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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.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.