48. Marie Zabeth and infant vs. Pierre Lafitte, Case #131, Superior Court Suit Records 1804–1813, NOPL.
49. Henry A. Kmen, Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years 1791—1841 (Baton Rouge, 1966), pp. 43–48.
50. Sybil Kein, ed., Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana's Free People of Color (Baton Rouge, LA, 2000), pp. 66–69.
51. Lyle Saxon, Old Louisiana (New York, 1929), pp. 107, 109.
52. Ibid., p. 125.
53. It is evident that Marie and Pierre started their liaison as early as 1805, possibly even 1804, but no earlier than 1803, as Pierre only arrived in that year and Marie was a native and resident of Louisiana, and thus would not have come with him from San Domingue. One source covered hereinafter suggests that their first child, Catherine Coralie Laffite, was born in 1804–5, but it was probably somewhat later. Their son Martin Firmin or Martial Laffite was born about 1807–8. The Esau Glasscock letter in Saxon, Lafitte, p. 9, says that Pierre had a young son by a previous mistress living with him in November 1809, the boy who was almost certainly Pierre/Eugene Laffite, probably born in San Domingue. Glasscock also apparently wrote about Pierre's mistress at this time, but Saxon quotes nothing from the letter directly, and any text that Saxon himself inserted other than quotations is suspect as being susceptible to influence from other unreliable sources and Saxon's own imagination. For instance, he alleges that Glasscock commented on Laffite's mistress being unable to speak English "as she had lately come from Santo Domingo." Marie Louisa Villard was demonstrably Pierre's mistress as of November, as she had already had one and probably two children by him, yet she was a Louisiana native who had never been in San Domingue. Saxon is almost certainly embellishing the account in this instance by the assumption that Pierre's mistress at this time was Adelaide Maseleri, who was from San Domingue.
54. Marie Louise Villard's age and birth year are approximate. When she was buried on October 28, 1833, in the cemetery l'Eglise Cathedral and Parish of St. Louis, she was recorded as being aged "about 50," a native of the parish and the daughter of Marie Vilard, a free woman of color of the parish. (Funerals S-FPC Volume 10, Part 2 1833–1834, p. 219, entry #1426, Sacramental Archives of Archdiocese of New Orleans [SAANO].) That would place her birth circa 1783. On October 27, 1833, her death was recorded in the civil record both as Louise Marie Villard and also under the name Louise Marie Villard Ramos, and her age listed as forty-eight, which would place her birth in 1784–85 (New Orleans, Louisiana Death Records Index, 1804–1949, Vol. 4, p. 101, Vital Records Indices, State of Louisiana, Secretary of State, Division of Archives, Records Management, and History, Baton Rouge, LA [LDRI]). The 1830 Census for New Orleans lists her as being between the ages of thirty-six and fifty-four, which does not help narrow her year of birth unfortunately (United States Census, 1830, Orleans Parish, North New Orleans, p. 28). Thus a birth year of 1784, and an age of twenty-one in 1805, represent a compromise among the sources available. She is sometimes confused with a Marie Louise Villars who was born in 1791 and baptized March 14, 1793, at St. Louis Cathedral (Book 5, folio 36, entry 131, SAANO). The evidence of earlier Villards includes a power of attorney by a Margarite or Marguerite Villard on December 24, 1799, on behalf of her infant son Juan Bautista Villard, as well as property dealings showing that this Marguerite owned a house on Orleans Street since about 1800 if not before. It is possible that she is one and the same with Marie Villard's mother Marie, as given names at the time were somewhat fluid in the polyglot culture of New Orleans (Margarita Villard, free mulatto, power of attorney to Celestino Lavergne, Notary Narcisse Broutin, Vol. 1, item 282; Margueritte Villard to Joseph Defaucheux, February 24, 1813, Notary Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 66, item 55, NONA). The Villards/Villars may have come originally from San Domingue prior to the revolutions there (Babb, French Refugees, p. 147).
55. Petition of Stephen Carraby, July 29, 1805, Peter Lafitte summons, July 30, 1805, Stephen Carraby vs. Peter Lafitte, 1805, Civil Suit #71, County Court Records of Civil Suits, New Orleans City Archives, NOPL.
56. This is an assumption based on the absence of any New Orleans notarial documents showing a property ownership by Marie Villard or Pierre Laffite during this time.
57. Pierre Laffite to Simon Marin, November 8, 1805, Pierre Laffite to Sebastian Giriare, November 18, 1805, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 51, item 879, NONA.
58. Laffite to Joseph Hotard, January 8, 1806, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 52, item 15; Laffite to Eugene Fortier, January 16, 1806, item 32; Laffite to Abraham Guitrau, February 1805, item 86; Laffite to Nicholas Le Blanc, February 5, 1806, item 90; Laffite to Fortier, February 14, 1806, item 120; Laffite to Paul F. DuBourg, April 7, 1806, Narcisse Broutin, Vol. 12, item 164, NONA.
