

Since firearms where still on the unreliable side the big knives made ther way into a lot of different walks of life. From the simple blade to the Gentlemen Gamblers, who where carrying them pimped out in all there glory. There are many tales of duels and conflicts fought with the big knives , some made up some true but all fascinating reading.

Truly a piece of Americana that I find terribly interesting.

Yes the first Bowie was a big butcher knife , it was the proto type so of course it was a simple strong using knife.

The good news is there has never been a better time to be a Bowie knife fan. From cheap knocked out ones for the masses to high end collector pieces, and my favorite hardcore performance pieces that have evolved into probable the greatest combat knife in the world.

Bowie knives are fascinating knives and I highly recommend reading up on them , sure a lot of the stories are just that but Americas Excalibur deserves all our knife fans respect :)

Here are 2 examples of high speed performance oriented Bowies

Knight Founders Bowie

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In hand

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Bagwell Alamo Bowie


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In hand

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That's a lot of dead animals you have there.
 
marcinek said:
Many blades have a connection to Bowie. The Forrest knife is what many (including myself) believe to be the "Sandbar knife."

As far as design similarities, look at French chef's knives and Argentinian punales/"gaucho" knives. Those were popular at the time and probably the design inspiration for the Sandbar knife.
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Interesting. I have a Gaucho knife, which I got as a gift from an Uruguayan friend after a visit to his home town of Colonia. I was told it was a facón, but I just looked them up and I think it is a puñal based on the size ( 10" blade, OAL 15" )

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Anyway, I never noticed the similarity between this and Bowie No. 1, or other contemporary Bowies. Interesting.

http://www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/facon/criollo.html
This articles talks about how the Bowie and the Puñal held the same important roles in the histories of the respective countries, the U.S. and Argentina (Uruguay is basically a smaller nicer Argentina, like Canada is a smaller nicer US. Hopefully I don't get nasty comments from Uruguayans and Canadians :) ).

Thanks again.
Keith

Let's try that pic again:
https://plus.google.com/b/102368588009254401715/102368588009254401715/posts/37sJvPFXYu7
37sJvPFXYu7

I need to figure out how to embed from Google +.
 
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Moosez45 said:
At a sandbar in Natchez, Mississippi.

For all intents and purpose, the Bowie knife that Jim Bowie used, is believed to have been made from a file, a simple blade, long, with no handle.

Very much like the ones pictured above.

Moose
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No handle? That would kill on both ends! ;-p
 
Based on my research into the subject, it seems that the preeminent Bowie guys today are Bill Bagwell, James Keating, Dwight Mclemore and John Fitzen... specifically regarding the historical context of the fighting knives. From Bill and Dwight we learn the history of the knives, as best it is known. In Dwight's books on the subject, he talks about the probable progression of the bowie, starting with the butcher knife used in the sandbar duel and ending with what John Fitzen shows on his youtube channel as the Moore Bowie, which he believes was the one Jim had at the Alamo. Which is the original? A butcher's knife winning a fight for Bowie is interesting because of the accomplishment, but the Moore Bowie is interesting to me much more because of how developed it is as a fighting/dueling knife. It was tactical, but also cool. It is much more advanced than basically all of today's "fighting" knives (The Warrior Knife comes to mind as a similar piece in terms of its breadth of capabilities).

Bill, James and Dwight also talk about what has been mentioned here - that New Orleans was THE international city. Starting with the Americans' having come from mainly English/Scottish stock, they had those sword skills. New Orleans being what it was, it brought in French, Spanish and Italians. Each had his own fencing style, set up his own school and all of this skill and heritage was brought to bear in the primary side-arm of the time, which Bowie made famous.

My favorite Bowies are Bagwell's and Fitzen's (check his stuff out - the customs are on par with Bill's in terms of style and capability). Bill's don't look like original bowie knives, and most of Fitzen's don't either. I'll post some photos of my Bagwells and Fitzens when I get a chance. :-)


- FF
 
Always a fascinating subject. If anyone is interested in reading about events surrounding the Alamo, I highly recommend Stephen Harrigan's book The Gates of the Alamo. He does a terrific job of bringing that period of time to life in a way that is historically accurate yet NEVER boring.
 
marcinek said:
Many blades have a connection to Bowie. The Forrest knife is what many (including myself) believe to be the "Sandbar knife."

As far as design similarities, look at French chef's knives and Argentinian punales/"gaucho" knives. Those were popular at the time and probably the design inspiration for the Sandbar knife.

A great source of info is this site...

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/history/bios/bowie/knife_like_bowies.html

Equally good is Bernard Levine's chapter on Bowie knives in his "Levine's Guide to Knives & Their Values."

