The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  Always there to soften the rude edges of Jean's life on the island was Laffite's mulatto mistress. Perhaps she was Catherine, as there were rumors on the island that she had a son by Laffite. More likely his companion was another woman altogether. Catherine probably never visited Galveston, even during the awful summer of 1819 when a yellow fever epidemic swept New Orleans. Pierre had at least two children born in earlier years, Pierre and Jean, who disappear from the record after 1818, in all probability victims of the fever. If Jean felt conscious of the hazard being faced by Catherine and their son Jean Pierre, it was apparently not sufficient for him to bring them to the other dangers of Galveston. 57 Meanwhile he dined from china plate and linen at a well-stocked table, highlighted by excellent wine, and his mistress kept his house neat and orderly as if he were a middle-class Royal Street merchant in New Orleans.58

  All the while that Jean dealt with Long and Pierre and the Spaniards and their foes, the business of privateering and selling contraband continued. Rebuilding the smuggling operation required Jean to keep the flow of slaves going to the Sabine barracks and on into Louisiana. The market was stronger than ever into mid-1819. "The only prevailing thirst of this country appears to be the accumulation of wealth for the purpose of possessing slaves, the bane of every happy country," observed a United States naval agent on an inspection tour that January.59 A year earlier, on April 20, 1818, when Congress struck a blow at the illegal African slave trade by passing legislation allowing for the seizure of ships carrying such blacks and a reward of 50 percent of the proceeds to those responsible for such captures, it included the sale of the captured slaves in the proceeds to be divided.

  Imaginative investors conceived the idea of sending agents to the West Indies to buy cargoes of blacks at a third of the price they would fetch in Louisiana and then ship them into the Mississippi, stopping at the Balize. From that point the agent left the ship and informed the authorities in New Orleans of an illicit cargo, not mentioning his own role in bringing the slaves into American waters. Beverly Chew's people seized the cargo and sold the slaves at auction, by common consent at a price far below market value. The Treasury took its half of the proceeds and the informing agent the rest for his employers. A slave that cost $200 in the Indies might go to the agent for $300 at auction, being legalized in the process. With his rebate of $150, the agent or original buyer was out of pocket $350 but now had a slave he could sell lawfully for $600 to $1,000 or more. Soon rumors told of a host of such cargoes being brought in and more than 10,000 slaves dispersed, though this was surely an exaggeration. Others in New Orleans swore they knew of only one such cargo by the end of 1818. 60

  That gave some enterprising men an idea. Several would employ the scheme, but it seems to have found its most ardent practitioners in the Bowie brothers of Rapides Parish. Having left Long's campaign and returned home, James and Rezin Bowie received a visit from their former comrade Warren Hall, who made them aware of the money to be made from the slaves coming into Galveston.61 The brothers realized that if they bought slaves from Laffite, who was still selling them at one dollar a pound, and brought them overland into Louisiana, they did not have to risk selling them to buyers to make a profit. All they had to do was inform the authorities of the slaves' whereabouts and then capitalize on the new Congressional legislation. Once seized, the slaves would be sold at public auction, and half the proceeds would go to the Bowies for being informants. Better yet, at auction the Bowies could afford to buy the slaves themselves, knowing that they would be reimbursed half of the purchase price in their reward. Then the slaves would be legally "laundered," and the brothers would be free to sell them on the open market to anyone. A slave that cost $140 could bring $500 or more at the auction, meaning a $250 rebate to the Bowies. Already they had a profit of $110 on their original investment. Early in 1819 a prime male slave sold for as much as $1,800, meaning that when they resold their new slave on the current market, they could turn a $140 investment into a profit of over $1,400. Even when prices dropped due to a cotton shortage later in the year, the gain to be made was still astronomical.62

  The Bowies and others put the new variant on the trade into operation in the early part of the year, and continued it intermittently as long as Laffite ruled the island.63 The Bowies once or twice went to Galveston itself, and James Bowie seems to have struck up something of an acquaintance with Jean Laffite during the visits, and probably learned from him some of the old slaving contacts such as the notorious slave smuggler Charles Mulholland. 64 The practice came at some risk, and Mulholland and another Bowie associate, James Reeves of Opelousas, as well as Champlin's partner Adams, were all soon brought up on charges of illegally importing large numbers of slaves.65

  Meanwhile the trade in other contraband goods remained brisk, encouraged by high consumer prices in New Orleans due to tariffs. Even staples such as produce commanded strong prices, because the cotton boom so obsessed planters that they would not waste profitable land on growing vegetables. Oysters went for a dollar per hundred, an enormous increase in price. In a renewed effort to curtail the trade, on September 7 the Treasury ordered out of New York a second revenue cutter, the Louisiana, for Chew to station off the Teche. Chew could also have the revenue cutter the Alabama, originally destined for Mobile, if he needed it.66 Washington wanted the privateers out of business, for they no longer needed them to distract and weaken Spain.

