The Pirates Laffite
Page 54
50. The attribution of a Jean Baptiste Laffite to Pierre and Marie is somewhat conjectural. In the Sacramental Archives in New Orleans a record on a page that is now missing can be partially reconstructed from the surviving index. It indicates that a Jean Baptiste Lafitte, a free male of color, was baptized on May 20, 1811, the son of a father whose name does not appear, and a mother named "de Villars" (Baptismal Book 24, p. 47, SAANO). Villard often appears as Villars in the records of this time. It cannot be established definitively that this Jean Baptiste was the son of Pierre Laffite and Marie Villard, but it seems probable, and therefore he is mentioned in the text. He may not have lived more than a few years, hence Pierre and Marie naming another son Jean in 1816.
51. A Marguerite Villard and a Catherine Valiere were then free women of color living in New Orleans, and owning property. They may have been Marie's relations. Antoine Augustin to Catherine Valiere, December 21, 1807, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 57, item 481; Marguerite note to Henry Metzinger, Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 56, item 78, NONA. We can only guess when Catherine or Catiche joined the household. Saxon, Lafitte, p. 55, says he was told by a descendant of Pierre and Marie's that Catherine was aged thirteen in 1811, and (p. 65) also says that she was called Jeanette. Saxon did not identify this descendant, but it would have been one of the Allnets or their immediate family.
52. Philadelphia, American Daily Advertiser, October 31, 1806.
53. Luis Marino Perez, Guide to the Materials for American History in Cuban Archives (Washington, 1907), p. 105.
54. The Heloise Cruzat Papers, University of Florida, Gainesville, contain a listing of debtors for the year 1807 that includes many Pensacola residents, but not Pierre Laffite.
55. Wilburt'S. Brown, The Amphibious Campaign for West Florida and Louisiana, 1814–1813: A Critical Study of Strategy and Tactics at New Orleans (University, AL, 1969), p. 47.
56. Joe G. Taylor, "The Foreign Slave Trade in Louisiana After 1808," Louisiana History, I (Winter 1960), pp. 37–38.
57. Aury to J. Maignet and wife, September 8, 1808, Louis Aury Papers, CAHUT.
58. David D. Porter, Memoir of Commodore David Porter of the United States Navy (Albany, NY, 1875), pp. 75, 78.
59. Ibid., p. 76.
60. Ibid., p. 79.
FOUR
1. On March 16, 1809, a Pierre Lafite bought two slaves from the estate of William Dangerfield. The sales instrument is supposed to be on file in the Point Coupée Parish Courthouse at New Roads, LA, but could not be found to verify that the signature is that of Pierre Laffite. It is referenced as document 15-A-036-005-1809, Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718—1820 (Slave), Web site http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/
2. Luis M. Perez, "French Refugees to New Orleans in 1809," Publications of the Southern History Association, IX (September 1905), pp. 293–94.
3. Paul Lachance, "The 1809 Immigration of Saint-Domingue Refugees to New Orleans: Reception, Integration, and Impact," Louisiana History, XXIX (Spring 1998), p. 112; Babb, French Refugees, p. 76.
4. New Orleans, Moniteur de la Louisiane, January 27, 1810.
5. Lachance, "Repercussions of the Haitian revolution in Louisiana," Geggus, Haitian Revolution, pp. 213–14.
6. Babb, French Refugees, pp. 190–91, 197.
7. Gene A. Smith, Thomas ap Catesby Jones, Commodore of Manifest Destiny (Annapolis, MD, 2000), p. 17.
8. Porter to Hamilton, March 10, April 7, 1810, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanders, 1804–1886, M147, NA.
9. United States vs. Schooner Santa Rita, July 10, 1810, Case #0251, NAFW.
10. Libel, June 17, 1809, arrest order June 17, 1809, claim July 3, 1809, United States vs. Schooner Louisa, Case #0217, NAFW.
11. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, July 4, 1809.
12. Perez, "French Refugees," pp. 293, 297–304.
13. Lachance, "Immigration," pp. 119–20.
14. Pierre Laffite to Fernando Alzar, July 31, 1809, Notary Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 59, item 354, NONA.
