Pirate of the Caribbean?

Jean Laffite, (1780-1826?) was a New Orleans,

Louisiana smuggler, pirate, and patriot. In 1819,

he became chief of a band of pirates with head-

quarters on Grande Terre Island in Barataria Bay

in the Gulf of Mexico, just south of New Orleans.

Jean Laffite built a house, cottages, warehouses, stockades for slaves, a café, gambling den and other buildings for his reported one thousand men and their women. He devised laws to protect the men and their women from lawless attacks. Laffite prized the American Constitution, believing in its freedoms. Laffite’s ships sailed under letters of the marque of Cartegena, Columbia, which was fighting for its independence from Spain. A letter of marque allowed privateers to legally attack the ships of any country at war with the country who issued the marque. Laffite’s ships attacked any ship without this legal document, such as those from Spain and England.

Jean Laffite went to find Andrew Jackson, the Tennessee soldier who came to protect New Orleans, and offered Jackson 7,500 flints and 1,000 fighting men for the Battle of New Orleans, on January 8,1815, against the British. British casualties were enormous, but Jackson lost only thirteen men. U.S. President Madison pardoned Laffite and his men for their bravery.

Laffite sailed from New Orleans and established a new colony, called Campeachy on Galveston Island in Texas. In 1821, Laffite slipped away from Galveston after setting fire to his stronghold. No one knows what happened to him.