What's important to remember is that what happened with the original Bowie (whatever it may have been) is very similar to what happens today. People heard the story, wanted a tacticool knife just like Bowie's, and every knife maker slapped "Bowie" on knives and sold them like crazy....most of the knives were pure ninja.
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Actually, most of the knives came from Sheffield England, and were excellent knives. What is now known as the Bowie knife (clip point, cross guard) is a very useful knife. And the design was proven very effective. Take for example Von Tempsky. The current Svord knife is a replica of his Bowie with modern steel. That knife was combat proven, and even now, that knife is second to none (not even Busse) in outdoor performance. There is nothing "ninja" about it.
 
One of the mistakes we all can make is to look at history thru the eyes of today.
Information flows so fast now.
As Ken Cox said in another bowie thread the fastest news could travel went by telegraph back then.
No photographs over the telegraph.
As news of The Sandbar Brawl spread everyone wanted a knife like Bowie's.
So…
Knife makers and manufacturers made what they thought the knife was. And what would sell.

Another bit of looking at then thru the eyes of now.
The only eye witness description was "a big butcher knife"
When we say Butcher Knife now, we think French Chef Knife or similar.
But what was considered a butcher knife then?
Was "Butcher Knife" a 'catch all' phrase used for any big knife?
Much like "assault rifle" is used for about every repeating long arm the media reports on?

So many questions, so few definitive answers.

More reading:
http://bowieknifefightsfighters.blogspot.com/2010/12/jim-bowies-sandbar-fight.html
Contrary to the general belief the knife that was known as the "bowie knife" was not designed by him but by a brother, Resin Bowie. The actual work of making the knife was done by a plantation blacksmith named Snowden. The Bowies claimed that the first time this knife was used in any fight was in the duel about to be described.
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Then there are those that say the Searles knife is the fight from the brawl on the sandbar opposite Natchez.

There are those that say the Forrest knife (the first American born, globally successful actor) was nothing more than a stage prop.

There are those that say the Musso Bowie was the real deal Alamo knife.

And there are those that say it wasn't.

We just don't know lol

More reading:
http://knifetalkonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=481.0
In 1827 the bowie knife was not a new invention. It had been made for Rezin Bowie before he left his father's home in Opelousas. He had been attacked, once when cattle hunting, by a young bull; his rifle missed fire and coming to close quaters he attempted to plunge his hunting knife into the head fo the bullock, but the oncoming animal drove the knife back and into his hand, whick impaled against the horn, severely wounding his hand and alost severing the thumb. This could not have occcured had the knife possessed a guard, so Rezin Bowie had a new one made from an old file, according to his fancies, by Jesse Cliffe, a white blacksmith on the plantation. The knife had a straight blade 9 1/4 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide, with a single edge down to the guard. Rezin used this in hunting and found the steel wounderfully true, and the shape also make it more reliable than either a sword cane of the Spanish dagger, both which wre in universal use at the period.
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Enjoy :D
 
Besides Norm Flayderman's big THE BOWIE KNIFE; I have found the following books to be very informative, and controversial, as to be expected with anything pertaining to Bowie knives:

JAMES BOWIE and the SANDBAR FIGHT by James L. Batson

BOWIE KNIFE, BY Raymond W. Thorp

A BOWIE PRIMER - ERA/MAN/KNIFE, By F. R. Mitchell

I am as much intrigued by the culture of the Bowie Knife and the pre Civil War era when it gained much of its' notoriety, as the big knife itself.
 
Well, I got all hyped up over the natchez bowie as marketed by Cold Steel, and eventually bought one I found at a price I couldnt refuse. First impression, it is BIG. Secondly it's heavy.. weighs in and carries like a short sword. The continuous curvature of the edge insure a long and deep slash, while the point and sharpened clip insures a deep stab. With the partial tang/cable, not sure what kind of camp knife it would make. Offhand I would more likely use one of my kukris as a camp knife, but I'll be trying it out this summer just to see how tough it is. It is designed as a personal defense weapon more than a camp or general purpose knife and since it is unlikely that I will ever need to defend my life with a knife- well, sorta negates any need for this honkin big knife.. For my purposes, this is a collector piece, while a kukri or even a TrailMaster is more likely to get used as a "go-to" knife.
 
I've a copy of a Jessie Clift style bowie and it is without question a favorite of mine. Extremely sharp and very very simple. Purchased a different type of sheath for it and actually wear it when stump shooting with my longbow. Wear it on the left side and on my right side is my .44 mag 4". This is a great combo for woods walking and stumping with my longbow.
 
Moosez45 said:
At a sandbar in Natchez, Mississippi.

For all intents and purpose, the Bowie knife that Jim Bowie used, is believed to have been made from a file, a simple blade, long, with no handle.

Very much like the ones pictured above.

Moose
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No handle??
 
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