15. Pierre Laffite to Miguel Da Peña, September 28, 1809, Narcissus Broutin, Vol. 20-A, item 510, NONA.
16. Registry of Free Persons of Color, NOPL.
17. In Kingston, Jamaica, in 1810 the children of Alexander Lafitte were the heirs of their late uncle Louis Victor Dufour of Jérémie, San Domingue, who died in Santiago, Cuba, in January 1809. In September 1809, in New Orleans, Alexander Lafitte filed suit to recover some of the estate of more than $150,000. In the suit the Lafitte children are named, and none of them correspond with any known names attached to the family of Pierre and Jean Laffite. Nevertheless, this Alexander may be the origin of the early assumption that there was a third Laffite brother in New Orleans, for which no contemporary proof has been found. Quite certainly this is the wealthy Cuban Lafitte family that has more recently been confused with Jean and Pierre. Alexander Lafitte vs. Laroque and Carlier Doutremer, #2275, #2573, Orleans Territory Superior Court Suit Records, NOPL.
18. Lachance, "Immigration," pp. 116–17.
19. For excellent background on French privateering in the Caribbean in this period, though with little directly relating to the Laffites, see Sylvie Feuillie's articles "La Guerre de Course Française aux Antilles Durant la Revolution et l'Empire," in five parts in La Revue Maritime, Numbers 427–430.
20. As early as 1864 Dominique was being confused as a Laffite brother, based apparently on nothing more than the misconception that he was a close associate of the brothers, whereas first to last he appears to have been an independent operator. Charles Havens Hunt, Life of Edward Livingston (New York, 1864), p. 203, refers to "the character of Jean Lafitte, of his brothers Pierre and Dominique, and of their band...." Gayarré, "Pierre and Jean Lafitte," lecture no. 2, Gayarré Papers, LSU, says there was a third Laffite brother, unnamed because of his youth, and that all three settled in 1816. He offers no evidence for the claim.
21. Stanley Faye, "Commodore Aury," CAHUT I, pp. 6, 9, 10.
22. Caryn Cossé Bell, Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro–Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana 1718–1868 (Baton Rouge, LA, 1997), pp. 37, 42.
23. Alfred Toledano Wellborn, "The Relations Between New Orleans and Latin America, 1810–1824," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXII (July 1939). pp. 751–53.
24. Perhaps the earliest explanation of Jean's activities pre-1809 came in Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 435, when Bollaert said that in 1842 an informant at Galveston, Lambert, told him that Jean came to Barataria in 1807 and that for some time before the operation commenced Jean was taking Spanish ships as a privateer while Pierre acted as his agent in New Orleans and that Jean even occasionally made voyages to Havana. But Lambert was not entirely reliable, for he also said that Jean was the elder of the two, and that Marc Lafitte, New Orleans notary and no relation, was a third brother. The Laffites are not linked by name to the early complaints about smuggling at New Orleans, and though Faye speculates that they were the town agents for merchant Joseph Sauvinet, he offers no evidence. Faye, "Great Stroke," pp. 746–47. Dyer in the Galveston, Daily News, May 9, 1920, maintained on no authority that Laffite did not sail because he suffered from seasickness, and had been a sugar planter in the West Indies until 1809. Jean's name does not appear on a list of thirty-four ships and captains that brought refugees to New Orleans prior to July 10, 1809. Robert Smith to Philip Grymes, August 16, 1809, Minutes of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, 1806—1814, II, pp. 130–31, M-1082, RG 21, NA.
25. Arsené Lacarriere Latour, Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–1815 (Philadelphia, 1816), p. 13.
26. New Orleans, Daily Picayune, August 27, 1844.
27. Faye, "Stroke," p. 746, says that in 1808 Pierre set up an establishment on Grand Terre to capitalize on this contraband trade, but offers no evidence.
28. Saxon, Lafitte, p. 3. Unfortunately, the earliest unmistakable reference to Jean Laffite in Louisiana comes in a document that may no longer survive, and which
an extensive search has failed to locate. Thus we are dependent on Saxon, Lafitte, pp. 3–11, for what we know of its contents. The problem is that Saxon quoted only selections from the letter, and interspersed those with narrative embellishments. Consequently, some have questioned that the document ever existed, maintaining that the account, including the quotations, was entirely Saxon's fictionalization.
