Жан Лафит: Французский пират и капер в Мексиканском заливе

French pirate and privateer
the privateer

Jean Lafitte (c. 1780 – c. 1823) was a French pirate and privateer who operated in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his older brother Pierre spelled their last name Laffite, but English language documents of the time used "Lafitte". This has become the common spelling in the United States, including places named after him. Laffite is believed to have been born either in Biarritz, in the French Basque Country, France, or the French colony of Saint Domingue in the Caribbean. By 1805, Laffite was operating a warehouse in New Orleans to help distribute the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. The United States government passed the Embargo Act of 1807 as tensions built with the United Kingdom by prohibiting trade. The Laffites moved their operations to an island in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. By 1810, their new port had become very successful; the Laffites had a profitable smuggling operation and also started to engage in piracy. In 1812, the United States and the United Kingdom went to war. Despite Laffite's warning the other Baratarians of a possible military attack on their base, a US naval force successfully invaded in September 1814 and captured most of his fleet. Later, in return for a legal pardon, Laffite and his fleet helped General Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans to defend the city during the War of 1812. British forces sought access to the Mississippi River to gain control of the interior of the US. After securing victory, Jackson paid tribute in despatches to the Laffite brothers' efforts, as well as those of their fellow privateers. The Laffites subsequently became spies for the Spanish during the Mexican War of Independence. In 1817, Jean founded a new colony on Galveston Island named Campeche. At its height, the colonists and privateers earned millions of dollars annually from stolen or smuggled coin and goods. Very little is known about Laffite, and speculation about his life and death continues among historians. A famous persistent rumor claimed that Lafitte rescued French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte from exile and both of them ended their days in Louisiana. No evidence supports it.

A number of details about Jean Lafitte's early life remain obscure and often sources contradict each other. In the Journal de Jean Lafitte, the authenticity of which is contested, Lafitte claims to have been born in Bordeaux, France, in 1780 to Sephardic Jewish parents. His maternal grandmother and mother, both Conversos, fled Spain for France in 1765. His maternal grandfather had been executed by the Inquisition for "Judaizing". Some sources say that his father was French and his mother's family had come from Spain. Lafitte and his brother Pierre also claimed to have been born in Bayonne. Other documents of the period place his birthplace as St. Malo or Brest. Jack C. Ramsay, who published a 1996 biography of Lafitte, says, "this was a convenient time to be a native of France, a claim that provided protection from the enforcement of American law". He notes that still other contemporary accounts claim that Lafitte was born in Orduña, Spain, or in Westchester County, New York, north of Manhattan. In the late 18th century, adult children of the French planters in Saint Domingue often resettled along the Mississippi River in La Louisiane, especially in its largest city of New Orleans. Families with the surname Lafitte have been found in Louisiana documents from 1765. According to Ramsay, Lafitte's widowed mother migrated with her two sons, the elder Pierre and Jean, from Saint Domingue to New Orleans in the 1780s. In approximately 1784, his mother married Pedro Aubry, a New Orleans merchant, keeping Jean with her. She placed Pierre to be raised by extended family elsewhere in Louisiana. According to Ramsay, as a young man, Lafitte likely spent much time exploring the wetlands 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".

Biographer William C. Davis suggests a different childhood for Lafitte. According to his 2005 book, Lafitte was born in or near Pauillac, France, the son of Pierre Lafitte and his second wife, Marguerite Desteil. The couple had six children, including at least three daughters. Jean Lafitte was likely born in 1782, although he was not baptized until 1786. Pierre Lafitte had another son, his namesake Pierre, born from his first marriage to Marie LaGrange, who died in childbirth. The boys were given a basic Catholic education. Acknowledging that details of Lafitte's first twenty 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 by the late 1790s and the early 19th century. Due to escalating violence from the Haitian Revolution, in early 1803 Pierre boarded a refugee ship for New Orleans. This was the last year that Napoleon Bonaparte failed to regain control of Saint Domingue. He withdrew his battered troops and ended French involvement in North America, selling the US what became known as the Louisiana Purchase in 1803: French claimed lands west of the Mississippi River. By 1806, several "Captain Lafitte"s operated in New Orleans; Jean Lafitte was likely one of them. He was known to adopt more aristocratic mannerisms and dress than most of his fellow privateers. He was educated with his brother at a military academy on Saint Kitts.

