Bowie's Con - Three Roads to the Alamo

The book three roads to the Alamo gives a good summary of the actual scale of the con Bowie was trying to work. He had made a stunningly bold play at exploitation in all laying fraudulent claim to 80,000 acres in Arkansas and between 73,000 and 80,000 more in Louisiana. All of Jim's many schemes collapsed one after the other, leaving him at risk of becoming destitute or at least if he'd actually bothered to pay any of the debts he'd accrued.