THREE
1. In "The Cruise of the Enterprise," p. 42, the author—identified only as "T"—has what is presumed to be Jean Laffite saying that "eighteen years ago I was a merchant in San Domingo." Much of the article is clearly imaginary, however, and this statement is too thin to serve as basis for a definite assertion that Jean, like Pierre, was in business in San Domingue.
2. One of the earliest accounts of Jean Laffites pre-Louisiana years has him sailing the Indian Ocean and elsewhere and amassing huge booty as an outright pirate before coming to Barataria, after which he was less audacious. This account is very imaginary and it is hard to tell from whence it sprang, as it predates most of the secondhand accounts collected by Lamar and Bollaert in the 1840s. This account also appears to be the origin of the myth that Jean commanded La Confiance, a ship that appears in spurious twentieth-century documents allegedly derived from Laffite himself. Charles Ellms, The Pirates Own Book, or Authentic Narratives of the Lives, Exploits, and Executions of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers (Portland, ME, 1837), p. 58.
3. Claiborne to Pierre Lausat, April 14, 1804, Dunbar Rowland, ed., Official Letter Books of IV C. C. Claiborne 1801—1816 (Jackson, MS, 1917), II, p. 97.
4. Robin, Voyages, pp. 267–68.
5. Claiborne to Robert Davis, April 24, 1804, Rowland, Letter Books, II, p. 100; John Watkins to Claiborne, April 24, 1804, p. 276; Claiborne to James Madison, April 25, 1804, Carter, Territorial Papers, p. 234.
6. Claiborne to Pierre Lausat, April 14, 1804, Rowland, Letter Books, II, p. 97.
7. Sylvie Feuillie says that he was Pierre Laffite, but there is no documentary evidence to confirm this (Feuillie, "La Guerre de Course Française," part 3, p. 96). Stanley Clisby Arthur, Jean Laffite, Gentleman Rover (New Orleans, 1952), pp. 9–14, also identifies Pierre as being the captain, though Arthur is highly unreliable. As a case in point, on the same page that he identifies Pierre as the ship's captain, Arthur then places Pierre in Baton Rouge in October 1806 based on documents clearly dated 1804. The fact that Pierre Laffite was demonstrably in Baton Rouge in October 1804—not 1806—two months after the vessel left New Orleans eliminates him as a candidate for being its captain. Harris Gaylord Warren, The Sword was Their Passport: A History of American Filibustering in the Mexican Revolution (Baton Rouge, LA, 1943), p. 97n, identifies this captain as Louis Laffite, though without authority.
8. New Orleans, Moniteur de la Louisiane, February 18, 1804.
9. For more on this see Stanley Faye, "Privateers of Guadaloupe and their Establishment in Barataria," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXIII (April 1940).
10. Sylvie Feuillie, "Dominique Youx and La Superbe," The Life and Times of Jean Laffite, IX (Spring 1989), p. 2; Coüet de Montaraud to General Turreau, July 29, 1807, Correspondence Politique, Etats-Unis Supplément, Volume 38, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris, France.
11. Feuillie, "Dominique Youx," pp. 2–3.
12. Claiborne to James Madison, April 22, 1805, Jared William Bradley, ed., Interim Appointment: W. C. C. Claiborne Letter Book, 1804–1805 (Baton Rouge, LA, 2002), p. 237.
13. Several protests over these seizures were filed and will be found in Narcissus Broutin, Vol. 11, NONA.
14. Drawbacks, various 1805, Records of the Bureau of Customs, Records o
f Customs houses in the Gulf States, New Orleans, LA, Record of Drawbacks, 1795–1849, Entry 1656, RG 36, NA.
15. James and David Young vs. Jean Blanque July 10, 1806, Case #0024, United States District Court for the Eastern Region of Louisiana, New Orleans, RG 21, General Case Files, 1806—1932, Entry 21, National Archives—Southwest Region, Fort Worth, TX (NAFW).
16. Drawbacks, May 18, 1805, March 31, 1806, Entry 1656, RG 36, NA; New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, August 3, 19, 1806.
17. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, July 22, 25, August 5, 1806.
18. John Smith Kendall, "The Huntsmen of Black Ivory," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXIV (January 1941), pp. 10–11.
19. Jean Louis Fossier to Jacques Reynard, October 8, 1803, Notary St. Amand, item 1894, Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718–1820 (Slave), Web site.
20. Orleans Parish tax list, June 3, 1784, Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718–1820 (Slave), Web site.
21. Smith, "Editor's Introduction," Latour, Historical Memoir, pp. xvii-xviii; Succession of Elias Beauregard, n.d. Records of Spanish West Florida, XIX, p. 495.
