The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  Pierre had to wait a few days for Jean to reach the island, and then they determined on a plan. Pierre would return to New Orleans to bring their affairs in the city to a close, and then meet Jean at Old Providence or the vicinity. Neither Laffite could hope any longer to accomplish anything in secret in the Louisiana metropolis, but in Charleston Pierre was less likely to be recognized. There he could contact agents of the insurgencies, and perhaps raise a new crew to replace the defectors and also obtain a ship for fitting out to continue their trade under whatever colors they could acquire. Jean, meanwhile, would venture back onto the Gulf, taking prizes when it was safe to do so and bringing the goods to Galveston if possible. He would also sound out Aury at Old Providence about securing letters of marque. It would be a dangerous game, for in the interim they would irrefutably be pirates. A Humbert commission had not saved Desfarges from the noose, and it would not save a Laffite. By August 31 Pierre was back in New Orleans, and his brother was on the main.63

  Even if he could no longer stay at Galveston, Jean could risk making landing for a few days at a time, either to take on provisions from New Orleans or to unload cargo to be sold by the old channels. Spanish officials in Texas kept a wary eye on Galveston and believed that Laffite was making at least periodic appearances. As early as June, Martinez received reports of mysterious ships on the coast near Matagorda. "I infer it may be people from the Pirate Lafitte," he reported to Apodaca. In September a Spanish investigation reported that "La Fitte, the notorious pirate, has returned, it is said, under the colors of South America, and was bearer of commissions for Long and the officers of his party." This was probably a delayed echo of the brothers' rendezvous in August. 64 By the end of the year the Spaniards heard reports that Laffite had gone to South America, exaggerated with rumors that after leaving Galveston he had attacked an American ship and killed all its crew except two men who escaped.65 From now on, the farther the brothers Laffite ventured from New Orleans and Galveston, the more rumor and misinformation would warp their story. Neither could know it, but even while living, they were starting a voyage into legend.

  At some time that fall Jean and his tiny squadron passed Mugeres again, perhaps stopping to leave men and materials to start erecting a modest base. Then he turned south around Cabo Catoche and sailed southward across the western Caribbean to Old Providence. Aury had established himself there on July 4, 1818.66 The island sat just over 450 miles northwest of Cartagena and 150 miles east of the Colombian mainland. It had an excellent harbor, and lay very close to the Spanish trade routes to and from Panama and Cuba. Over the next two years Aury and his corsairs variously flew the flags of the juntas of Mexico, Venezuela, Buenos Aires, and Bolivar's New Granada. He did well for some months and tried to secure legitimate commissions, but none of the revolutionary governments would officially countenance him. Even now Aury's haughty manner and his record made revolutionary leaders suspicious of him. By the time Jean Laffite hove in sight of Old Providence, Aury was a pirate in everything but name, sailing under dubious letters of marque from José Cortes de Madariaga of the combined insurgencies of Buenos Aires and Chile. Any meeting between Laffite and Aury, when or if it came, could have been chilly in light of events at Galveston, but Laffite believed Aury would grant him commissions all the same. Laffite deposited on the island some prisoners he held from his recent prizes, and perhaps did get commissions from Aury for his two vessels. 67 Nevertheless, he still had his eye on Mugeres, as did Pierre. Aury had a history of rising and falling, and it would not be wise to tie themselves too closely to him. Indeed, the brothers may still have had hopes of spying on Aury for Spain.

  Whatever business Pierre had to conduct before he could rejoin his brother, there were personal matters to attend to as well, and it is clear he understood that he was leaving Louisiana for good. His feelings about putting his family behind him permanently, for that is apparently what he intended, remain a mystery. On July 27, a week before he took the Two Friends to meet Jean, he sold Marie's Bourbon and St. Philip house to his friend Abat for $10,000.68 On August 2 Marie borrowed another $600 from Abat, pledging a slave as security.69 Pierre probably used most of the proceeds to finance the supplies he took to his brother. If he left anything for Marie and Catherine and their children, it was not enough for them to live on as they had for the last few years.

