He moved from North Carolina to Texas in the 1840s, and he established the Hawkins Ranch, a working sugarcane plantation, operated by 101 enslaved African Americans by 1860.
After the American Civil War, he replaced the slaves with paid laborers and convicts, and gradually turned his landholdings into a cattle ranch.
James Boyd Hawkins was born on December 27, 1813, in Franklin County, North Carolina.
[1] His father, John Davis Hawkins, was "land owner in Franklin and Warren counties" who "served in the state senate, 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1840.
[2] Hawkins attended schools in Raleigh, North Carolina, followed by the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York for two years.