The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  Despite his disappointment and chagrin, Fatio had no choice but to obey the orders now. Just what and when he told Pierre is unknown, but Spain owed the Laffites a minimum of $18,889.68 for which they had billed Fatio. Thinking that the brothers had dealt in good faith with Spain, Onís wanted them to be paid and so did Fatio, who complained that the Laffites were being "abandoned and compromised," as well as exposed "to all the fury of the pirates if they come to know the secret." Still, they would never get the money.22 In the end Fatio advised Apodaca to change the countersigns used by agents, so that those given to the Laffites would no longer be honored, "since I cannot be responsible for the use to which they might be put."23

  Other events had an impact on Galveston now. General Jackson invaded Florida that spring and on May 28 Pensacola surrendered. This delayed negotiations over the Louisiana Territory borders until midsummer. Now Adams knew that Spain was willing to cede Florida if it had to but not Texas, and he changed his bargaining position, softening demands for Texas and instead asking for Spain's release of its claims on the Oregon Territory. Anti-Spanish feeling ran high in the capital, and congressmen called for United States recognition of the South American republican movements. The message to Spain was that it had better give up what was least important to it rather than risk forfeiting far more, especially if diplomatic recognition of the juntas in Buenos Aires, Venezuela, and Mexico led to legalization of the privateering menace. In October Onís would propose a new boundary line, sparking a counterproposal from Adams. 24 Meanwhile Onís reversed himself and refused to agree to an American military force expelling the Galveston privateers during the negotiations. Publicly he complained that to do so would constitute an invasion of Spanish territory. In fact, he feared that once American soldiers and sailors were on Galveston, they would never leave.

  Whether or not the American military appeared off the shores of Galveston depended largely upon what Graham found there. He left Washington June 6, days before the eastern press carried a letter from Natchitoches that told of Laffite having eight to ten privateers and prizes in port, observing that "this is carrying on pirating in a bold manner."25 Graham reached the Sabine two months later, where he encountered a rider carrying news from Laffite that Lallemand had ordered the evacuation of Champ d'Asile. Passing through Nacogdoches, Graham finally reached Galveston on August 24, and immediately presented himself at Lallemand's camp. The general appeared to be ill at ease and embarrassed at the interview, and to Graham's statement that this area was in dispute and that the United States claimed it, Lallemand disingenuously pleaded that he thought it belonged to Spain and was now up for the taking since the Spaniards had abandoned it. He reasserted his peaceful intentions toward everyone, but averred that he would fight if forced. He also complained that the Indians had cut off his supplies.26 In fact, Lallemand was so angry at the Coushatta and Karankawas that he intended to declare war on them, and showed Graham a draft of a declaration that he had meant to issue that day but would not now in light of Graham's warning to leave.

  Gainsaying his protest of peaceful pursuits, he went on to tell Graham that he had planned to use Champ d'Asile as a base for military operations against the Spaniards, claiming he had a military commission from the nonexistent Mexican Congress. Lallemand said he had intended to go back to Champ d'Asile when the immediate danger passed and he was stronger, but in the face of what Graham told him, he was resigned to abandoning Texas altogether. Before the interview ended, however, Lallemand also made it clear that he had "no connection whatever with the piratical establishment at Galvezton."27 Graham took Lallemand at his word, but still gave him a written statement that the United States wanted him and his followers out of the area, and demanded a written avowal of his future intentions.28 Lallemand immediately agreed to everything, adding that he and his people would happily acknowledge the authority of the United States in the area if it allowed them to remain.29 He was not yet ready to give up entirely.

  The real key to Lallemand and Galveston, of course, was Jean Laffite. From Lallemand's earthwork Graham could see "a large & strangely built Brig" beached on the shore about four hundred yards northeast on the bay side. Her spars and rigging had been dismantled, and Lallemand or his people told Graham that Laffite sometimes used the brig as a dwelling, arsenal, and storehouse. In fact, whatever he told Lallemand, Laffite may have placed her there to command the works of the Champ d'Asile refugees, and to be prepared if or when a Spanish attack on Lallemand materialized. Laffite had secured her in the sand parallel with the shore, and since her gun deck stood higher than the island, her guns could fire across the land at anything on the other side.30 Graham believed she could mount as many as eighteen heavy cannon.