  Though Bourbon and St. Philip was hardly a fashionable address, now the families moved a few blocks northeast in a shift that symbolized far more than the distance implies. Pierre reestablished them on Esplanade Street in an area known as the Faubourg Marigny,70 a large and relatively poor suburb inhabited by Spaniards, Portuguese, and Mexicans, the artifacts of former European masters and the refugees from San Domingue and other upheavals. It was an area messy and neglected, and lagging behind the rest of the city, though still proud and resentful of the Americans.71 Most of all, it was the home of the bulk of the free colored population of New Orleans. Pierre was turning Marie and their children back to her own people, and there was no indication now or later that he or Jean intended their families to join them once they were established elsewhere.72 Pierre's family with Marie included the living children: Rosa, Catherine Coralie, Martin Firmin, Adele, born in 1819, and probably a daughter. The son Pierre and the possibly imaginary Eugene were old enough to be out on their own, perhaps even with their uncle Jean. It was another summer of yellow fever, and though the epidemic was not as bad as that of the year before, it hit the Faubourg Marigny hard. Pierre could hardly expect that he would see all of his children again, even if he so desired.

  Behind him Pierre also left many old associates. Beluche now owned a home in the city, thanks to help from Sauvinet. Maire had married and given up seafaring with the Laffites, and was on his way to becoming a modestly successful merchant.73 Even Dominique was back on the coast that summer, having abandoned serving under Aury. Before long he would be a fixed resident and a privateer no more.74 Others were gone or going. Fatio was dead, and Judge Hall would die in December, to be replaced on the bench by John Dick. Sauvinet and Sedella, Livingston and Grymes, and many more the Laffites would never see again. And there was one very close to Pierre whom he would never get to see, for—though he might not have known it—early in August, just before he took the Two Friends to resupply Jean, Marie conceived their last child.75

  In early October the schooner the Hiram, commanded by a Captain Lambert, embarked from Dutch-held Curaçao on its way to a stop in Honduras and points beyond. Its course took the vessel past Old Providence, and there it took on a cargo of gum copal, logwood, sarsaparilla, tallow, leather, and more, mostly the produce of Yucatán brought in by a privateer, possibly Jean Laffite. Along with the cargo, the Hiram took on a passenger, Pierre Laffite, who had come from New Orleans sometime in September to meet his brother. When the Hiram tied up at the wharf in Charleston, South Carolina, several weeks later on November 15, Pierre Laffite stepped off her deck. In keeping with his years as a number, he now took another alias, introducing himself as "Mr. Francisco." 76 When Lambert took the Hiram out again for the Gulf of Honduras on Christmas Eve, Pierre remained behind, ready to launch the next phase of the Laffite brothers' quest for place and fortune. It would be their last.77

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Last Voyage 1820–1823

  'Tis morn, and o'er his alter'd features play

  The beams—without the hope of yester-day.

  What shall he be ere night?perchance a thing

  O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing

  MR. FRANCISCO remained in Charleston for more than three months. Among his first contacts was the dry goods merchant John B. Lemaitre, who partially owned the Hiram.1 The Laffites may have known Lemaitre indirectly since Captain Lambert and his wife, Marie Lemaitre, lived in New Orleans, and the merchant sometimes shipped slaves to the Louisiana port.2 From him Pierre would get the provisions to supply a new vessel. For the next several weeks Laffite tried to maintain a low profile, but tongues were loose and his al
ias could not hide an appearance well known in privateering circles. His associations with the outfitters and financiers of corsairs called attention to him, too, and it was not difficult to divine his purpose in the city, especially when he met with talkative veterans of the Galveston enterprise such as John Lambert, and an associate from the Baratarian days, Manuel López. To them he frankly admitted his purpose to fit out a new privateer for corsairing against Spanish shipping on the Caribbean, meaning the Laffites intended to continue operating out of Old Providence.3

  Before long the editor of the principal newspaper, the Courier., made it his business to watch Pierre's movements, and they were easy to track. Laffite hired a house near the waterfront for the men he hoped to enlist, and then advertised by word of mouth that he would pay a bounty of fourteen dollars to every man who signed on. By February he had about fifteen men staying at the house, including Lopez. Meanwhile, soon after arriving in Charleston, Laffite contacted a Captain Corby of Norfolk, Virginia, to purchase the schooner the Nancy Eleanor. A problem arose when Laffite/Francisco could not show that he was an American citizen, for the people at the customshouse already suspected Pierre, and the law did not allow foreign nationals to fit out ships for corsairing in American waters. Finally he completed the purchase by using yet another name, then paid Corby with one thousand dollars in cash and the balance in dressed leather from the Hiram cargo. At the same time he spent more precious money on the rigging and sails needed to convert a merchantman for service as a corsair.