22. It is sometimes suggested that the Laffites were involved in Aaron Burr's celebrated "conspiracy" to conquer the Spanish province of Texas and create a new western empire. In the James Judge Collection, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Natchitoches (NSUL), an essay entitled "The Great Southwest Pirate," presumably written by Judge, avers that Aaron Burr "was said to have" sought Jean Laffite's aid in his plan. Burr and General James Wilkinson are even supposed to have offered to make Laffite the "Commander of their Naval Fleet," but Laffite refused. No sources are given for these statements, and they may be safely put down to local mythology and overactive imagination. The Laffites almost certainly neither knew of nor participated in the affair. Jean Laffite was seemingly nowhere near Louisiana at the time, and in late 1806 when Burr came down the Ohio River to the Mississippi prior to being stopped and arrested, Pierre Laffite was in Pensacola.
23. It is an assumption that Marie went to Pensacola with Laffite, based on the fact that in the period 1806–9, she bore him at least two children, neither of which had birth or baptism recorded in the registers at St. Louis Cathedral. All of Pierre and Marie's children born after 1812 were so baptized and recorded, however, with both parents invariably present. The most logical explanation for the break in this pattern of baptism is that the parents and the infants were absent from New Orleans at the time of birth and for sometime thereafter. Record of any baptisms in Pensacola, if they took place, were likely lost with the official archives in 1818.
24. Pierre Laffite statement, April 21, 1806, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 52, item 335, NONA.
25. Pierre could have returned to New Orleans on any of several vessels that came in from Pensacola after May 31 but prior to June 15, including the Bonaparte, the Orleans Packet, the brig Alert, or the schooner Ann. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, June 10, 13, 17, 1806.
26. Pedro Laralde to Pedro Lafite, Power of Attorney, May 21, 1806, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 52, item 429, NONA. In this document, filed in Spanish and therefore using the given name Pedro rather than Pierre, Laffite is described as being "actualmente de la Plaza de Pensacola"—"presently in the Post of Pensacola." On May 31, 1806, when Eugene Fortier sold a slave to Laffite, it was done in New Orleans through a representative of Pierre's with power of attorney, noting that he was then still in Pensacola (Fortier to Laffite, May 31, 1806, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 52, item 454, NONA).
27. William St. Marc vs. Lafitte and Garidel, Case #3117, City Court Suit Records, NOPL.
28. Robin, Voyages, pp. 4—5, 25, 27–29, 31.
29. Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 43, item 524, June 25, 1803, NONA.
30. Pierre was in New Orleans until April 21 at least, and was in Pensacola by May 21, 1806. The New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, April 25, 1806, shows the Louisa, Captain LaCoste, having just cleared for Pensacola.
31. Certificate of Registration of schooner Louisa, May 1, 1818, New Orleans Certificates of Registration, 1818–1819, Entry 156, Records of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, RG 41, NA.
32. Only one ship cleared New Orleans bound for Pensacola between June 15 and July 1 and that was the Louisa, under Captain LaCoste. The Gazette was published every Tuesday and Friday, and July 1 was a Tuesday, meaning the ship cleared sometime after the previous Friday issue of June 27 went to press, so it could have departed even a day earlier on June 26. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, July 1, 1806.
33. L. N. McAlister, "Pensacola During the Second Spanish Period," Florida Historical Quarterly, XXXVII (January–April 1959), p. 300.
34. Henry M. Brackenridge, A Topographical Description of Pensacola and Vicinity in 1821 (Bagdad, FL, 1991), p. 6.
35. Pensacola, Gazette, December 4, 1824.
36. Brackenridge, Description, pp. 10—11.
37. Ibid., p. 6.
38. Bread brought 12.5 cents a pound, double its New Orleans price, and butter ran 37.8 to 50 cents a pound in the summer and more in winter. Robin, Voyages, pp. 1–2.
39. Ibid., pp. 4–5.
40. Brackenridge, Topographical Description, pp. 1–3.
41. Robin, Voyages, pp. 9–11.
42. Ibid., p. 9.
43. McAlister, "Pensacola," pp. 300–7.
44. William Coker and G. Douglas Inglis, The Spanish Census of Pensacola, 1784–1820. A Genealogical Guide to Spanish Pensacola (Pensacola, FL, 1980), pp. 89–90.
45. McAlister, "Pensacola," p. 309; Robin, Voyages, p. 4.
46. Record of slave sale, July 6, 1806, document #78, Archives of the Spanish Government of West Florida, Volume 11, Clerk of Court's Office, East Baton Rouge Parish Courthouse, Baton Rouge, LA.
