September 8, 1793 - Rezin Bowie
His place on this site rests primarily on his participation in the illegal slave trade operated alongside his brother James, at a time when smuggling enslaved people into the United States carried significant legal risk but substantial profit. Rezin's broader reputation, however, was shaped by the weapon he claimed to have invented — a knife that became a fixture of frontier violence after James used it to devastating effect at the Sandbar Fight of 1827. The Bowie brothers occupied a particular niche in the antebellum South: land speculators, entrepreneurs, and operators who moved freely between legitimate commerce and illicit enterprise.
From Wikipedia
Rezin Pleasant Bowie ( BOO-ee) (September 8, 1793 – January 17, 1841) was an American planter, inventor, and mercenary. He also served three terms in the Louisiana House of Representatives.
With his brother James "Jim" Bowie, Rezin Bowie smuggled slaves and worked as a land speculator. The brothers set up the first steam-powered sugar mill in Louisiana. Bowie took credit for inventing the Bowie knife, which came to prominence when used by James in the Sandbar Fight of 1827.
After James moved to Mexican Texas, Rezin accompanied him on an expedition to find the Lost San Saba Mine. They did not find the mine, but their adventures in fending off a much larger Indian raiding party became widely known.
In his later years Bowie suffered from poor eyesight.
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