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History of Texas Part IV: Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie

March 03, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Two men that made an enormous impact in Texas history were Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. While both were in Texas a short time, they're contributions were many.

A fierce outdoorsman and war hero, Crockett would be elected to three terms in the United States Congress, representing his district in Tennessee. He was so committed to the principled use of taxpayer money that he voted "no" to giving $100,000 in federal funds to a Navy hero's widow. The vote made Crockett so unpopular that he lost his bid for reelection, famously proclaiming, You can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas. Crockett was welcomed in Texas with open arms.

Famous for his fights, wounds and weapons, Jim Bowie and his his nine-and-a-quarter-inch long, one-and-a-half-inch wide knife would become the namesake for the "bowie knife." After experiencing a family tragedy, Bowie decided to join the fight for independence and defend the Alamo. During the 13-day siege, Bowie became gravely ill and bedridden. When Mexican troops stormed the mission, Bowie is said to have emptied his guns into the soldiers entering his room before they bayoneted him.

Both Davy Crockett and James Bowie died at the Battle of the Alamo, defending Texas independence until the very end.

Listen to this segment:

Listen to all serials at glennbeck.com/serials.

GLENN: There were two men that made an enormous impact in the history of the republic and the state of Texas in just the very short time that they each had there. The men Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Davy Crockett was born in 1796. He was hard working and an adventurous kid from an early age. He was just about 12 years old when his father indentured him to help pay huge debts that his father built up. Syler took Davy on a 400-mile cattle drive to Virginia. When he finished, the 12-year-old made his way all the way back home on his own. Upon his return, his father enrolled him in school where need it a fight with another student, and he skipped school the next day. And when his father found out, he set out to whip Davy. But Davy outran his father and just kept going, joining another cattle drive.

He would find work on various cattle drives and as a ranch hand out on his own over the next four years. At 16, he wondered if dad finally put the belt away. He returned home to Tennessee.

VOICE: When Davy got back to the tavern, it was nighttime and the evening meal was being served to the herders. He sat down amidst the other men.

VOICE: I had been going so long and had grown so much that the family did not at first know me. And another and perhaps a stronger reason was they had no thought or expectation for me, for they had given me up for finally lost.

VOICE: Davy Crockett.

VOICE: So he got inside a tavern, sat amongst the other travelers at the same table with the family. Finally, one of his sisters looked at him, recognized his features, and discovered she has just found her long lost brother David.

GLENN: After staying to work off more of his father's debts for two other debtors, Crockett set out on his own again. This time for good. Soon after leaving his family, Crockett met and married the love of his life. Pauley Finley. David and Pauley started their family and moved around the state frequently. Then during the war of 1812, war broke out in parts of the south with the Indians who the sided with the British and in an outpost called fort Michigan works ms, massacred 400 men, women, and children. This incensed those around Tennessee. So Crockett and others joined the fight.

VOICE: The warriors continued until they were within shot of us, and we fired killing a considerable number of them. We kept them running under heavy fire until we had killed upwards of 400 of them. Davy Crockett.

GLENN: Davy Crockett became an instant hero.

VOICE: Davy took his new family west to Lawrence county, Tennessee and settled along fast-moving Shoal Creek. The patent family was a prosperous one and Elizabeth had some money and Davy used this inheritance to set up a mail.

GLENN: Crockett would eventually be elected to three terms in the United States congress, representing his district in Tennessee. And he took his duties seriously. To him, taxpayer funds were sacred, and they weren't to be used in any way outside of the constitutionally-mandated ways. Can you even imagine somebody actually believing that? He was so committed to the principle that he even voted "no" on a act to congress that would give $100,000 in federal funds to the widow of one of the biggest heroes in American history. Navy commodore Steven Decatur. Decatur was killed in a dual by another Navy commodore. Crockett wouldn't cave in. His "no" vote was so unpopular that he lost his bid to be elected for a fourth term and had to be sent home to Tennessee where he famously proclaimed since you've chosen to elect a man with a timber tow to succeed me, you can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas. By the way, Decatur had left his wife with a fortune of $75,000, which is the equivalent of $1.8 million today. And that's before congress gave her $100,000, which would have more than doubled her fortune.

Crockett left with 30 others the next day, bound for Texas.

Initially, his intent was to scout out a place for his wife and children to live. But upon his rival, he was met by crowds of admirers. Crockett was quickly caught up in Texas independence, and he swore an oath to the new provisional government. Always up for a fight, he decided to join colonel William Travis in San Ontonio at the Alamo. During 13-day siege, Crockett said.