The document was a letter written from eighteen-year-old Esau Glasscock of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, to his brother Edward. Saxon obtained it from one of two sources. One probability is William Glasscock, a frequent social associate of Saxon's in the bar of the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans. The other possibility is Mrs. Elizabeth Dix Perrault of Natchez, who made her family papers available to Lyle Saxon when he was researching his book Old Louisiana (New York, 1929), and he subsequently credited her with contributing materials for Lafitte the Pirate, published in 1930. She was a great-niece of Thomas's son Esau (Saxon, Old Louisiana, pp. 272ff). Elizabeth Perrault's family papers have passed to her granddaughter Anna Calhoun, who confirms that the Esau Glasscock letter is not among the things she has, and that she does not now recall the document (Anna Calhoun to the author, August 19, 2003).
We are left to wonder what might have become of the letter. Of one thing we may be certain. Saxon did not invent the letter or those portions of its contents that he quoted. Saxon is often derided as a mere fictionalist. Certainly he was not a historian in our accepted definition of the word. However, when Saxon dealt with historical documents, his only vice was correcting spelling and adding punctuation, and when he put such material in quotations it is clear that he was dealing with an actual document. On balance logic insists that Saxon had a genuine source document in front of him.
29. While Saxon assumes that Glasscock's "notorious Captain Lafitte" was Jean, nothing in the material quoted indicates which of the brothers young Esau meant. Moreover, on what basis would he have referred to either as "captain" in late 1809? There is no evidence that Pierre ever commanded a vessel, and the earliest firm evidence we have of Jean doing so does not come until 1813, to be discussed subsequently. Glasscock's use of the tide might indicate that one of the Laffites was commonly known as "captain," whether or not he commanded merchant or privateering craft. Since the Glasscock letter puts Jean on Grand Terre at least occasionally as of late 1809, he might have been acting as overlord or "bos" of the smugglers operating there, and thus have been acknowledged as "captain." Moreover, men in charge of numbers of slaves were sometimes honorifically called "captain," though this seems the least likely explanation.
With the word "notorious," again questions arise. What had either Laffite done as of the end of 1809 to be regarded as "notorious"? Moreover, considering that the Glasscocks came from Concordia Parish, some two hundred river miles upstream from New Orleans, we have to ask what the Laffites had done to earn an unsavory reputation so far from home, though of course Glasscock could mean only that Laffite was notorious in New Orleans. One portion of the Glasscock letter that is paraphrased by Saxon is a conversation between Thomas Glasscock and John R. Grymes, in which Grymes suggests the Laffites as a source of slaves, and Glasscock protests that he has heard that the Laffites are outlaws. Perhaps this is the origin of their notoriety, though it is interesting that Glasscock might think they were outlaws when neither Laffite would run afoul of the law until 1812.
Is it possible that the notoriety applied to Pierre and that it derived from his dealings in and around Baton Rouge and West Florida a few years earlier? The Glasscock letter thus generates more questions than it answers, yet it remains the earliest really "human" document to get us to grips with the Laffites in the years before they genuinely became notorious.
30. Joseph O. Dyer in Galveston, Daily News, September 19, 1926, maintained that Jean Laffite began by "fencing" for the privateers, and while he offered no sources for the assumption, it is certainly what he was doing a year later in 1810. Charles E. A. Gayarré, History of Louisiana. The American Domination (New Orleans, 1866), IV, pp. 303–4, maintains that the Laffites began as agents of the Baratarian smugglers, but wound up becoming their leaders.
31. Esau Glasscock's description of his father being taken to Grand Terre by Jean to buy slaves is confirmation that the Laffites were already involved in the illegal importation of slaves. Thus the slave sales conducted by Pierre in the months immediately before and after the Glasscocks' visit are probably documentary proofs of the illicit family business.
32. There is no evidence that Pierre rented a house, but the absence of any land transaction at NONA for a house in either his name or Marie's in the period 1809–13 suggests that he most likely rented or leased. There is a Marie Louise, free woman of color, living on St. Ann in New Orleans (1810 Census, Orleans Parish, p. 232).
33. New Orleans, Louisiana Courier, September 26, 1814; Glasscock letter in Saxon, Lafitte, p. 9. All references to the Glasscock letter are to direct quotations and not material added or paraphrased by Saxon. These are the earliest directly contemporary descriptions of the two men, and the description of Pierre matches perfectly his description on his 1802 passport. It should be added that they comport well with other contemporary descriptions of the Laffites by those who knew them. An anonymous writer in 1863 penned a portrait of Jean, with whom he said he boarded about this time, and it matches Glasscock's perfectly, stating that Jean was handsome, with black eyes and hair, a fair complexion, and wore narrow whiskers down each cheek and around the chin. New Orleans, Daily Picayune, August 20, 1871.