The United States made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. In January 1808, the government began to enforce the Embargo Act of 1807, which barred American ships from docking at any foreign port and imposed an embargo on goods imported into the US. It was specifically intended to prohibit trade with the United Kingdom, as tensions were increasing between the two countries. That was problematic for New Orleans merchants, who had relied heavily on trade with Caribbean colonies of other nations. The Lafitte brothers began to look for another port from which they could smuggle goods to local merchants. They created a base on the small and sparsely populated island of Barataria, in Barataria Bay. The bay was located beyond a narrow passage between the barrier islands of Grand Terre and Grande Isle. Barataria was far from the US naval base, and ships could easily smuggle in goods without being noticed by customs officials. Workers would reload goods into smaller batches onto pirogues or barges, for transport through the many bayous to New Orleans. Based in New Orleans, Pierre Lafitte served as a silent partner, looking after their interests in the city. Jean Lafitte spent most 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. Dissatisfied with their role as brokers, in October 1812 the Lafitte brothers purchased a schooner and hired Captain Trey Cook to sail it. As the schooner did not have an official commission from a national government, its captain was considered a pirate operating illegally. In January 1813, they took their first prize, a British hermaphrodite brig loaded with 77 slaves. Sale of the slaves and additional cargo generated $18,000 in profits. The brothers adapted the captured ship for use in piracy and named it Dorada. Within weeks, Dorada captured a schooner loaded with goods valued at more than $9,000. The captured schooner was not considered useful for piracy and so after they had unloaded its cargo, the Lafittes returned the ship to its former captain and crew. The Lafittes gained a reputation for treating captive crew members well and often returned captured ships to their original crew. The brothers soon acquired a third ship, La Diligente. They outfitted it with 12 fourteen pounder cannons. Dorada captured a fourth ship, a schooner they renamed Petit Milan. The brothers stripped down their original ship and used its guns to outfit the new one. They sailed three ships, which Davis described as likely "one of the largest privately owned corsair fleets operating on the coast, and the most versatile." For several months, the Lafittes would send the ships directly to New Orleans with legal cargo and would take on outgoing provisions in the city. The crew would create a manifest that listed not the provisions that had been purchased, but smuggled items stored at Barataria. Uninterested in exports from New Orleans, customs agents rarely checked the accuracy of the manifests. The ship would sail to the mouth of Bayou Lafourche, load the contraband goods, and sail "legally" back to New Orleans, with goods listed on a certified manifest.

Governor William C. C. Claiborne took a leave of absence in September 1810, leaving Thomas B. Robertson as acting governor. Robertson was incensed by Lafitte's operation, calling his men "brigands who infest our coast and overrun our country". The residents of New Orleans were grateful to the Lafittes for providing them with luxuries otherwise prevented from importing by the embargo. On June 18, 1812, the United States declared war on Britain. Britain maintained a powerful navy, but the United States had little naval power. The US built warships to operate on the Great Lakes but in other areas supplemented its navy by offering letters of marque to privately owned armed vessels. New Orleans issued six such letters, primarily to smugglers who worked with Lafitte at Barataria. The smugglers often held letters of marque from multiple countries, authorizing them to capture booty from differing nations. They submitted booty from captured British ships to the American authorities at New Orleans, and booty from all other ships was often channeled for sale on the markets through Lafitte's operation. As the smuggling operations reduced the amount of revenue collected by customs offices, American authorities were determined to halt business at Barataria. Because the US Navy did not have enough ships to act against the Baratarian smugglers, the government turned to the courts. On November 10, 1812, United States District Attorney John R. Grymes charged Lafitte with "violation of the revenue law." Three days later, 40 soldiers were sent to ambush the Baratarians and captured Lafitte, his brother Pierre, and 25 unarmed smugglers on November 16, and confiscated several thousand dollars of contraband. Officials released the smugglers after they posted bail, and they disappeared and refused to return for a trial. Biographer Jack Ramsay speculates that the voyage was intended to "establish [Lafitte] as a privateering captain". Lafitte soon acquired a letter of marque from Cartagena, but never sent any booty there. He brought all captured goods to Barataria. Lafitte's continued flouting of the laws angered Governor Claiborne, who, on March 15, issued a proclamation against the Baratarian "banditti who act in contravention of the laws of the United States to the evident prejudice of the revenue of the federal government". The following month, the governor offered a $500 reward for Lafitte's capture. Within two days of his offer, handbills were posted all over New Orleans offering a similar award for the arrest of the governor. Although the handbills were made in Lafitte's name, Ramsay believes "it is unlikely [the handbills] originated with him". Following the reward offer, Lafitte wrote Claiborne a note denying the charges of piracy. was killed and two others were wounded. Claiborne appealed to the new state legislature, citing the lost revenues due to the smuggling. He requested approval to raise a militia company to "disperse those desperate men on Lake Barataria whose piracies have rendered our shores a terror to neutral flags". The legislature appointed a committee to study the matter but, as most of their constituents benefitted by the smuggling, they never authorized the militia. A grand jury indicted Pierre Lafitte after hearing testimony against him by one of the city's leading merchants.

