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a CREOLE article
Cultures
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Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, May 25, 1999
Baratarian smugglers were also driven from West Indies
by Jim Bradshaw
One of the Frenchmen who came to Louisiana from the French islands of the Caribbean about the time of the slave uprisings in Saint-Domingue was a pirate named Jean Lafitte. He made a name for himself as a gentleman in New Orleans society and as a patriot by fighting in the Battle of New Orleans. But he made his fortune primarily by smuggling black slaves into Louisiana and selling them to the highest bidder.
Lafitte's birthplace, like many other details of his life, is not known for certain. Several biographers have referred to his birthplace as Bordeaux, France, but there is also some evidence that he was born in 1782 in Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue, the last of eight children of Marcus Lafitte and Maria Zora Nadrimal.
He and his brother, Pierre, arrived in New Orleans in April 1804, and quietly established themselves in the community. They apparently maintained ties to the Caribbean and, until 1810, acted as representatives of smugglers who brought a wide variety of contraband goods to New Orleans through the winding bayous leading from Barataria Bay on the southeast Louisiana coast.
According to an account by Harnett T. Kane, the Baratarians moved to south Louisiana because they were driven from the Caribbean.
"For years the Caribbean had been a lake of pirates, spotted by nests of men who preyed on the rich prizes is the Spanish Main, the newly mined gold of Mexico and Peru, and the other Wealth that poured into the holds of vessels moving between Old and New Worlds," according to Kane's book, "the Bayous of Louisiana." "Martinique and Guadeloupe provided the main headquarters. The life was a careless, dangerous one, free of hindrance, rich in reward. But the early 1800's saw trouble for the freebooters. England captured their retreats, and they realized that they had to give up the trade or find a safe harbor. They knew where to go."
Because of the ready market in New Orleans, a good-sized colony of freelance pirates and smugglers soon sprang up in Barataria, but by 1810 they were badly disorganized and fighting among themselves. That is when Jean Lafitte stepped into a more active role and became their leader.
He built a house at Grande Terre in the spring of 1811 and became a wealthy sometimes operating himself as a privateer, sometimes merely directing the activities of the Barataria band and taking a share of whatever was captured. He organized regular slaves, particularly of slaves smuggled into the county, but also of other contraband.
Grande Terre was an ideal place for a smuggler's headquarters. Kane describes it this way: "On Grand Terre, across from the Grande Isle to the east, was Jean's headquarters. Here he set up a storehouse of impressive dimensions, a well-stocked slave barracoon, a set of heavy fortifications. Sometimes one island was too small, and supplies spread over to Grand Isle. Between the two places was a deep and dependable natural pass. It permitted easy entrance for a vessel in flight, but the shallow winding ways inside the bay made pursuit impossible for men who did no know the labyrinths."
According to historian Edwin Adams Davis, "Jean Lafitte gathered about him strong lieutenants: his brother Pierre, his brother Alexandre Frederic who signed himself Frederic Youx but who is better known as Dominique You, the native New Orleanian Renato Beluche, Pierre Sicard, Juan Juanville (better known as Francois Sapia), Jacinto Lobronao, and Italians Vicente Gambie, Antonio Angelo, and Louis Chighizola. Lafitte built a retail warehouse called "the Temple" about halfway between Grande Terre and New Orleans, and here Louisianians purchased imported goods tariff-free at much reduced prices.
The Privateers prospered, for Louisianians needed cheap goods and slaves. But the privateers became too brazen in their Violation of American Customs duties and in March 1813, Gov. W.C.C. Claiborne proclaimed the Baratarians "banditti" and ordered them dispersed.
The Lafittes ignored the order and, in fact, had fun offering a reward for anyone who would capture the governor and bring him to Barataria. But when British invasion threatened New Orleans in 1815, Lafitte wrote to the governor and proclaimed himself "a stray sheep wishing to return to the flock." The pirate offered the services of himself and his men and, more importantly, his arms and ammunition which were badly needed in New Orleans.
The Baratarians fought with distinction in the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 and were given pardons for their piracy. Lafitte moved his headquarters to Galveston and continued to smuggle slaves into Louisiana until 1821, when the U.S. Navy drove him from the Texas coast and into the mists of history. Nobody knows where or how he died, although there are several stories. The one heard most is that he changed his name, lived either in St. Louis or Illinois, and died in obscurity.
According to Davis, the other leaders of the band scattered. Rene Beluche became "El Bizarro," a noted admiral in the Venezuelan navy; Vincente Gambi was killed in a naval battle; Louis Chighizola settled at Grand Isle under the name Nez Coupe. He supposedly got the name, which means "cut nose," when he stuck his face too far into a knife fight over a woman. Pierre Sicard, Juan Juanville, and Antonio Angelo, like Lafitte himself, just disappeared. Jacinto Lobrano settled in New Orleans, as did Dominic You, who, according to historian Jane Lucas DeGrummond, married "a busty blond barmaid named Babette, who came from St. Thomas and who stood a head taller then her spouse." They ran a tavern but didn't make much money. When he died in relative poverty on Nov. 14, 1830, the New Orleans city council paid for his funeral, businesses closed, and flags flew at half-staff as he was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.