  After his meeting with the French general, Graham sent a letter to the Laffite village along with a verbal message that if Laffite would call on him, Graham could orally convey his instructions from Adams. Laffite responded immediately, but cagily, asking that Graham demonstrate his authority to make such an approach, and Graham complied. 31' He told Laffite he was sent by the government of the United States "to call upon you for an explicit avowal of the National authority, if any, by which you have occupied the position & harbour of Galveston, and also to make known to you, that the Government of the United States, claiming the country between the Sabine & the Rio Bravo del Norte, will suffer no establishment, of any kind & more particularly one of so questionable a character as that now existing at this place, to be made within those limits."32 This left no room for misunderstanding, and the next morning Laffite appeared at Graham's tent.

  The meeting was cordial. Graham read his instructions from Adams, and then listened as Laffite rehearsed what was now a well-worn story of the persecution suffered by him and his brother. He admitted smuggling, as he always had, but added that his chief accusers were doing it, too, which he thought ought to excuse the Laffites in some measure. He argued contradictorily that his corsairs took only Spaniards' ships, and that he rigorously eschewed taking vessels of neutral countries. As for the United States, he respected her shipping, and it "afforded him the greatest pleasure to render a service to an American vessel," which he said he had done on many occasions. He only occupied Galveston in the first place so that he could "satisfy the two passions that dominated me imperiously, that of offering an harbor to the battleships of independence and that of being able on account of proximity to fly to the aid of the United States if circumstances required it." Satisfied as to the correctness of his motives, he continued, "I carried out this bold plan." He told Graham that he had repeatedly written to the Mexican Congress to obtain "the legitimation of my taking possession in its name, and the chief authorities' sanction of the organization of a regular and legitimate government." Unfortunately, his letters could not find the peripatetic body, if it even existed, and he never received an answer. There were some grains of truth here, but they would have made a poor loaf. Jean made no mention at all, of course, of his mission on behalf of Spain.

  Graham told Laffite that he believed his protestations about taking only Spanish vessels, and assured him that President Monroe knew of and valued the Laffites' service in the recent war. The government had no quarrel with the brothers, but it must put an end to this privateering establishment out of duty to its own dignity, as well as to the respect and protection that it owed the flags of other nations. The admitted smuggling, which Graham thought to be the most extensive and organized in the nation's history, took revenue from the Treasury and degraded the morals of the people of Louisiana, not a difficult task in the best of times. Jean granted the weight of the argument, but then pled that the amount of goods smuggled from Galveston was much exaggerated. Indeed, excepting slaves, it had been negligible, he said, neatly avoiding any quantification of the illicit slave traffic. He was attached to the United States, though, and desired always to give way to its wishes.

  At the close of the interview, Laffite promised to give Graham a letter restating all this, including his willingnes
s to give up Galveston. In return he asked for a sufficient period of time—two to three months—to close down the port, call in his privateers, and relocate himself and his property, a request that Graham granted. The next day, August 28, Laffite closed his promised letter to Graham with the sanctimonious declaration that "I know, Sir, that I was calumniated in the lowliest manner by persons possessed of a certain importance; but because of my irreproachable conduct in every respect, my interior tranquillity was not affected and in spite of my enemies, I will obtain (without doubt later) the justice that is due me." The expression of wounded innocence was pure Laffite.33

  That day Graham drafted a protective order for Laffite and his men and property and gave it to him to display to any United States forces that might appear to take possession of the island before Laffite was gone, the only restriction being that authorities should immediately take steps to curtail any remaining smuggling or slave trading before Laffite left. Graham was not entirely taken in by his gracious host.34 Thereafter Graham remained on the island for nearly a month, getting to know Laffite even while surreptitiously studying the defenses of the place in case the military had to evict the privateers and the French settlers.35 Indeed, the day that Laffite accepted Washington's instructions, Graham penned a report on the base's strength which he sent to New Orleans on the next outgoing vessel. He gave the depth of the bar at high tide, pointing out that no large warships could enter, while also delineating the strength of Laffite's beached fortress vessel. "These positions would enable a few desperate men to make an obstinate resistance against a large, and probably a successful one against a moderate force," Graham warned. If the government decided to take Galveston, however, he thought it would not require a large force because he had Laffite's promise that "peaceable possession will be given to any officer acting under the authority of the United States."36