In late 1815 and early 1816, the Lafitte brothers agreed to act as spies for Spain, which was embroiled in the Mexican War of Independence. Collectively they were known as "Number thirteen". Pierre was to inform about the situation in New Orleans. Jean was sent to Galveston Island, a part of Spanish Texas that served as the home base of Louis Michel Aury, a French privateer who claimed to be a Mexican revolutionary. By early 1817, other revolutionaries had begun to congregate at Galveston, hoping to make it their base to wrest Mexico from Spanish control. Lafitte visited in March 1817. Two weeks into his stay, the two leaders of the revolutionaries left the island. The following day, Lafitte took command of the island and appointed his own officers. On April 18, he sailed for New Orleans to report his activities. With Spanish permission, Lafitte returned to Galveston, promising to make weekly reports of his activities. Lafitte essentially developed Galveston Island as another smuggling base. Like Barataria, Galveston was a seaward island that protected a large inland bay. As part of Mexico, it was outside the authority of the United States, and was largely uninhabited, except by the Karankawa, a Native American people. Texas was lightly populated at this time, and the base had no significant populations nearby. It was, at least initially, relatively free of scrutiny from any of the governments in the region. Lafitte named his colony Campeche, after a Mexican outpost further south along the Gulf Coast. His men tore down the existing houses and built 200 new, sturdier structures. Ships operating from Galveston flew the flag of Mexico, but they did not participate in the revolution. Lafitte wanted to avoid a Spanish invasion. Aury returned to Galveston several months later, but he left in July when he realized that the men were unwilling to revolt. In less than a year, Lafitte's colony grew to 100–200 men and several women. Lafitte interviewed all newcomers and required them to take an oath of loyalty to him. The headquarters consisted of a two storey building facing the inland harbor, where landings were made. The building was surrounded by a moat and painted red; it became known as Maison Rouge. Lafitte conducted most of his business aboard his ship, The Pride, where he also lived. Lafitte forged letters of marque from an imaginary nation to fraudulently authorize all the ships sailing from Galveston as privateers. The letters gave the ships permission to attack ships from all nations. At its peak the colony had more than two thousand inhabitants and 120 separate structures. Annual income reached more than $2 million ($ in today's terms) in stolen currency and goods. Lafitte for a time lived a lavish lifestyle, complete with servants and the finest housewares and other accoutrements. In April 1818, the United States passed a law prohibiting the import of slaves into any port in the United States. The law left several loopholes, giving permission to any ship to capture a slave ship, regardless of the country of origin. Slaves captured in such actions who were turned over to the customs office would be sold within the United States, with half the profits going to the people who turned them in. Lafitte worked with several smugglers, including Jim Bowie, to profit from the poorly written law. Lafitte's men identified slave ships and captured them. Smugglers would purchase the slaves for a discounted price, march them to Louisiana, and turn them in to customs officials. A representative of the smuggler would purchase the slaves at the ensuing auction, and the smuggler would be given half of the purchase price. The smuggler became the lawful owner of the slaves and could resell them in New Orleans, or transport them for sale in other parts of the Deep South, which was the major slave market of the time. It was being developed for cotton culture, as invention of the cotton gin had made short staple cotton profitable. In 1818, the Campeche colony suffered hardships. After Lafitte's men abducted a Karankawa woman, warriors of her tribe attacked and killed five men of the colony. The corsairs aimed the artillery at the Karankawa, killing most of the men in the tribe. A hurricane in September resulted in flooding of most of the island, and several people died. It destroyed four ships and most buildings. Only six houses survived as habitable.

