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Artikkelien mukaan miekan ja veitsen varsinaiset mestarit asuivat silloin New Orleansissa ja jopa Jim Bowie itse kävi hakemassa oppinsa sieltä, tuo mies kuitenkin on antanut nimensä tälle teräaseelle. Wikipedian artikkelissa mainitaan, että Bowiella olisi ollut yhteyksiä sen ajan erääseen kuuluisimpaan merirosvoon, Jean Lafitteen.In early Creole days more duels were fought in New Orleans than any other American city. Creole honor was a thing of intricate delicacy, to be offended by a word or glance. The Duelling Oaks were a favorite setting for these affaires d'honneur, with pistol, saber, or colichemarde, a long sword with a broad forte and very slender foible, a favorite duelling weapon since the seventeenth century.
Creoles were expert swordsmen and often delighted in any and every opportunity to exhibit their art. Duels were fought over real and trivial insults, were sometimes deliberately provoked by young men anxious to display their skill. A quarrel between rival lovers, a fancied slight, a political argument, a difference of opinion regarding an opera, any one of these things was ample excuse for a duel under the oaks. In his History of Louisiana, Alcee Fortier states that on one Sunday in 1839 ten duels were fought here.
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Bowie loi maineensa erityisesti kuuluisalla Widalian särkän kaksintaistelulla, jossa hän miekkakeppi rinnasta törröttäen tappoi kimppuunsa käyneen miehen isolla veitsellään.James "Jim" Bowie (April 10, 1796 – March 6, 1836), a nineteenth-century American pioneer and soldier, played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution, culminating in his death at the Battle of the Alamo. Countless stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history.
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The Bowie family --- The children learned to survive on the frontier, how to fish and run a farm and plantation. Jim Bowie became proficient with pistol, rifle, and knife,[7] and had a reputation for fearlessness.
Espanjalaiset ja Ranskalaiset miekkailutaidot olivat siirtyneet meren yli uuteen maailmaan ja langenneet siellä ns. "hedelmälliseen maaperään". Tarvetta näille taidoille oli. Kuuluisin miekkailun opettaja New Orleansissa oli Don Jose "Pepe" Lulla.Bowie became internationally famous as a result of a feud with Norris Wright, the sheriff of Rapides Parish. Bowie had supported Wrights's opponent in the race for sheriff, and Wright, a bank director, had been instrumental in turning down Bowie's loan application.[24] After a confrontation in Alexandria one afternoon, Wright fired a shot at Bowie. The uninjured Bowie was enraged and tried to kill Wright with his bare hands. Wright's friends intervened and stopped the attack, after which Bowie resolved to carry his hunting knife on his person.[25] The knife he carried had a huge blade that was 9.25 inches (23.5 cm) long and 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) wide.[26]
The following year, on September 19, 1827, Bowie and Wright attended a duel on a sandbar outside of Natchez, Mississippi. Bowie supported duelist Samuel Levi Wells III, while Wright supported Wells's opponent, Dr. Thomas Harris Maddox. The duelists each fired two shots, and, as neither man had been injured, resolved their duel with a handshake. Other members of the groups, who had various reasons for disliking each other, began fighting. Bowie was shot in the hip; after regaining his feet he drew a knife, described as a butcher knife, and charged his attacker. The attacker hit Bowie over the head with his empty pistol, breaking the pistol and knocking Bowie to the ground. Wright shot at and missed the prone Bowie, who returned fire and possibly hit Wright. Wright then drew his sword cane and impaled Bowie. When Wright attempted to retrieve his blade by placing his foot on Bowie's chest and tugging, Bowie pulled him down and disemboweled Wright with his knife.[29][30] Wright died instantly, and Bowie, with Wright's sword still protruding from his chest, was shot again and stabbed by another member of the group. The doctors who had been present for the duel retrieved the bullets and patched Bowie's other wounds.
Nuo taidot siirtyivät aikanaan eteenpäin, nykyisin pidetään James Keatingiä vanhan ajan Amerikkalaisten veitsitaitojen parhaana asiantuntijana. Ennen häntä nämä taidot vaikuttivat myös USA:n armeijan miehistön lähitaistelukoulutukseen sellaisten miesten kuin A.J. Drexel Biddle ja John Styers kautta. Ilmeisesti Biddlellä oli kontakteja ja vaikutusta Defendon perustajaan, William Fairbarniin.There were, of course, many fencing masters in New Orleans, and these men fought each other for the gratification of their professional jealousy, sometimes to entice clients by a display of skill. Senor Don Jose Llulla, better known as Pepe Llulla was perhaps the best known of them all, and if all the tales and legends are true, Pepe broke all records for participation in duels. Stories of his killings are so numerous it is more than likely most of them are myths. Yet he maintained his own cemetery, now St. Vincent de Paul's, for, said popular rumor, the burial of his victims.
Llulla's duels, for the most part, however, were usually terminated at his own suggestion, and before a fatality occurred. His dexterity was sufficient to render his opponents helpless, with Pepe's sword lightly pressed against his throat, almost at the outset of his encounter. Pepe mastered not only foils but almost every weapon. He was the South's greatest expert in the use of the saber, equally skilled with the broad-sword, and practically invulnerable when armed with a rapier or small sword.
His skill with firearms was no less remarkable. Pepe's friends thought little of holding a silver dollar between their fingers or a pipe in their teeth as a target for the Spaniard. He would balance an egg on the head of his small son and crack the shell with a ball at thirty paces. With a rifle he would hit any coin or cork tossed into the air. He was reputed to have been a genius with a bowie knife. None of Llulla's serious duels lasted more than a few minutes as he made short work of disarming his antagonist.