  Laffite had sent the Hiram back to Old Providence on December 24, and by mid-February he was ready to take the Nancy Eleanor out to sea. In her hold he stowed ten casks of rice, five hundred gallons of wine, and thirty barrels of flour and provisions. The port inspector came aboard and found only the usual complement of men to crew a vessel of her size, and no sign of arms. Laffite engaged a Captain Anthony to take her out, and the captain told the authorities that he was bound for the Gulf of Honduras. However, the editor of the Courier learned easily enough that her real destination was Old Providence, which was known to be a nest of pirates.4

  On February 17 the Nancy Eleanor cleared the customs inspection and was ready to sail.5 She did not leave right away, though, but apparently tried the old trick of taking on crewmen and armament elsewhere after the inspection. She did not set sail until just before noon on February 21. Two days later the rumor was current in Charleston that Laffite had taken her out secretly, raising suspicions that he was on a privateering cruise. The editor of the Courier had no doubt of it, and said so in his paper the next day, referring to Pierre as "brother to the celebrated pirate of that name."6

  Finding himself associated with Laffite in the press, Lemaitre kept faith with him and denounced the accusation of piratical intent in a published letter.7 Few were fooled, but it was too late, for by this time Pierre Laffite and the Nancy Eleanor, with a cargo of provisions, arms, and enlisted privateersmen, were well on their way south for the Caribbean.

  The schooner made the passage down the Atlantic seaboard, then west through the Florida Straits, around Cape Antonio, and south. In March 1821 Pierre made landing at Isla de Mugeres, where he expected to rendezvous with Jean. He unloaded the men and arms and reloaded the Nancy Eleanor with a cargo of dyewood and salt and sent her back to Charleston. Pierre stayed behind with the men to oversee the beginning of the new base.8 The perfectly situated island was virtually uninhabited but for a few Indians who sometimes came from the mainland by canoe to make salt by evaporating seawater in ponds on the interior. Dense woods made it difficult to get about, especially inland, but the island had good freshwater and an excellent harbor.9

  Just as in Louisiana and Texas, Jean took the more active role in the brothers' business while Pierre kept to the shore, though life on land at Mugeres was considerably more rigorous than what Pierre had known in New Orleans. He and the men lived in such huts as they could build. They bartered and bought provisions from the fishermen along the coast, with whom Pierre cultivated good relations since they were essential to survival and might also pass on information about likely prizes in the vicinity, as well as prying Spaniards. The coasters regarded him as "a nice gentleman" who "never harmed any poor person," though when Jean was on the island they found him rather more severe, a strict disciplinarian who was hard to approach, just as he had been on Galveston. 10 Pierre was also generous to men marooned by the loss of their ships, continuing that streak of humanity evidenced so often with Spanish prisoners. By that fall it was evident to visitors that Pierre was the man in charge.11 Before long Pierre also found female companionship in an American woman named Lucia Allen, whom he may have brought with him from Charleston.12 Almost certainly he did not know that on May 2, in New Orleans, Marie Villard gave birth to his last son, Joseph.13

  If Jean Laffite received any commissions from Aury, he soon learned that he had dropped anchor in the wrong harbor. Aury was all but discredited, and on January 18, 1821, Bolivar told Aury to take his ships and leave Colombian waters. "The Republic of Colombia has no more need for more corsairs to degrade its flag on all the seas of the world," Bolivar wrote to him.14 After he retook Cartagena on October 10, 1821, Bolivar would abolish Colombian privateering entirely, though he would continue to hire private armed schooners to act against pirates and former privateers, not Spanish merchantmen.