  On the night of September 27 a dozen armed men with blackened faces broke into the home of James Lyons in lower St. Landry Parish. They were led by George Brown, who had sought a privateering commission from Laffite earlier that summer. Laffite kept him waiting six weeks pending new authorization Pierre might deliver from one of the juntas. Finally Humbert gave Brown a commission, but Laffite added to it an admonition to take only Spanish goods. Instead, Brown took two armed boats up the Mermenteau River, and thence into the Bayou Queue de Tortue to the Lyons home. His men tied Lyons and his wife and children, then pretended to be customs inspectors and ransacked the house. When they left, they took anything of value, including Lyons's ten slaves.67 Despite the men's attempts at disguise, few doubted that they were from Galveston. Impelled by the momentum of events and crackdown on corsairs mandated after the Adams-Onis Treaty, Patterson reacted at once, ordering an armed vessel to patrol the coast between the Balize and Galveston. Its mission was to interdict the smuggling, but if it gleaned information that could justify a strike at Galveston, Patterson would be willing to countenance the idea though the island belonged to Spain.

  Patterson gave Lieutenant John R. Madison, commander of the Lynx, the assignment. With him was Lieutenant James Mcintosh, who lost his ship the Firebrand in a severe storm at Pass Christian July 28 and had been onshore awaiting orders ever since.68 When the Lynx made ready to leave Charleston, she carried a long twelve-pounder and half a dozen twelve-pound carronades, with a complement of fifty-seven officers and men. She could face anything the privateers put on the water.69 Madison soon took several privateer and prize schooners in the Gulf, then headed his ship toward the mouth of the Mermenteau, where he sent Mcintosh upstream in ship's boats. Mcintosh learned that two pirogues had passed there the night before headed for Galveston, with men aboard who said they served Laffite and had robbed citizens and outraged women. They sounded very much like Lyons's attackers. For the next several days Mcintosh hunted for the miscreants, often just missing Brown's force until he surprised them and captured their boats. The fugitives escaped, but Mcintosh found Brown's commission, dated August 29, 1819, and signed by Humbert.70

  On the evening of November 5 someone on Galveston Island saw a large signal fire blazing on Bolivar Point. Laffite ordered an inquiry, and when told that about a dozen hungry, ragged men there wanted aid, sent over a small sailboat. In the process he learned that their leader was George Brown. If Laffite did not know of the Lyons robbery, he did within hours of Brown and three of his companions setting foot on Galveston. Left unpunished, Brown's example could spread and
bring untold problems with the United States.

  Laffite wasted no time in convening a trial and empanelling a court of three judges and thirteen jurors on the morning of November 6. The accused were allowed to give statements, but the court found them guilty and sentenced them to death. At noon that same day they hanged Brown from a gibbet erected on a point overlooking the pass where all incoming vessels would see him. Then came a test of Laffite's leadership. The population on the island appealed for clemency for the remaining three convicted, but left it to the governor to decide. He knew from experience that his men would stand for justice only to a point, but he could not risk a pardon that might incite others to similar crimes. He put the men in a boat and banished them from the island, sending them as he put it, "out into the wild to repent their crimes."71

  The next morning, through a dense fog, people on the island saw a ship's masts outside the bar. Madison had intended only to patrol the coastline but offshore winds had driven him toward the island and in that fog on the morning of November 7 he had no choice but to drop anchor.72 Almost at once he saw a sailboat heading along the coast toward the harbor, and recovered from it a man in tatters who admitted to being one of the Brown fugitives. He told Madison that he and his companions had tossed their weapons into the Mermenteau when they saw Mcintosh approach, and then stumbled through the forest until they reached Bolivar Point two nights previous. Four of his companions were now with Laffite. He was on his way to join them when Madison caught him.73

  Laffite may or may not have observed the sailboat through the fog, but he knew the Lynx was there and soon demanded an explanation of why she was anchored off his coastline. Galveston was a port of the Republic of Texas, he was its governor, and the Lynx was violating its sovereignty. If Madison had any business in being there, he must present his requests directly to Laffite. Should Madison attempt to enter the harbor "in a hostile manner," Laffite would "rebut your intentions at the expense of my life."74 It was the usual hyperbole, but it bought Jean time to think. Madison, who later claimed that he never got Laffite's letter, sent Mcintosh to Laffite with a message75 demanding answers to questions about the whereabouts and condition of the men he sought. Madison included in his note a peremptory order that they be handed over to him, along with the stolen slaves and other goods.76

  Laffite bristled and wrote an equally stiff, even threatening, reply that Mcintosh refused to deliver until certain expressions were modified. Pleading his imperfect command of English, and no intent to give offense, Laffite altered his response and sent it back via Mcintosh.77 He told Madison of the execution of Brown and the banishment of the others. "I thought, not having here much of a prison, that it would be fitting to send them out among the beasts," Jean said. "I beg your forgiveness, Sir, if this condemnation is not completely according to the rules, but I am waiting every day for the supreme authorities to advise me in giving form to my government." Now, however, at Madison's request he would send a boat after them and hand them over once taken. Still he thought his action of the day before would send abroad a message that "the pirates and those other malefactors will know that it will not be at Galveston that they can seek refuge and be free of punishment for the crimes they commit."