According to historian William C. Davis, Laffite began a public relationship with his mistress in 1815, Catherine (Catiche) Villard, a free woman of color. She was the sister of Marie Villard, the mistress of his brother, Pierre. Catiche became pregnant and gave birth to their son, Jean Pierre, on November 4, 1815. Catiche had given birth to a daughter named Marie on November 10, 1813. It's not known who her father was. Some speculate it was Jean. After Jean's reported death in the mid 1820s, the widowed Catiche took up with Feliciano Ramos. They had two children together. Jean Pierre, her son with Jean Lafitte, died at 17 during a cholera epidemic in New Orleans in October 1832. Catiche died July 2, 1858, around the age of 65. Another account says Lafitte married Christina Levine at the age of seventeen. They had 3 children together: Jean Antoine Lafitte, Lucien Jean Lafitte, and Denise Jeanette Lafitte. Christina died after the birth of their daughter. After his three children were grown, Lafitte fell sick in his 50s. He was nursed back to health by Emma Hortense Mortimer. They married and had two sons together, Jules Jean and Glenn Henri. Lafitte possibly took an assumed name, John Lafflin, and may have given that surname to his younger two sons.

In 1821, the schooner Enterprise was sent to Galveston to remove Lafitte from the Gulf. One of the pirate's captains had attacked an American merchant ship. Lafitte agreed to leave the island without a fight, and on May 7, 1821, departed on The Pride. His men burned the Maison Rouge, fortress, and settlement. Lafitte reportedly took immense amounts of treasure with him, and was accompanied by his mulatta mistress and an infant son 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. The remainder of the crew rejoined Lafitte, who finally acknowledged that he did not have a valid commission. He said his ships would sail 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 his remaining men reboarded the General Victoria and destroyed its masts and spars, crippling the ship, but they left the crew unharmed. Lafitte and his men continued to take Spanish ships in the Gulf of Mexico and often returned to Galveston or the barrier islands near New Orleans to unload cargo or take on supplies arranged by Pierre. The congressional delegation in Louisiana began to demand that the federal government do something to halt the smuggling, and more US Navy ships were sent to the Gulf. Their patrols and interventions reduced the number of active pirates in the region. In October or November 1821, Lafitte's ship was ambushed as he attempted to ransom a recent prize. After first escaping with some crew, he and his men were captured 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, where he bribed local officials with a share of the profits. In late April 1822, Lafitte was captured again after taking his first American ship. The American warship which captured him turned Lafitte over to the local authorities, who promptly released him. When Lafitte and other pirates operating in the area began attacking merchant ships carrying legal goods to Cuba, they angered Cuban officials. By the end of 1822, Cuba had banned all forms of sea raiding. In June 1822, Lafitte approached the officials in the Great Colombia, whose government under General Simón Bolívar had begun commissioning former privateers as officers in its new navy. Lafitte was granted a commission and given a new ship, a 43 ton schooner named General Santander in honor to Vice President General Francisco de Paula 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 infested area and providing them with extra cannon balls and food. In February 1823, Lafitte was cruising off the town of Omoa, Honduras, on his schooner General Santander. Omoa was the site of the largest Spanish fort in Central America, built to guard the Spanish silver shipments from the mines of Tegucigalpa to overseas destinations. Lafitte attempted to take what appeared to be two Spanish merchant vessels on the night of February 4. It was cloudy with low visibility. The Spanish ships appeared to be fleeing but at 10:00 pm turned back for a frontal counterattack against Lafitte's ship. The Spanish ships were heavily armed privateers or warships and returned heavy fire. Wounded in the battle, Lafitte is believed to have died just after dawn on February 5. He was buried at sea in the Gulf of Honduras. The Gaceta de Cartagena and the Gaceta de Colombia carried obituaries that noted, "the loss of this brave naval officer is moving." No American newspaper published an obituary of him. A 2021 book makes the claim that Lafitte faked his death in the Caribbean, then moved to Mississippi where he met the Henderson family from Lincolnton, North Carolina. He then followed the Hendersons to Lincolnton, changed his name to Lorenzo Ferrer and lived the rest of his life there, dying in 1875. Ferrer is buried in what’s known locally as “the Pirate’s Grave” at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. To support their claims about Lafitte’s later life the book’s co authors found a document in the Princeton University Library from Lafitte’s lawyer and Lafitte’s best friend stating he was kept in hiding long after he was believed to be dead and a very old sword with the inscription, “J. N. Laffite” (how Lafitte spelled his name) was found at the Lincolnton Freemason’s Lodge, Ferrer and Henderson helped found.