  By this time the other republican juntas were disassociating themselves from privateering, too, with the result that no one wanted Aury and his corsairs. Aury held on at Old Providence, pretending to be a governor, but on August 20, after a severe fall, he died at the age of just thirty-three.15 Only a month after Bolivar ended Aury's legitimate career, an internal coup in the Spanish army in Mexico began the process of achieving what a decade of revolution had failed to do. An independent Mexico finally removed any vestige of legitimacy to prior privateering commissions. By October, when Buenos Aires called in its letters of marque, only Venezuela maintained lawful privateers operating out of Margarita Island. Vessels flying Venezuelan colors were regularly boarded by American warships, but if their papers proved to be in order, they were allowed to proceed on their business. 16

  Would-be privateers could find virtually no home port or agreeable junta to allow them to carry on their trade, yet carry it on they would. Many other than the Laffites shifted their bases to Cuba, chiefly the port of Regla close to Havana Bay, as well as St. Bartholomew's in the British West Indies. Soon privateers flying a variety of rebel flags under multiple commissions, all of them suspect, stopped in these ports to bring in prizes and refit. Most of them were American and British vessels and crews.17 Forced to the far side of the law, they became more brazen, and some began to prey on American shipping as well as Spanish. Captain José Gaspar sailed the Jupiter out of St. Bartholomew's under a worthless commission from Uruguay, and on August 19 took and plundered the Yankee ship the Orleans. He held her for two days, abusing the crew to some degree, then before releasing her sent aboard a crude attempt at humor in a letter that he signed "Richard Coeur de Lion."18 Whether trying to hide his own identity or settling a grudge against Laffite, he tried to persuade people that the author was Jean Laffite.19 Gaspar's panache would not last long, for in October the USS Grampus found his ship at St. Bartholomew's and put her out of business.20

  The taking of Gaspar was merely one example of the noose steadily tightening around the freebooters. Officials of the new Mexican regime kept a watchful eye on Galveston, not only because of Long's return and anticipated invasion, but also wary that the Laffites might come back. Long took La Bahia on October 4 sure enough, but was forced to give up when surrounded by soldiers of the newly independent nation, who felt no more kindly toward invaders than the Spaniards before them. Sent first as a prisoner to Mexico City, he was later allowed the freedom of the capital, only to be killed in April 1822 under mysterious circumstances. It was the end of filibustering.

  At the same time that Long took La Bahia, the Mexicans were alarmed by reports of "l
os Piratas de Galveston" and their recent capture of the goleta Salio del Refugio. It may or may not have been Jean Laffite who took the goleta, but by the end of the year when Long had been captured and his expedition ended, the authorities decided to depopulate the island and shift everyone remaining, whether smuggler or filibuster, to Nacogdoches. By late December a reconnaissance found Galveston uninhabited.21

  Slaves were still being smuggled into Louisiana by way of Texas, however, and with the promise of Texas being opened to American settlement starting in 1821 thanks to a grant to Moses Austin, there was the possibility of a local market. John Sibley of Natchitoches warned Senator J. Stoddard Johnston in Washington in June that "Lafitte is still going on in Privateering," and had recently landed on the coast some two hundred blacks taken on a ship off Havana.22 Just how Sibley was certain it was Laffite who brought in the cargo he did not say, and it may have been no more than rumor, but if Jean Laffite did take any slave ships as prizes, the most profitable market for him was still the United States. Spain's final ratification of the Adams-Onis Treaty on February 19, 1821, had made landing goods at Galveston too dangerous even before the island was depopulated, so Jean probably landed them at Cat Island or one of the other old haunts. That smuggling slaves was still very profitable is evident from the high risks the buyers took. In the summer of 1821 a group of six men in Louisiana, at least one of whom appeared to be a former Laffite associate, were fined a total of $115,000 for smuggling over ninety Africans.23

  At the end of the year Louisiana's congressional delegation wrote a joint letter to Calhoun to call Washington's attention to the continuing violation of the revenue laws on the state's western border, and to demand suppression of the smugglers. They suggested assigning one hundred dragoons to patrol the Sabine.24 Instead, Senator Johnston got the navy to post more armed vessels to patrol the Gulf. 25 By the fall the navy had the Enterprise, the Hornet, the Spark, the Shark, the Grampus, and the Porpoise in the West Indies, and within a few more months the John Adams, the Peacock, and the Alligator joined them. The result was a dramatic increase in pirates put out of business and the press took note that Gulf commerce had been mostly unmolested "since John Lafitte abandoned and destroyed Galveston." In September 1821 two pirate attacks on ships headed for New Orleans were the first in almost two years.26 Three more corsairs were taken in October, and in early November the Hornet captured the Colombian privateer the Centinella and a French slave ship prize, the La Pensee, with 240 blacks.27 That month the Porpoise hit pirates off Cuba and forced them to abandon their ship and flee into the woods.28 In December yet another corsair fell victim to the naval might.