  If Madison would care to come ashore and accept the governor's hospitality, Laffite promised to "inform you of all the details you could ask for on the subject of all the infamies that are committed on these shores."78 He also sent a copy of his commission from Long to establish his authority as governor, and the request that should the Lynx pay a call on Long at Bolivar Point to look for the remaining fugitives, Madison would tell the filibuster that Laffite had shown Madison and Mcintosh "the most friendly, generous and hospitable" treatment possible and promised them every assistance in capturing the thieves. It was Laffite's acknowledgment of Long as his civil superior in the new republic, but also a suggestion that Long cooperate. 79 The last thing Laffite needed was for Long to give sanctuary to the miscreants, and thus bring down American authorities on both of them.

  The weather suddenly became so severe that the Lynx did not dare remain close to shore at anchor, and that evening Madison took her out to sea, where for a few days she rode out the storm. Meanwhile Laffite's boat found the three banished fugitives and brought them to Galveston. When Madison and the Lynx returned, Mcintosh came ashore to take charge of the thieves.80 The wind prevented Mcintosh from returning to the Lynx with the prisoners, however, leaving him to enjoy the typical entertainment of Laffite's house. During their conversation, Laffite revealed some of his style of management in dealing with the kind of men under him. "I understand the management of such men perfectly," he said. He knew just how far to go with them without pushing them too far. Indeed, the reason he did not execute all of the men in custody was that he knew his men would stand for one example being made, and that one a ringleader, but to do more would have led to their questioning his use of power. "I made it appear that I considered the example sufficient, and retained my control." Laffite also entertained Mcintosh with hunting and games, and more of his fund of stories, and the lieutenant amused himself by gleaning what he could learn of the island's strength and defenses to pass on to his commander. When the guest was at last able to leave with his prisoners, Laffite said he regretted Mcintosh could not stay longer. "My friend Lieut. Mcintosh was much pleased with the attention and politeness of Lafitte," Madison would tell Patterson, and Mcintosh left feeling that he had met a man who "if he had his vices had also his virtues." 81

  By November 23 the Lynx and her prisoners were in New Orleans, and soon three more of Brown's men were arrested. Livingston defended one of the men turned over by Laffite, but all were convicted at the same time as Desfarges and the crew of the Le Brave. The timing was unfortunate, in that by hanging Brown, Jean Laffite had set the standard of punishment for men guilty of outright piracy.82 Soon the press gave the details of Jean Laffite's own justice to pirates.83 Within the published documents and accounts of the episode lurked some troubling issues. Madison was supposed to apprehend the pirates who robbed Lyons and bring them back, not countenance a kangaroo trial by Laffite. For the navy to be seen to be treating with Laffite and Long as if they were recognized authorities of an independent Texan republic embarrassed and compromised United States authorities in both their efforts to crack down on piracy and to enforce the Adams-Onis Treaty. Federal authorities were openly opposed to Long's enterprise, as it threatened the treaty, which Spain had not yet ratified. They also wanted Galveston broken up before it started an international incident that might hazard the treaty. Laffite's request that Madison inform Long of what transpired on Galveston suggested some kind of alliance between the pirates and the filibusters. The apparent alliance was bad for Spain, bad for the United States, and would prove bad for the Laffites.

  TWENTY

  Farewell to Galveston 1820

  I had no death to fear; nor wealth to boast

  Beyond the wandering freedom which I lost;

  At length a fishers humble boat by night

  Afforded hope, and offer d chance of flight.

  THE LAFFITES HAD played a bold game for more than four years, but by the end of 1819 it was clear that their options were dwindling. With the Adams-Onis Treaty not yet ratified, the American claim to Galveston was not officially extinguished. Even if Spain did ratify, the agreement obligated Washington to prevent American citizens and expeditions backed by Americans from making incursions into Spanish territory. From President Monroe on down, the government was at last seriously cracking down on piracy. In the world at large the story was the same. The Buenos Aires insurgency had repudiated unlawful commissions in its name the year before, and nations such as Britain and Russia were raising a considerable furor about the conditions on the seas of the Gulf and Caribbean. Piracy drove maritime insurance rates up 100 percent in this period, though there were likely never more than two thousand men engaged in it in any one year. Spain alone had lost more than three million dollars in merchan
t goods in the past few years.1 Stripped of every vestige of legitimacy, and seeing the course of the Le Brave trial, the Laffites could expect that each new prize brought in by their corsairs might be the one that put them in Judge Hall's court, charged with being accessories to piracy. They were still trying to make a bargain with Spain, but Spain showed no inclination to indulge them.

  If they needed another signal that their time on this coast had passed, it came in December. With the taking of Brown's men and the capture of Le Brave, Patterson had begun to believe that he was about to rid the western Gulf of privateers at last. Then one of his vessels took yet another privateer schooner commanded by "a man named Gambier, who has been for several years engaged in piracy and smuggling." Of course this was Vincent Gambi, who had been arrested and charged so many times before only to escape the law each time. But he was not able to escape a more direct kind of justice now. Shortly before his ship was captured, his crew discovered that he was holding out on their share of several thousand dollars just taken from a victim. One evening as he slept on deck, his head resting on a spar, one of his man decapitated him "by the very bloody axe which he so often used," according to reports.2 He was not the last of the Laffite associates to meet a violent end.