* * *
NOTES
Abbreviations Used in the Notes
AGI-Newberry Ayer Collection of Transcripts from the Archivo General de Indias, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
AGN Blake Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City Nacogdoches Archives Transcripts, Robert Bruce Blake Collection, East Texas Research Center, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches
CAHUT Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin
HNOC Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, LA
LBRI Louisiana Birth Records Index, 1790–1899, Louisiana Division of Archives, Records Management, and History, Baton Rouge
LDRI Louisiana Death Records Index, 1804–1949, Louisiana Division of Archives, Records Management, and History, Baton Rouge
LSM Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans
LSU Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
NAFW National Archives Southwest Region, Ft. Worth, TX
NONA New Orleans Notarial Archives
NOPL New Orleans Public Library
NSUL Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Natchitoches
SAANO Sacramental Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans
TSL Texas State Library and Archives, Austin
ONE
1. A number of different birthplaces have been offered for the brothers over the years, but most sources are secondhand at best, and all appeared decades after the Laffites' deaths. The earliest source was Texas pioneer Samuel Williams, who stated on one occasion in the 1830s that one of the brothers—context suggests that he was speaking of Pierre—was born in Brest around 1776. But Williams did not know the Laffites more than passingly, having met Pierre in Baltimore, and again on the street in New Orleans ("Lafitte," undated notes in Mirabeau B. Lamar Papers, Texas State Library, Austin [TSL]). And on another occasion in the 1830s Williams said he believed the Laffites were born in Bayonne. (Information derived from Col. S. M. Williams respecting Lafitte, n.d., Lamar Papers, TSL.)
On October 27, 1810, Adelaide Maseleri gave birth to a daughter named Marie Josephe Lafite, the father being a Pierre Lafite, "native of Bayonne in France." For generations it has been assumed that this was Pierre Laffite, the smuggler, and the possibility cannot be entirely dismissed. Nevertheless, in the absence of any other evidence linking Pierre Laffite the smuggler with Adelaide Maseleri, and considering that there were at least one or two other men of the same name in New Orleans at the time, the linkage of this baptismal record to Pierre Laffite seems inconclusive.
The Bayonne claim apparently first appeared in print in 1852 in an account by William Bollaert that gained early and wide currency. Admitting that Williams was one of his sources during his visit to Texas in the years 1842–44, Bollaert cited another man identified as "Old L," in fact an old Galveston denizen named John Lambert who claimed to have served under the Laffites and who told him that there were three brothers, Pierre, Jean, and Marc (also known as Henri or Antoine), and that they were originally from Bordeaux or Bayonne (William Bollaert, "Life of Jean Lafitte, the Pirate of the Mexican Gulf," Littell's Living Age, XXXII [March 1852], pp. 434–35). This is also the earliest reference to a third brother, which cannot be entirely discounted, though in this instance Bollaert's source was confusing as a sibling Marc Lafitte, the notary of New Orleans, who was no relation to the Laffites. In 1854 New Orleans merchant Vincent Nolte also stated that the Laffites were from Bayonne (Vincent Nolte, The Memoirs of Vincent Nolte. Reminiscences in the Period of Anthony Adverse or Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres [New York, 1934], p. 207). As his text makes clear, though, Nolte was no intimate of the Laffites', and he likely was only repeating from memory what he had read in Bollaert.
Nolte is also apparently the earliest source for the recurrent myth that the Laffites and the privateer Frederick Dominique or Dominique Youx were brothers, but he offers no evidence of what is clearly a canard. Charles Hunt repeated it in his 1864 Life of Edward Livingston (New York, p. 203), when he referred to "Jean Lafitte, [and] his brothers Pierre and Dominique, and of their band," and may have been influenced by Nolte. This whole business of Dominique being a brother probably grew out of a mid-nineteenth-century American misunderstanding of the more common Gallic and still English usage of "brother" as a singular of "brethren" or "brotherhood," no blood relation implied. Moreover, Dominique Youx may have had brothers named Pierre and Jean, and this may be the origin of the misconception that he was a Laffite brother (Winston C. Babb, French Refugees from Saint Domingue to the Southern United States: 1791–1810. [PhD dissertation, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, n.d.], p. 314).
