Pierre Lafitte

Infobox Pirate
name = Pierre Lafitte
lived = 1772 – 1844


caption =
nickname =
type = Pirate, blacksmith
placeofbirth = Bordeaux France?
placeofdeath = Missouri
allegiance =
serviceyears =
base of operations = New Orleans
rank = Captain
commands =
battles = War of 1812
*Battle of New Orleans
wealth =
laterwork =

Pierre Lafitte (1780 - 1844) was a pirate in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He also ran a blacksmith shop in New Orleans, his legitimate business. Pierre was the historically less-well-known older brother of Jean Lafitte. While not as much of a sailor as his brother, he was the public face of the Lafitte operation, and was well known for his wit and charm, in addition to his handling of the sale of pirated goods. He also commanded artillery units. He died in 1844 in Missouri.

Biography

As a privateer and pirate, Pierre Lafitte lived much of his life outside the law, and a number of details about his life are obscure. Some believe he was born in 1772 as Jean Lafitte, his younger brother was believed born in 1776, and they were supposedly four years apart in age. Bayonne, France is believed to be his city of birth, although a number of other cities in France also claim to be his birthplace.

He married and had children; descendants of Pierre Lafitte live in Louisiana to this day.

Interestingly enough - Lafitte is known to be descendant of Spanish Jews exiled to France, who in some respects, got his revenge on Catholic Spain through his acts of piracy.

Along with his 'crew of a thousand men' (the number he commanded was actually quite small, but, due to the loose confederation which he and his brother ran, the number of men engaged in their affairs was substantial), Lafitte also receives credit for helping defend Louisiana from the British in the War of 1812, and Pierre is mentioned in several accounts of the Battle of New Orleans. His piracy was pardoned by President Madison for aiding Andrew Jackson in the battle.

Pierre and his younger brother Jean established their own "Kingdom of Barataria" in the swamps and bayous near New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Jean claimed to command more than 3,000 men and provided them as troops for the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, greatly assisting Andrew Jackson in repulsing the British attack. The actual number he commanded was more likely a few dozen, although since they specialized in artillery their effect was substantial. Lafitte reportedly conducted his operations in the historic New Orleans French Quarter. General Jackson was informed of both Lafittes' gallant exploits at the Battle of New Orleans by Colonel Ellis P. Bean, who then recruited the Lafittes to support the Mexican Republican movement.

Of the two brothers, Jean was the most familiar with the naval aspects of their enterprise, while Pierre was more often involved with the commercial aspects. Pierre lived in New Orleans or at least maintained his household there (with his mulatto lover who bore him a very large family). Jean spent the majority of his time in Barataria managing the daily hands-on business of outfitting privateers and arranging the smuggling of stolen goods. The most prized "good" was invariably slaves, especially after the outlawing of the slave trade in the United States.

After Jean was run out of New Orleans around 1817, Pierre remained in New Orleans, but frequently visited the island of Galveston, Texas, to visit his brother.

While the Lafitte brothers were engaged in running the Galveston operation, one client they worked with considerably in the slave smuggling trade was James Bowie. The Lafittes were selling slaves at a dollar a pound, and Bowie would buy them at the Lafittes' rate, then get around the American laws against slave trading by reporting his purchased slaves as having been found in the possession of smugglers. The law at the time allowed Bowie to collect a fee on the "recovered" slaves, and he would then re-buy the slaves (essentially a "slave laundering" act) and then resell them to prospective buyers.

The Lafittes were also engaged in espionage, and were, in effect, double agents. The notion of their loyalty to the United States, while much evoked by their own publicity, was highly dubious. The Lafittes (Pierre, in particular) spied for Spain through agents in Cuba and in Louisiana. While often providing solid material, the Lafittes in fact played both sides, American and Spanish, and always with an eye to securing their own interests. No doubt the charm of Pierre and his reputation as a man in the know figured heavily in the weight he was given by his immediate handlers, although he was never trusted by the higher-up of the Spanish interests. Of particular interest it should be noted that while running the island of Galveston for personal benefit, Pierre Lafitte tried to induce Spain to assault the island. This would have enhanced his standing with Spain while causing minimal real losses to the Lafitte operations.

Folklore

Lafitte never had the legend enjoyed by his younger brother, but, due to his maintaining a home in New Orleans, is better documented.

[http://www.thelaffitesociety.com/JLaffite07.html bibliography] .] .

Other references to Lafitte

*Lafitte, Louisiana is the name of a Cajun fishing village and tourist spot on Bayou Barataria.

*Carl Ouellet played a gimmick in the World Wrestling Federation where he was supposedly a descendant of Lafitte. His ring name was a combination of the Lafitte brothers' names, Jean-Pierre Lafitte.

*Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a bar on Bourbon Street in the New Orleans French Quarter. It is one of the oldest continually operating bars in North America and is notable for antique construction and its lack of electric light sources. Legend holds that it was a front for Lafitte's operations in the city, but no definitive record of this exists.

Film and television

Pierre Lafitte is portrayed by Paul Picerni in The Great Adventure.

Comics

*Pierre Lafitte is the brother-in-law to an ancestor of The Phantom. As told by Lee Falk, Lafitte's sister Jeanette marries the 13th Phantom. "See: Family tree of the Phantom."

Notes and references

On the life of Lafitte

* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0156032597/ The Pirates Lafitte: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf]
* [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Louisiana/_Texts/LHQ/2/4/Lafitte*.html Lafitte, the Louisiana Pirate and Patriot] — biography in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly

* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MF5WWY/ French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld, by Herbert Asbury] Pages 154 - 171

Other sites

* [http://thelaffitesociety.com/ Laffite Society]