Davis writes that Lafitte's death prevented his becoming obsolete; by 1825 piracy had been essentially eradicated in the Gulf of Mexico, and "the new world of the Gulf simply had no room for [his] kind." Given his legendary reputation, there was much speculation about whether, or how, Lafitte had died. Rumors abounded that he had changed his name after leaving Galveston and disappeared, that he was killed by his own men shortly after leaving Galveston, or that he had rescued Napoleon and that both had died in Louisiana. Lafitte is rumored to have buried treasure at many locations, including Galveston and sites along coastal Louisiana, such as Contraband Bayou in Lake Charles. Ramsay believes that over time, almost "every foot of Grande Isle has been spaded for pirate gold". Two fishing communities in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, along Bayou Barataria, were named after him: Jean Lafitte, whose town hall is on Jean Lafitte Boulevard; and a census designated place (CDP) called Lafitte. Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve was named for him.

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is named after him. Located on Bourbon Street, it is associated with Lafitte, who may have spent time there in his earlier years. He was said to use it as a base for arranging the transfer of smuggled goods. His brother Pierre Lafitte was a blacksmith. Constructed in the 1720s, the structure stands today as possibly the oldest building in the United States housing a bar (Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar). The Jean Lafitte Swamp Tour, held in the eponymous Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, is also named after the pirate/privateer. Located 25 minutes from downtown New Orleans, Jean Lafitte Swamp Tours has been operating daily bayou tours since the 1980s. Guides educate the public on wildlife, Cajun culture, and life on the bayou.

Saxon's novel was adapted for the Cecil B. DeMille movie The Buccaneer (1938). The movie dealt with Lafitte's contribution to the War of 1812, and starred Fredric March as Lafitte. In 1950 Paul Henreid starred in another movie about Jean Lafitte entitled Last of the Buccaneers. It was directed by Lew Landers and produced by Sam Katzman. In 1958 Anthony Quinn directed a remake of The Buccaneer, starring Yul Brynner as Lafitte, and Charlton Heston as Andrew Jackson. The Pirate Island of Jean Lafitte (1998), an 18 minute film directed by C. Grant Mitchell, is screened year round at the Pier 21 Theater in Galveston.

In 1948, John Andrechyne Laflin approached the Missouri Historical Society with a French language manuscript 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. He wrote Jean Laffitte: Gentleman Rover based on the journal. In 1958, Laflin self published an English translation of the journal. He refused to allow anyone else to see the original documents until 1969, when he sold them to a professional document dealer. In 1980, the manuscript was donated to the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center in Texas. For the first time, it was made available for research. Most historians now believe the Lafitte journal to be a forgery.

Call of Cthulhu's New Orleans source book has Jean Lafitte alive and organizing global occult activity in 1920s New Orleans. Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull (PC 2007) uses Jean Lafitte as a code to call a New Orleans secret society to order.

In the 1960s and 70s a barefoot cartoon pirate named Jean LaFoote appeared in animated television advertisements for the breakfast cereal Cap'n Crunch. Lafoote, who was loosely based on Lafitte, was a comical villain who served as a foil for the cereal's namesake cartoon mascot, Capt. Horatio Magellan Crunch. In the 1970s he was depicted together with Crunch in the cover art on the front of boxes of Cinnamon Crunch cereal, a variation on the Cap'n Crunch brand whose full name was "Jean LaFoote's Cinnamon Crunch Cereal."

Lafitte is paid tribute at Disneyland by a ship anchor monument with an accompanying plaque found in New Orleans Square. He is also referred to in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in which the boat dock is labeled LaFitte's Landing. There were also plans to connect the Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion attraction and Tom Sawyer's island using Laffite. Guests could've been able to enter Laffite's crypt near the Haunted Mansion. Inside a tunnel stylized as pirate's cattacombs would've led to Laffite's old hideout, a capsized ship in Sawyer's island. Although the plans were scrapped, a bricked up entrance close to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride pays homage to this idea.