User:Karanacs/Jean Lafitte



Jean Lafitte (ca. 1776 - ca. 1826) was a pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He often spelled his name Jean Laffite. Lafitte is believed to have been born either in France or the French colony of Saint-Domingue. By 1805 he operated a warehouse in New Orleans to help disperse the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. After the United States government passed the Embargo Act of 1807 the Lafittes moved their operations to an island in Barataria Bay. By 1810, their new port was very successful.

Origins
A number of details about Jean Lafitte's early life are obscure and often contradictory. In one document, Lafitte claimed to have been born in Bordeaux, France in 1780. He and his brother Pierre also claimed to have been born in Bayonne, while other documents of the time place his birthplace as St. Malo or Brest. However, as Lafitte's biographer Jack C. Ramsay states, "this was a convenient time to be a native of France, a claim that provided protection from the enforcement of American law." Further contemporary accounts claim that Lafitte was born in Orduna, Spain or even Westchester, New York. The two principal biographies of Lafitte, by Ramsay and William C. Davis, offer conflicting theories of Lafitte's birth.

Saint-Domingue
According to Ramsay, Lafitte was born in the French territory Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). In the late 18th century, it was not uncommon for families to move from Saint-Dominique to the Mississippi River delta, also owned by France. Lafitte, his elder brother Pierre, and their widowed mother journeyed from Saint-Dominique to New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1780s. Approximately 1784, his mother married Pedro Aubry, a New Orleans merchant; Jean stayed with his mother while Pierre was raised by extended family elsewhere in Louisiana.

Ramsay speculates that as a young man, Lafitte likely spent a great deal of time exploring the wetland and bayou country south of New Orleans. In later years he was described as having "a more accurate knowledge of every inlet from the Gulf than any other man". His elder brother became a privateer, probably operating from Saint-Domingue, which frequently issued letters of marque. Lafitte likely helped his brother to disperse the merchandise. By 1805, he was thought to be running a warehouse in New Orleans and possibly a store on Royal Street.

France
Davis reports a different childhood for Lafitte. According to his book, Lafitte was born in or near Pauillac, in the Bordeaux region of France, the son of Pierre Lafitte and his second wife, Marguerite Desteil. The couple had six children, with at least three being daughters. Jean Lafitte was likely born in 1782, although he was not baptized until 1786. Jean also had a half-brother, Pierre, the product of his father's first marriage to Marie LaGrange, who likely died in childbirth. The boys probably received a basic education.

Although acknowledging that details of Lafitte's first 20 years are sparse, Davis speculates that Lafitte spent much time at sea as a child, probably aboard ships owned by his father, a known trader. Davis places Lafitte's brother Pierre in Saint-Domingue in the late 1790s and early 1800s. Due to escalating violence from the Haitian Revolution, in early 1803, Pierre boarded a refugee ship for New Orleans. By 1806, several "Captain Lafitte"s operated in New Orleans; Jean Lafitte was likely one of them.

Barataria
Louisiana had become a United States territory in 1804. In January 1808 the government began to enforce the Embargo Act of 1807, which barred American ships from docking at any foreign port. This was problematic for New Orleans merchants. In response, the Lafitte brothers began to look for another port from which they could smuggle goods to local merchants. They established themselves on the small and sparsely populated island Baratria, in Barataria Bay. The bay was located beyond a narrow passage between the barrier islands of Grande Terre and Grande Isle. Barataria was far from the U.S. naval base and ships could easily smuggle in goods without being noticed by customs officials. After being unloaded, the merchandise would be reloaded onto pirogues or barges for transport through the bayous to New Orleans.

Pierre established himself in New Orleans and served as a silent partner, looking after their interests in the city. Jean Lafitte spent the majority of his time in Barataria managing the daily hands-on business of outfitting privateers and arranging the smuggling of stolen goods. By 1810, the island had become a booming port. Seamen flocked to the island, working on the docks or at the warehouses until they were chosen as crew for one of the privateers.

Lafitte was unhappy with the length of time it took to get goods from the port to the merchants; navigating the swamps could take a full week. In 1812, Lafitte and his men began holding auctions at the Temple, a memorial mound halfway between Grande Terre and New Orleans.

Dissatisfied with their role as primarily a broker, in October 1812 the Lafitte brothers purchased a schooner and hired a captain to sail it as a privateer. The schooner did not have an official commission. In January 1813 they received their first prize, a Spanish hermaphrodite brig loaded with 77 slaves. Sale of the slaves and additional cargo generated $18,000 in profits and the brothers turned the captured ship into another privateer, named Dorada. Within weeks, Dorada captured a schooner loaded with over $9,000 in goods. The captured schooner was not considered a good fit for privateering, so after unloading its cargo the Lafittes gave the ship back to its former captain and crew. The Lafittes gained a reputation for treating captive crew members well, and often gave the ships back to their original crew.

The brothers soon acquired a third ship, La Diligent. The ship was outfitted with 12 fourteen-pounder cannon. Dorada captured their fourth ship, a schooner they renamed Petit Milan. The brothers stripped down their original schooner, usings its guns to outfit the new ship. They now sailed three ships, which Davis described as likely "one of the largest privately owned corsair fleets operatig on the coast, and the most versatile". For several months, the Lafittes would sent the ships directly to New Orleans with a legal cargo and would take on outgoing provisions in the city. The crew would then create a manifest that listed not the provisions that had actually been purchased, but instead smuggled items that awaited at Barataria. Customs agents were uninterested in which goods were leaving New Orleans and rarely checked the accuracy of the manifest. The ship would then sail to the mouth of Lafourche Bayou and load the contraband goods, which they could then legally sail back to New Orleans, as those goods were listed on their manifest.