Based in part on these sources, Stanley Faye, "The Great Stroke of Pierre Laffite," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXIII (July 1940), p. 744, concludes that the Laffites came from Bayonne, where Pierre was born in 1776 and Jean four or five years later. Before that, he says, the family lived in Boscay and the Pyrenees valley of Orduna twenty miles south of Bilbao, Spain, their mother being a Spaniard. His source for this is Juan Mariano Picornell to Luis Onís, February 16, 1816 (Legajo 42, Archivo de Su Magestad Católica en Philadelphia, State Department, Madrid, Spain), but in fact that source says nothing of the sort, only saying of Pierre that he was "the son of a Spanish woman and brought up among us." It would have been quite in character for Pierre to tell Picornell something of this sort at the time in attempting to convince him of the duplicitous brothers' sympathies with Spain.
Another early birthplace attribution appeared in J. H. Ingraham, "Life and Times of Lafitte," DeBow's Southern and Western Review, XI (October 1851), pp. 372–87, wherein Ingraham without citing a source maintained that the Laffites were born in St. Malo, France. Meanwhile, in the early 1850s Marseilles also became a candidate ("Editorial and Literary Department—History of Lafitte," DeBow's Southern and Western Review, XIII [July 1852], p. 102).
Galveston journalist and amateur historian John Dyer was almost certainly the source for perhaps the most novel origin story of all in a Galveston, Daily News article on May 9, 1920, which said that Jean Laffite told Warren D. C. Hall, Mrs. James Campbell, Jane Long, J. Randal Jones, and others that he was born in Haute Pyrenees, France, and that Laffite was in fact an assumed name taken from an old servant who brought him to Louisiana in 1807, and that Pierre was the son of the servant, not Jean's real brother. Most of Dyer's sources appear to have been old Galveston loungers with little or no verifiable connection to the Laffites during their days on the island.
In articles on March 5 and May 21, 1933, France even lost claim to the Laffites entirely when the New Orleans States carried the story of the confusion of Jean Laffite with a Juan Enrico Lafite whose birth record showed him being born in New Orleans December 27, 1778, the son of Elizabeth Roche and John Lafite, then expounded on his Irish ancestry and finished with a discussion of his star sign as a Capricorn.
These interesting nativity myths to the contrary, and with only the one possible exception of the Maseleri baptism record, virtually every source directly contemporaneous with the Laffites and reflecting statements made by the brothers themselves, reveals them to be entirely consistent over a fourteen-year period in placing their births in the Bordeaux region in the Department of the Gironde in France. The earliest statement in this regard, and also the most specific, came from Pierre in his affidavit dated April 21, 1806, in which he identified himself as a "native of Pauillac, France" (Notary Pierre Pedesclaux, Volume 52, item 335, New Orleans Notarial Archives [NONA]).
The next evidence came from Jean Laffite on March 2, 18x3, when he listed his birthplace as Bordeaux on a muster roll of his brother's ship La Diligente (Certificate of Inspection, March 2, 1813, Pierre and Jean Laffite Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection [HNOC]). Such a statement, on a document done for and clearly to be scrutinized by Pierre, logically qualifies as a confirmation from both of them of the accuracy of Jean's attestation to his Bordeaux nativity. Finally, among the very last records of the brothers in New Orleans are baptisms
of their children in 1820 in which each Laffite gave his birthplace as "the jurisdiction of Bordeaux [Dept. of Gironde]" (Charles E. Nolan and Dorenda Dupont, eds., Sacramental Records of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Volume 14, 1820–1821 [New Orleans, 1999], pp. 228–29).
2. These findings and conclusions on the parentage of jean and Pierre Laffite derive from research performed in the birth and death registers at Pauillac by Edmée Chanay in 2003, at the author's commission. One, and only one, Laffite family in Pauillac in the late 1700s, from 1760–1807, spelled their name in the distinctive fashion that Jean and Pierre Laffite used throughout their lives. If Pierre Laffite's statement in the 1806 Notarial affidavit was correct, placing his birth in Pauillac, and these Laffites are the only family of that name and spelling in Pauillac at that time, then almost certainly they are the family of Pierre and Jean of Louisiana. Ms. Chanay also found acts in the parish archives suggesting that this Jean Laffite, son of Pierre, left for the United States, which in some degree corroborates this conclusion. Edmée Chanay to author, November 15, 2003. One potential problem with this scenario, however, is the statement by Jean Laffite in 1813 on the La Diligente roll, that he was thirty-two, which would argue for a birth year of 1781 rather than 1786. People of the time seemed remarkably cavalier about their ages, giving different years at different times, and rarely seeming in agreement with themselves, though still for Jean to be off by five years is difficult to accept. In the absence of discovering any other Laffite family in Pauillac at this time, however, the relation herein seems the best one to fit the known facts, the virtually unique spelling of the surname being especially persuasive.
