Into the white mists of oblivion …
LIFE AND LEGENDS OF LAFITTE THE PIRATE
By E. G. Littlejohn
[The pirate legends of Texas are all so bound up with the name of Lafitte that they may well be prefaced by a sketch of that remarkable personage. Perhaps there is as much legend about the man as about his treasure. Even his name seems to be in dispute, for, whereas he is generally known [[180]]in this country as Jean Lafitte, the Nouveau Larousse Illustré Dictionnaire Encyclopédique denominates him, the “corsaire français,” Nicolas Lafitte. A historian can hardly write of him without arousing controversy. Dr. J. O. Dyer, of Galveston, in a letter to the editor says: “Lafitte was no pirate, but the head of two noted buccaneer or privateer camps.… He never went to sea; he was a poor sailor because he suffered from sea-sickness; he never was in any fight on the sea.”—Editor.]
I
Jean Lafitte: Man and Pirate
The European wars of the early part of the nineteenth century, the consequent passage of the Embargo Act by the Congress of the United States, and the act prohibiting the importation of slaves after the year 1808, all conspired to bring about a great volume of clandestine trade at the ports of the United States. This trade was especially active along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Here resorted the privateer and the smuggler, the one to dispose of his booty, the other to receive it and to distribute it.
The labyrinthine waters of lower Louisiana were the smugglers’ paradise. Here they could carry on their business almost without fear of detection. Just prior to the War of 1812, a flourishing establishment of this kind sprang up on the island of Grand Terre, some sixty miles west of the mouth of the Mississippi, under the management of the two brothers Lafitte, Jean and Pierre, former blacksmiths of New Orleans. At first, the brothers were mere agents and distributors for the privateers who resorted to Grand Terre, but they soon got vessels for themselves, and began privateering on their own account. Letters of marque and reprisal were granted to them by the Republic of Cartagena, erstwhile a colony of Spain, and with this authority they went forth with other Robin Hoods of the sea to ravage and to plunder. They soon grew immensely wealthy and their business became so extensive as to almost paralyze the legitimate trade of New Orleans.