Later years
On May 7, 1821, Lafitte and the remainder of his men sailed from Galveston aboard three ships. He was also accompanied by his mulatto mistress and an infant son. Before leaving, the group burned most of the structures they had erected on Galveston. Most of the men believed that Lafitte had a valid privateering commission, although there was confusion on which country had issued it. Two weeks after setting sail, they captured a Spanish ship, which they sent to Galveston, hoping the Longs would smuggle the goods to New Orleans. Lafitte's men buried some of the cargo on the island and ran the prize aground, but an American patrol spotted the ship and after investigating discovered the buried cargo. Several of Lafitte's men were arrested and convicted of piracy. The remainder of the crew rejoined Lafitte, who finally announced that he did not have a valid commission, and his ships would be sailing as pirates. Almost half of the combined crew refused to sail as pirates; Lafitte allowed them to leave aboard his largest ship, the brig General Victoria. That night, however, the remaining crewmen reboarded the General Victoria and destroyed its masts and spars, crippling the ship, before leaving the crewmen unharmed.

Lafitte and his men continued to take Spanish ships in the Gulf of Mexico, often returning to Galveston or the barrier islands near New Orleans to unload cargo or take on supplies that had been left by Pierre. The congressional delegation in Louisiana began to demand that the federal government do something to halt the smuggling, and more U.S. Navy ships were sent to the Gulf. The number of active pirates began to decline.

In October or November 1821, Lafitte's ship was ambushed as he attempted to ransom back a recent prize. He and a few crewman initially escaped but he was soon taken prisoner and jailed. On February 13, he escaped, likely with outside help. Over the next few months, Lafitte established a base along the coast of Cuba, bribing local officials with a share of the profits In late April, Lafitte was captured after taking his first American ship. The American warship which captured him turned Lafitte over to the local authorities, who promptly released him.

Lafitte and other pirates operating in the area began targeting ships carrying legal goods to Cuba, angering Cuban officials. By the end of 1822, Cuba had banned all forms of sea raiding. In June 1822, Lafitte approached the officials in Colombia, whose government had begun commissioning former privateers into their new navy. Lafitte was granted a commission and given a new ship, a 40-ton schooner named General Santander. For the first time, Lafitte was legally authorized to take Spanish ships.

Lafitte continued to patrol the shipping lanes around Cuba. In November 1822, he made news in the American press after escorting an American schooner through the pirate-strewn area and providing them with extra cannon balls and food.

In February 1823, Lafitte attempted to take what appeared to be two Spanish merchant vessels. The ships were acutally Spanish privateers or warships and returned fire. Lafitte was wounded in the battle and died just after dawn on February 5. He was buried at sea in the Gulf of Honduras. Two obituaries have been found for Lafitte; the Gaceta de Cartajena wrote that "the loss of this brave naval official is moving". No American newspaper ever carried an obituary for him.

Legacy
Davis writes that Lafitte's death may have been a blessing; by 1825 piracy had been essentiaslly eradicated in the Gulf of Mexico, and "the new world of the Gulf simply had no room for [his] kind". There was much speculation about whether, or how, Lafitte had died. Rumors abounded: that he changed his name after leaving Galveston and disappeared; that he was killed by his own men shortly after leaving Galveston; that he rescued Napoleon and they both died in Louisiana. In 1843, Mirabeau B. Lamar investigated many of the Lafitte stories and concluded that while there were no authentic records of death, Lafitte was likely dead. By this time, Lafitte's only known son, Jean Pierre Lafitte, was also dead; he perished during an epidemic in New Orleans in October 1832.

Ramsay compares the number of legends surrounding the life and death of Lafitte to those about King Arthur and Robin Hood. Lafitte is rumored to have buried treasure at many locations, including Galveston and many locations along coastal Louisiana. Ramsay believes that over time, almost "every foot of Grande Isle has been spaded for pirate gold". In 1909, a man was given a six-year prison sentence for fraud after swindling thousands of dollars from people by claiming that he new where the Lafitte treasure was buried.

The legends have been expanded through a multitude of fictional works. The first novel featuring Lafitte was the 1826 The Memoirs of Lafitte, or The Baratarian Pirate; a Narrative Founded on Fact. Several years later, many Americans assumed that Lord Byron's poem "The Corsair" was based on the life of Lafitte; the work sold over 10,000 copies on its first day of sale. By 1840, Lafitte was commonly known "as a fatal lothario with women, and a cold-blooded murderer of men who yet observed some forms of honor".

The first serious biography of Lafitte, Historical Sketch of Pierre and Jean Lafitte, the Famous Smugglers of Louisiana, was written by Charles Gayarre and published in 1883. Other biographies followed; a 1930 book by Lyle Saxon served as the basis for the Cecil B. DeMille movie The Buccaneer. The movie was remade in 1958, starring Yul Brynner as Lafitte.

In 1948, John Andrechyne Laflin approached the Missouri Historical Society with a document he claimed was a journal Lafitte kept from 1845 until 1850. When the historical society could not authenticate the claim, Laflin approached Louisiana author Stanley Arthur, who wrote Jean Laffitte: Gentleman Rover based on the journal. In 1958, Laflin self-published an English translation of the journal, but he refused to allow anyone to see the original documents until 1969, when he sold them to a professional document dealer. The paper and ink were analyzed and confirmed to be of mid-19th century origin. An acrhivist for Bexar County, Texas soon declared the papers authentic. In 1980, the manuscript was donated to the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center in Texas, and became available to researchers for the first time. Many researchers noticed a similarity between the Laflin's handwriting and the writing in the journal. Laflin has also been accused of forging letters from Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Davy Crocket. Most historians now believe the Lafitte journal to be a forgery.