34. Glasscock letter in Saxon, Lafitte, p. 11; Deposition of James Connel, July 1813, United States vs. Juan Juanilleo, Case #0774, NAFW. In his testimony Connel speaks of Jean Lafite as "the larger of the two Brothers of that name." Since Pierre was described rather precisely as being five feet, ten inches tall, this would seem to agree with otherwise circumstantial later accounts that have Jean standing six feet tall or even six feet, two inches. Connel's is the earliest known physical description of Jean Laffite that survives in the original. People in Galveston in 1839 recalled that "he was tall and finely formed" (Newark, NJ, Newark Daily Advertiser, February 12, 1840). In ca. 1840 James Gaines, who met Jean in 1819, described him to William Bollaert as being well built, six feet, two inches tall, with large hazel eyes, black hair, usually with a mustache (Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 442). That year John Ijams, who as a boy saw Jean at Galveston, described him as six feet tall "and rather stout" (Galveston, Weekly News, October 11, 1883). J. Randal Jones, A Visit to Galveston Island in 1818, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, TX, says that Jean "was a man about six feet in height." The date of this fragmentary recollection is unclear, but it was prior to his death in 1873, and more likely in the 1840s or 1850s when Lamar was collecting Laffite information. An anonymous writer in 1863 penned a portrait of Jean, with whom he said he boarded about this time, and it matches Glasscock's perfectly, stating that Jean was handsome, with black eyes and hair, a fair complexion, and wore narrow whiskers down each cheek and around the chin. New Orleans, Daily Picayune, August 20, 1871.
35. Galveston Gazette, quoted in Newark, NJ, Daily Advertiser, February 12, 1840. Though some years after the fact, this is still a very early description of Jean Laffite, and has much to recommend its veracity. For one thing, the writer makes reference to Laffites 1815–16 winter in Washington, the only such reference to appear in print prior to Saxon in 1930, showing that the description came from a source with at least some firsthand information. The mention of Laffite shutting one eye is also interesting and indicates firsthand observation. This is the first reference to be found until J. H. Ingraham, "Life and Times of Lafitte," DeBow's Southern and Western Review, XI (October 1851), pp. 372–87, and was probably the source for Ingraham's otherwise fictionalized account. This 1840 article is the earliest known compilation of the recollections of Charles Cronea, James Campbell, Stephen Churchill, and others who claimed to have known Laffite.
36. Glasscock letter in Saxon, Lafitte, p. 11; "Lafitte," u
ndated notes in Lamar Papers, TSL; Kmen, Music, pp. 46–48.
37. Smith, "Editor's Introduction," Latour, Historical Memoir, pp. xviii-xix; New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, September 21, 1810.
38. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, Nov. 14, 1809. It is clear from Jean's October 1814 letter to Livingston, dealt with hereafter, that they are not at all close or intimate friends, nor is there any evidence that Livingston did any legal work for the Laffites prior to 1815.
39. Babb, French Refugees, p. 304.
40. Lachance, "Immigration," p. 115.
41. Babb, French Refugees, p. 79.
42. Henry C. Castellanos, New Orleans as It Was: Episodes of Louisiana Life (New Orleans, 1895), pp. 39–40.
43. See Cases #0363, 0379, 0380, 0381, and 0401, NAFW; Porter, Memoir, pp. 79–81.
44. Porter to Hamilton, April 7, 1810, M147, NA.
45. Porter to Hamilton, May 5, 1810, M147, NA; United States vs. Due de Montebello, verdict, July 24, 1810, Minutes, II, p. 238, M-1082, RG 21, NA.
46. Porter to Hamilton, May 4, 5, 7, 1810, M147, NA.
47. Porter to Hamilton, May 12, 21, 1810, M147, NA.
48. Porter, Memoir, pp. 78–81.
49. United States vs. Amiable Lucy, October 25, 1810, Minutes, II, p. 265, M-1082, RG 21, NA.
50. Porter, Memoir, p. 82.
51. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, April 12, 17, 1810.
52. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette, April 17, 1810.