For other speculations on the Laffites' ancestry, none of it conclusive, see Emery De Sidney, "Laffite, Frères et Cie, Filibustiers," Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe (Bulletin 85, September 1996), p. 1720; Michel Camus, "Miettes et Pistes pour la Saga Laffite," Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe (Bulletin 91, March 1997), p. 1917; Pierre Bardin, "Laffite ou L'art de la Dissimulation," Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe (Bulletin 85, September 1996), pp. 1718–19.
3. There is no certainty that this supposition of a son Pierre born to Pierre and Marie is correct. It is a speculation based on the fact that Pierre's son Pierre by his second wife Marguerite appears to have died in 1804, thereby disqualifying him from being the Pierre Laffite of Louisiana and Texas. That Pierre, Sr., would have named a son by his second wife Pierre while already having a living son Pierre by his first is not unusual. Pierre Laffite of Louisiana fathered two sons named Jean by his mistress Marie Villard, presumably differentiating them by their middle names, which are not known for any of these Pierres. If this speculation is correct, then Pierre and Jean Laffite of Louisiana were half brothers. Attribution of Pierre Laffite's birth year to 1770 derives from his statement in March 1820 that he was fifty years of age, but that of course can be taken as approximate (Rieder and Rieder, New Orleans Ship Lists, p. 8). In February 1816 Pierre Laffite's Spanish espionage contact described him as being forty years old, which would have meant a birth year of 1775–76, but again such age references tended to be approximate (Picornell to Onís, February 16, 1816, Legajo 42, Archivo de Su Magestad Católica en Philadelphia, State Department, Madrid. Cited in Stanley Faye, "Privateersmen of the Gulf and Their Prizes," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXII (October 1939), p. 1035; translation in Stanley Faye Papers, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, TX).
4. Baptismal and Birth Register, Pauillac.
5. James Campbell, latter-day associate of the Laffites' at Galveston, told William Bollaert in 1842–44 that the brothers came from Bordeaux and were the sons of a merchant. That is hardly conclusive, but considering the time and place of their upbringing, the fact that both brothers were literate, and that from their first appearances in the public record in Louisiana they were engaged in trade—albeit often illicit—it seems reasonable to assume that their education and their affinity for commerce are evidence of a middle-class mercantile home environment. Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 435.
6. This conclusion on the extent of the brothers' education is based on an evaluation of the dozen or so surviving letters in their hand that can definitely be attributed to them and not to clerks. There are a few surviving original letters demonstrably written by Pierre, and half a dozen certainly attributable to Jean. Translator Christina Vella to the author, July 11, 2004, concludes that they wrote with "horrible French grammar and spelling." However, both were certainly literate by the definitions of the day.
7. John Dyer in Galveston, Daily News, September 19, 1926, maintains on no stated authority that the Laffites' parents were guillotined in the Terror, almost certainly a romanticization based purely on imagination.
8. Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 434; Pierre Laffite passport, May 21, 1802, Sevie Passeports, Archives départmentales de la Gironde, Bordeaux, France. This important document has just been discovered by Laffite researcher Patrick Lafitte. Its authenticity is established by the perfect match of the signature on it with 1803 Laffite documents cited hereafter.
9. A Captain Lafite serving in the French army disappeared around 1800, but there is no reason for supposing that he was either of the brothers. Half a century later one acquaintance thought that Jean might have served in the French navy or army and was perhaps a good swordsman, but could recall nothing more. (Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 435 and n; "Lafitte," undated notes in Lamar Papers, TSL. The source for this latter account is unnamed, but has the sound of James Campbell, as he told others substantially the same story. There is little reason to believe it to be accurate.) At the same time a man who was certainly at least acquainted with Jean recalled being told that at age nine he ran away from home and joined a British warship. His father brought him back but he ran away again and shipped on the British HMS Fox, rising to rank of man before the mast. Then after a difficulty in port at Deptford, he deserted, lived with a French family there for a time, then took ship for South America. After visiting Cartagena and Santa Maria he caught the privateering bug and fitted out a republican privateer under Cartagenan colors. Visiting Charleston, South Carolina, frequently, he fought a duel there over favors of a woman and killed his rival, forcing him to flee. (M. B. Lamar notes ca. 1839, Lamar Papers, TSL.)