VOICE: Crockett was everywhere in the Alamo.

GLENN: It was also reported that he killed at least five Mexicans in succession as each of them tried unsuccessfully to reach a Mexican canon that was right outside the Alamo, each of them trying to fire it. Accounts of survivors on the Alamo of how Crockett died during the final battle varied. While firing at the on coming Mexicans from outside of the Alamo. Travis' slave, a man named Joe, the only male Texan to survive the slaughter claimed that Crockett died in a room inside the Alamo surrounded by 16 dead Mexicans that he had killed with his rifle, pistol, and knives.

But whatever he lost in 1986 like the state itself, he was a legendary larger than life figure. Another larger than life figure, a native Kentuckian also sealed his fate at the Alamo.

In 1814 at the age of 18, Jim and his brother headed to New Orleans to answer Andrew Jackson's call to fight the British in the war of 1812. But by the time they arrived, the fighting was over. But Jim decided to stay in Louisiana. In 1819, he joined an expedition to liberate Texas from Spain. No, not Mexico. Spain. And arriving in knock Dosher at, Texas, they declared Texan independent republic. They went home to Louisiana before the Spanish troops arrived to reclaim the area. Bowie had become nationally famous while attending a dual between two doctors in Mississippi. He was there as a friend and a sheriff of the Louisiana township where he lived, Norris Wright was an ally of the other doctor. Well, Bowie and Wright had been at odds ever since Bowie supported for sheriff. They both fired twice each missing on both shots. So they dropped their weapons, met in the middle, and shook hands. However, those gathered to witness the dual began an outright hall. Bowie was shot in the hip but drew his nine and a quarter inch long one and a half inch wide knife. He charged his attacker breaking the pistol and knocking Buoy to the ground. Sheriff Wright joined the effort and shot at Bowie while he was laying on the ground, but he missed and Bowie returned fire hitting Wright. Wright then drew his sword cane and ran it through Bowie's chest impaling him. As Wright attempted to retrieve his blade by placing his foot on Bowie's chest and yanking it out, the badly wounded Bowie pulled him down to the ground with him and disemboweled Wright with his huge, what we now call a Bowie knife. Wright died instantly and Buoy with Wright's sword still protruding from his chest was shot again and stabbed by another member of the group. Incredibly somehow or another the doctors who had started the whole thing by deciding to dual in the first place removed the bullets and patched Bowie's other wounds.

Shortly after the now famous is an bar fight Jim Bowie now 35 years old headed for Texas. There he recuperated from the multiple serious wounds that he had received and while mending, he met and married the 19-year-old daughter of the vice governor of Texas. They moved into her parents San Antonio palace and had two children. While Bowie was away on a business trip, he heard that there was an outbreak in Texas, fearing that it would hit San Antonio, he sent his wife and his children to his parents' estate in Montgomery clove I can't, Mexico, as the epidemic was headed to San Antonio. Sadly, and ironically, the entire family fell victim to the epidemic in Monclova and all of them, including her parents died.

This tragedy sent Bowie into an alcoholic frenzy and was the beginning of ill health for him. With Mexico clamping down and oppressing Texans, Bowie decided to join the fight for independence and defend the Alamo. He and colonel William Travis were in command. However, during the 13-day siege, Bowie became gravely ill and bedridden. When the Mexicans stormed the mission, he is said to have emptied his guns into the soldiers who entered his room, laying in his bed leaning up against the wall finally out of ammo, the Mexican soldiers got through and bayoneted James Bowie.

This is a time where I guess men were men and things were crazy. These are just few of the people and the events that we have shared in this last serial that have made Texas the unique liberty-minded haven that it is. There has always been a sense of pride and independence and a little bit of fight in the residents there. Today, Texas has its very own electrical grid. It boasts the 11th largest economy in the world. And having no state income tax may be part of the reason that more fortune 500 companies are based in Texas than anywhere else in the nation. Unlike other states that have been devoured by the Federal Government, over 90 percent of the land in Texas is still privately owned. Texas freedom and economic success have made it America's fastest growing state at over 28 million residence and counting. Three of the top five fastest-growing cities. Houston, Dallas, and unify. And over the past 20 years, more than 4 million Californians have made the move to Texas. Those of us in Texas still aren't sure that's a good thing.

The spirit of Sam Houston, Steven F Austin, Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie alive and well and pushing the resonance of the state to continue to fight for independence and freedom.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.