47. William St. Marc vs. Pierre Lafitte and Ambroise Garidel, Case #3117, City Court Suit Records, NOPL.
48. When West Florida was being turned over to the United States, the ship Peggy of Portsmouth was engaged to carry the governor and sixty-two boxes containing civil and administrative papers from Pensacola to Havana. Unfortunately, virtually all of the official archives were lost overboard in a hurricane on September 10, 1818. Hence, what documentation there might have been of Laffites time in Pensacola disappeared forever (Notary John Lynd, Vol. 15, item 1005, NONA). What can be determined about Pierre's Pensacola activity derives solely from a handful of New Orleans notarial and court documents, and inference. The fact that he completely disappears from the documentary record from the July 10, 1806, slave sale until a July 1809 transaction in New Orleans, suggests that he spent the intervening three years away from Louisiana, as does the fact that William St. Marc did not seek redress in court for the unlawful sale of Lubin until 1810. Had Laffite been within reach earlier than that, St. Marc presumably would have acted earlier.
49. No record of Catherine Coralie Laffites birth or baptism have been found, but she is unquestionably the daughter of Pierre and Marie, and her birth has to be traced to this period. She is first mentioned—as Catarina—as a sponsor or godparent at the baptism of her younger sister Rosa Laffite on March 22, 1814 (Baptismal Book 27, item 3, SAANO). She married Pierre Roup in about 1826, and at the birth of their son Charles Roup, November 3, 1827, the boy's maternal grandparents were recorded as being "Pierre Lafitte, dec[eased]. and Marie Louise Vilard" (Charles E. Nolan and Dorenda Dupont, eds., Sacramental Records of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Volume 18, 1828–1829 [New Orleans, 2003], p. 352). At the baptism of Catherine's daughter Rose Roup on March 8, 1829, the baby was listed as the grandchild of Marie Villard (Baptismal Book 39, p. 265, SAANO). When Catherine's daughter Catherine Roup was born March 25, 1830, her mother is listed as being the daughter of "Marie Louise Vilard and Pierre Lafitte deceased." The godmother to Catherine was Marie Louise Vilard, her grandmother (Baptismal Book 41, p. 181, act #1070, SAANO).
Sources disagree as to when she was likely born. The official register of her death as "Mrs. Pierre Roup, colored," on July 22, 1855, shows her to be age
d fifty, which would put her birth at 1804–5, which seems too early (Louisiana Birth Records Index, 1790—1899, Volume 14, p. 357, Vital Records Indices, Louisiana Division of Archives, Records Management, and History, Baton Rouge [LBRI]). The 1850 Orleans Parish Census, 1st Ward, 3d Municipality, p. 90, lists "Coralie Roupe" as a free woman of color aged thirty-eight, putting her birth at 1811–12, which is clearly unlikely as her younger sister Rosa was born in August 1812. Considering the nonchalance of people of the time about their ages when asked, 1806–7 seems a reasonable birth year for Catherine Laffite.
The birth of Martin Firmin Laffite, Catherine's brother, is even more difficult to fix. He appeared with Catherine as a sponsor at their sister Rosa's baptism, so clearly his birth predated Rosa's. His marriage in 1828 to seventeen-year-old Silvania Brunetti lists him as the son of "Pierre Laffitte and Maria Louisa Vilar," and suggests that he would have been at least the same age as she if not older, putting his birth around 1810 or earlier (Marriage Book 3, p. 91, SAANO; Sylvania Catherine Brunetti death record, August 20, 1844, Vol. 10, p. 286, LDRI). Other than his marriage record and a few appearances as a witness, he disappears from the documentary evidence. However, there are frequent appearances of a Martial Laffite in association with the Roup family. Martial was one of the witnesses to the inventory of Pierre Roup's estate on Catherine Roup's behalf (Succession for Pierre Roup, April 15, 1836, Orleans Parish Court of Probates, Louisiana Division, NOPL). Martial Laffite and Rosa Laffite are the godparents of Catherine Roup's daughter Rose, cited above, strengthening the probability that Martin and Martial are one and the same. Martial Laffite also appeared as godparent at the baptism of Rosa Laffite's daughter Louise Tessier on September 29, 1848 (Baptism Book 28, p. 394, SAANO). Certainly "Martial" and "Martin" could easily be misread for one another in the handwriting of the time. If they are the same person, something happened in the marriage to Silvania Brunetti, for by 1832 she was having children by another man listed as her husband, while Martial Laffite and Celette Durel had a daughter on October 1, 1833 (Vol. 4, p. 93, LDRI). Thereafter "Marshal Lafite," a mulatto, appeared in the 1850 census, Orleans Parish, 1st Ward, 3d Municipality, p. 91, living with his daughter and a Mario Durel, and is listed as age forty-two, meaning birth in about 1807–8. Perhaps significantly, he is living just nineteen doors away from Coralie Roup, and she is living next door to Catiche Villard, who was probably Marie Louisa Villard's sister Catherine, as will be discussed hereafter. Thus 1807–8 seems a likely birth year for Martin/Martial Laffite.
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