  In the following days Graham talked with Laffite about the absence of a commission from Mexico. Surely the brothers realized that the Mexican junta was defunct, and not likely to resurrect any time soon. Like most in the government, Graham felt hearty sympathy for the liberation movements so long as they worked to Washington's benefit by weakening Spain. He suggested to Laffite that since the Mexican insurgency was impotent, Laffite should look elsewhere. Graham knew representatives of the rebels in Buenos Aires, and told Jean that he could get privateering commissions from them. Jean asked for a letter recommending the Laffites to the appropriate authority, indicating particularly his interest in establishing a court of admiralty "in any place or Island which he might take from the Spaniards, on the Coast of the Spanish main, or on that of any other part of S. America," and Graham provided one addressed to David C. DeForest in New York. 37 Graham could not know, of course, that by directing Jean to another insurgency, he was giving the Laffites a potential opportunity to perform more espionage for Spain, and sustain or renew their claims to compensation.

  Meanwhile, after his meeting with Graham, Lallemand announced that he would be leaving. He promised to return in forty days with more provisions for his people, but instead he abandoned them. Joined by Graham, he boarded a vessel and sailed for New Orleans, leaving behind only enough food to give each man a pound of bread a day.38

  Lallemand barely missed being caught at sea by the dread of Gulf coast summers. Somewhere in the southern Atlantic a depression began gaining intensity as it headed westward. By September 10 it had pushed through the Caribbean, and all but capsized a vessel carrying the last vestiges of the Spanish administration at Pensacola and its archives to Havana, losing the records forever.39 Two days later the storm hit the Gulf coast, and raged for two days. Matagorda went underwater. The mission at Bahia and more than sixty houses came down in ruins.40

  On Galveston, the hurricane struck with little warning. Waves washed higher and higher up the beach, whipped by the winds and storm surge, until they simply washed over the island. Lallemand's earthworks and camp went underwater, and his people waded to two sturdy log cabins on a slight elevation. For the next three days they used oars to fend off uprooted trees and spars from wrecks that the waves sent crashing toward their refuge.41 Around them the water stood up to four feet deep, and the rushing of the waves prevented them from moving about for fear of being carried off their feet. "Galveston village looked like a fort beaten down by assault," one declared. In all only six houses survived, one of them Laffite's on its higher ground, and scores of panicked people fled to it. The waves continued to climb, destroying six of the vessels at anchor and virtually all of the French settlers' provisions. 42 Before the waters started to recede the whole island was inundated except for perhaps an acre on which Laffite's house sat.43 Laffite either weathered the storm there or on his brig implanted in the sand.44

  When the hurricane passed Jean Laffite's control of food and defense made him the only power on the island.45 Freshwater was gone and the island wells would be contaminated with salt water for weeks. For some time to come the survivors would be entirely dependent on what provisions Laffite could ration from his remaining stores or purchase on his own credit from passing ships.46 Thanks to damage to his house, Laffite stayed on the brig, faced now with the practical dilemma of whether to try to rebuild from the ruins in light of his recent promise to evacuate the place.

