The filibuster Jean Lafitte

Hello Luc

Thank you for the Interesting story on Jean Lafitte. he was an enigmatic character of that time period. I heard or read some where that there was an Island off the coast that had treasure buried there belonging to Jean Lafitte. But my memory is poor.

Was it true or just another treasure legend I do not know. But perhaps some one can enlighten us more on the subject as it could become an very interesting topic.

I am interested in the local treasure stories of the Gulf coast.

Hardluck. 

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Sue,
Thank you for this additional information about this Laffite. You have enriched our knowledge on this subject and your documentation to me really interested in researching. A thousand thank you again for your information that complements the case.Also thanks Hardluck for his information.
Regards
Luc

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Neat link. Too bad H Camille demolished Pirate House. The illustration from the deed book and the story about the activities related to it was extremely interesting - as was the part about Lafitte"s life. Here, as with the discussions of other "wanted men", I don"t know how anyone knew who anyone really was - I don"t think there was any official type of IDs in usage back then.   

Here"s a old picture of what they say was Lafitte"s blacksmith shop in New Orleans, built in the late 1700s (now a tavern). We lived in New Orleans awhile and I remember it well. I"m sure it"s still there as the engineering disaster, causing the H Katrina flooding, didn"t destroy the French Quarter. Sue

As for some other treasure tales of the gulf coast, here"s a site that tells about some of Lafitte"s crew, left, when he took off for ports unknown, plus stories about Lafitte.

"Crazy Ben" Dollivar"s Secret Gold Cache

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Hello All

Sue once again thanks for the very interesting website.

I searched through many old newspapers for more info on Jean Laffite. There is no mention of this man between 1800 -1854 in which I found it a little bit strange.

But perhaps I am miss spelling the name or perhaps he was known by an alternative name?

Hardluck 

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Hardluck, his name seems to have several different spellings so I imagine that would be a problem. I've seen Lafitte, Laffitte, Laffite variations.

Luc, I have a long story, from 1911, Lafitte The Last of the Buccaneers by John R Spears. It gives a history of pirating in the US gulf, but I'll be brief with just this as I like the way it describes his character. Thought you'd like the 'flash of French' in the story

. . . . Lafitte placed his goods on the beautiful Pride, burned the entire settlement, and sailed away, heading to the southeast, where he disappeared in mists from which he never emerged.

One account says he died fighting the crew of a British warship that attacked the Pride. Another says he turned merchant and died at Silan, a small village near Merida, Yucatan. A third says he went to France where he lived in comfort to old age.

Whatever his ultimate fate it is certain that Jean Lafitte was, in some respects, the most remarkable buccaneer known to history. The work of the oldtime buccaneers was done in the days when, as a matter of governmental policy, there was "no peace beyond the line," while Lafitte, among the civilized people of the nineteenth century, built two different towns, at each of which he gathered a thousand men. They were men without a country, or a conscience, respect for law, or any hope in life beyond the gratification of lust and appetite. They knew well the exhilaration that comes to wild souls in deadly conflict, and defiance of law and authority was the chief feature of their chosen occupation. Yet Jean Lafitte ruled them. They spoke of him as "the old man." They addressed him as "bosse." They were his friends as well as his followers.

A silent man he, but by no means sullen or devoid of humor. When Governor Claiborne offered a reward of $5,ooo for his head, Lafitte offered $50,000 for the head of the governor, and worded his advertisement in a way that set every reader, including the governor, laughing. A sly story or a flash of French saved many a blow, but when a blow was needed it came with crushing power. Though a pirate chief and guilty not only of the blood his sailors shed but of blood shed by his own hand, he was by no means lacking in some of the qualities that go to the making of a hero.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In today's Texas Trails column in the country world news there's a story about that pertains to this thread. Sue

Place of Asylum
    By CLAY COPPEDGE, Country World Staff Writer 
Dec. 3, 2009 - If a few Frenchmen and their allies could have had their way, Texas might have become part of a new Napoleonic empire. Two of Napoleon's generals seem to have had this in mind when they founded a colony called Champ D'Asile (Place of Asylum) at a site about three miles up the Trinity River, near the present-day town of Liberty.

The official version of the colony's founding had it that Champ D'Asile would be a place of asylum for officers and refugees from Napoleon's army and empire after the Battle of Waterloo ended Napoloen's reign. One of Napoleon's generals, Charles Francois Antoine Lallemand, led the colonists into Texas under a banner of agriculture. They were to cultivate "vines (grapes) and olives" on that red Pineywoods dirt, a dubious proposition at best.

The real intention seems to have been to establish a French military outpost in Spanish Texas that might help Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, take Mexico, rescue his dictator brother from exile in Saint Helena, and then take over North America. This kind of plan -- taking over the world or at least a large part of it -- was typical of the Bonaparte boys. Joseph Bonaparte also had some experience as a ruler of Spain, courtesy of his brother, and he was in the United States at the time.

Gen. Antoine Rigaud brought about 150 people to Galveston, early in 1818. The French settlers hung out with pirate Jean Laffite and his brother Pierre, until Lallemand showed up with a motley assortment of more troops, including Spanish, Polish and Americans. Laffite's men led the colonists up the Trinity to their new home away from home, in what turned out to be a "neutral" territory.

Texas was under Spanish rule at the time, but an eastern portion was located in a neutral territory that wasn't well-defined in the Louisiana Purchase. (The man who would eventually claim the state, Sam Houston, was in Alabama fighting with Andrew Jackson, against the Creeks at the time.)

Both the Spanish and the United States had three concerns about the new French settlement: location, location and location. Both countries wanted the territory but had agreed to leave it alone until the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase could be more firmly established. Then here come the French, just barging into the place like they owned it.

By any material reckoning, the French fared poorly at Champ D'Asile. They spent a lot more time with military maneuvers than they did with agriculture. No vines. No olives. Nor had they anticipated the sultry heat of an East Texas summer, or the mosquitoes. Though ostensibly an agricultural settlement, the people at Champ D'Asile basically set about starving themselves to death. Some drowned. Others poisoned themselves trying to live off the land. At least a couple were captured and eaten by the Karankawa.

Perhaps a bigger mistake was made in trusting a pirate. Jean Laffite provided his fellow Frenchmen with provisions and boats but, ever loyal to the highest bidder, he probably also reported their activities to the Spanish. Whether he told them or not, the Spanish found out and ordered Mexican troops to find Champ D'Asile and destroy it. Since the settlers were already in the process of destroying the settlement without help from the Spanish or anybody else, Lallemand ordered the settlement abandoned.

Most of the people at Champ D'Asile ended up back at Galveston as unwanted guests of Laffite. The colonists who survived an 1818 hurricane at Galveston soon scattered and went their own not-so-merry ways. And that was the end of Champ D'Asile as its unfortunate inhabitants knew it.

The United States responded to the incident by ordering Jean Laffite and his men to pack their bags and sail away. The nettlesome "neutral territory" where Champ D'Asile had been located was removed in an 1819 treaty and the Sabine River was designated as the boundary between Texas and Louisiana.

Meanwhile, back in France, Champ D'Asile became a symbol of French resistance to the monarchy. Artists opposed to King Louis XVIII portrayed the French vets as noble farmer-soldiers whose peaceful pursuits were destroyed by the evil Spanish, who sent troops to Texas to kill them.

Several French novels were written about the failed experiment, most notably "Heroine du Texas." Though written from the vantage point of Paris, it might have been the first novel ever set in Texas.

Less than two decades later, perhaps swayed by the misty but unrealistic accounts of the patriots at Champ D'Asile, the French became the first European power to officially recognize the new Republic of Texas.
 


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