More persistent rumors made Laffite the victim of the Spaniards. Recollection averred that he was a trader in Málaga, on the Mediterranean coast, and captured there by Spaniards and imprisoned for seven years before he tunneled out of his prison and escaped. Hiding on an American vessel, he only revealed himself when at sea, and thus remained aboard until he arrived at Charleston, where again he competed with another for a woman and killed his opponent on the dueling field. ("Lafitte," undated notes in Lamar Papers, TSL.) There is no more reason to believe that story any more than another version in which Spaniards captured Jean at sea in a French vessel, and imprisoned him in Cuba for several years, then forgot the reason for his original arrest and so released him. Contradicting this, yet another story maintained that Jean Laffite served during the French Revolution on a privateer and was captured and imprisoned for several years by the English before he escaped. ("Editorial and Literary Department—History of Lafitte," DeBow's Southern and Western Review, XIII [July 1852], p. 102.) As evidence that this rumor is clearly ill-informed, it goes on to say that his imprisonment engendered a hatred of the English in Laffite, and that later he preyed only on English ships—which is nonsense—and that after the Battle of New Orleans he returned to France. Perhaps the silliest of these imprisonment stories is in Charles Ramsdell, Jr., "Why Jean Lafitte Became a Pirate," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XLIII (April 1940), p. 468, which maintains that he was a prisoner in Mexico City for many years prior to 1795, and that he was twenty years older than he stated himself to be in later documents. Ramsdell has confused Laffite with another man entirely.
Other belated accounts suggest that Jean Laffite, as evidence of his experience of seamanship in France, went to the Caribbean and ship
ped aboard privateers operating out of Martinique and Guadeloupe, preying on Spanish shipping, yet if so he left no trace of his service. (Sylvie Feuillie to the author, March 2, 2004, testifies that in her extensive researches in French archives, she found "no proof they [the Laffites] were privateers from Martinique nor Guadeloupe, and in my opinion, they were not.") A later acquaintance recalled being told that Jean, whom he mistakenly thought to be the eldest of the brothers, might have visited the Spanish Main in this period. He did not recall the reason, but believed that the Spaniards captured Jean and imprisoned him at an early age in one of the colonies. (Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 435. The informant was James Gaines.) One informant decades after the fact attested that Laffite actually ran away from home at an early age, served on a man-of-war for several voyages, and ended at Santa Martha where he fitted out a privateer. ( W. A. Fayman and T. W. Reilly, Fayman & Reilly's Galveston City Directory for 1875–6 [Galveston, TX, 1875], pp. 15–16.) A Louis Lafitte captained the corsair Dermide out of Cap Français on San Domingue in 1803, yet even though some think that he might actually be the Laffites' father and that they were serving with him, again nothing connects the brothers with him. (Michel Camus, "Miettes et Pistes pour la Saga Laffite," Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe [Bulletin 91, March 1997], p. 1917; Faye, "Stroke," p. 745, says their father might be Louis Laffite, a French privateer out of Cap Français commanding the privateer Dorada, but clearly he means the same Laffite who commanded the Dermide.)
If the privateering rumors are unsupported, still most stories agree that either singly or together the brothers washed up on Caribbean shores after they left home, either Martinique or San Domingue. One long after-the-fact memory claimed that Laffite told several late acquaintances that he had been a planter in the West Indies until 1809. The brothers settled on Martinique and lived on a sugar plantation, but the Spaniards confiscated his plantation and arrested both him and his wife. Jean was imprisoned, his wife taken by a Spaniard for his mistress, and she soon committed suicide, thus forging his lifelong—and mythical—hatred for Spain. (Faye, "Stroke," p. 745, on the authority of James Gaines, who did meet with and visit Jean Laffite in 1819, and later told what he heard from Laffite to Bollaert in 1842–44, said they went to San Domingue. Much more was written about this in several articles by Joseph O. Dyer in the Galveston, Daily News, May 9, 1920, October 1, 1921, and September 19, 1926. Dyer, whose sources were always suspect though they claimed to have known the Laffites, seemed himself to embroider his stories with retelling.)
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