  The hurricane did Jean one favor, however. In May Pierre had told Fatio that the privateers were being advised to swarm over the Gulf as the Spanish war fleet would be heading back to Spain shortly.47 That may have worked against him. The Laffites "are putting themselves under strong suspicion by their double dealing," Cienfuegos frankly told Apodaca on July 17. "It is they who maintain the place called Galveston and its privateers."48 Two weeks later Apodaca gave the orders for a squadron of one brig, a sloop, and a schooner, all armed, to sortie from Vera Cruz to blockade Galveston and capture or disperse everyone there, Lallemand and Laffite alike. Martinez was to make a supporting attack overland.49 The storm discouraged the squadron from making the attempt, and by the time the Spaniards were ready to consider another effort, the opportunity had passed. Apodaca's disenchantment with the Laffites had not, however. Lallemand would have been starved out by now, he grumbled, but for "the pirate Juan Lafite" feeding the adventurers. Apodaca was thoroughly tired of filibusters, privateers, Laffites, and all their schemes that never came to fruition.

  Less than a week after the hurricane, Laffite sent a courier to New Orleans with verbal and written reports for Pierre, detailing the disaster but also passing along the most recent information about Spanish plans to attack. If the United States was going to claim the island then Laffite would warn Graham that Spain was committing a hostile act against the U.S. land, playing each nation against the other to buy himself some time and perhaps turn a profit. He implored Graham to listen to what Pierre told him about Spanish intentions.50

  Graham got Jean's letter and met with Pierre,51 then departed for Washington to arrive in November just as President Monroe was preparing to deliver his annual message to the Congress. Graham reported to Adams on his mission and its success, but did not earn complete approbation. Negotiating with Laffite and Lallemand implied a degree of diplomatic status for them that the United States vigorously denied. Adams especially disapproved of Graham having put Laffite in touch with the Buenos Aires junta, fearing that the United States would be left facing the same problems with pirates at sea and smuggling at home. Graham had acted on his own initiative, "and in my opinion, not much to the credit of its wisdom."52 Perhaps trusting the promises of the Galveston leaders less than had Graham, Adams began to gather from him copies of all of his correspondence and reports, as well as everything the War Department had on file relating to the "state of things" at Galveston.53

  The state of things was not good, at least so far as Lallemand's people were concerned. Chaos ensued after his departure, and week by week, singly and in small groups, the men began to scatter.54 Spanish spies reported that by September nothing remained of Champ d'Asile but two iron cannon that
Laffite sent two blacks to retrieve.55 Finally the much-rumored Spanish threat materialized. Captain Juan de Castañeda started out on September 16 at the head of 250 soldados, intending to confirm the abandonment of Champ d'Asile or else destroy it. By October 9 he reached the Trinity, and learned that Lallemand had evacuated. He sent José Sandoval and three others down the river to the bay to Galveston, taking with them letters for Lallemand or whomever commanded the settlers.56 On October 13 some of the Champ d'Asile refugees indulged what they called "artful necessity in way of amusement" by holding a mock matrimonial ceremony. During the revelry, they spotted a column of smoke rising from the beach at some distance, and a party set off to find the cause. Soon they saw a canoe pulled up on the beach and four men standing beside a white flag. Sandoval, his weapon concealed in his clothing, spoke to them on their approach and said he had a packet with communications for the "Chief of that assemblage." Some discussion ensued and the Frenchmen confessed they were disgusted and looking to leave, and that they expected everyone to abandon the place in time.

  Though Lallemand had left Antoine Rigaud in charge, the men took Sandoval to Laffite's brig, where Jean greeted him with some courtesy. On learning Sandoval's embassy, Laffite sent ashore for Rigaud, who shortly appeared with a staff of five officers. Rigaud broke the seal on the packet Sandoval presented him and then passed the contents, written in Spanish, to one of his colonels for translation. Laffite and the others heard a demand to know Lallemand's purpose in bringing his "emigrants or outlaws" filibustering in Texas. Castañedas letter pointed out the fate of Mina, Gutiérrez, and others as a caution. Castañeda was ready to drive the invaders out, and more squads were on the march from Mexico if needed. There was nowhere on Spanish soil that Lallemand could go. If Lallemand wanted legitimately to settle somewhere, he could make application to Castañeda, who would negotiate with him. If he sought to make his own state or nation, however, it was beyond discussion. He would be allowed to leave, even to travel across Spanish territory if he sought to march rather than sail, but he would have to leave behind all armament. All other hopes the French might have, Castañeda said, were "groundless expectations." 57