History: A Call for Help

Hale and fair winds to one and all! This is a shout-out to my distant cousins who come from the far flung clan Beluche and to pirates and lover of history - particularly maritime history - everywhere.

Above is a bust of my ancestor, Renato Beluche. I know the Brethren are familiar but for anyone who would like to know more about this man's contributions to the life and liberty of the United States and the greater Gulf region, click on the label at the end of this post.

This bust, executed by a Venezuelan artist in the 1950s, was donated as a gift to the Louisiana State Museum. It was unfortunately swiftly relegated to an attic in the Cabildo in New Orleans for over half a century: disrespected, unseen, nearly forgotten.

Thanks to the Friends of the Cabildo and the hard, dedicated endeavors of people like my particular friend and distnat Beluche relation Thais Solano, the bust was found and restored. This just in time for the Bicentennial exhibition celebrated the Battle of New Orleans. This is currently on exhibit at the Cabildo and I highly recommend it. Beluche's bust features prominently in the exhibit with pride of place in the first hall.

The problem? The Battle of New Orleans exhibit will be taken down in October of this year. Where, we as Beluches' descendants and admirers wonder, will his stately bust end up?

We need your help, Brethren, to ensure that this does not happen. We need to you to raise your voices - as only we pirates truly can - to insist that the bust stays on permanent display. The options are many, but what a wonderful home could be made at the home where he was born on Rue Dumaine. This former private residence is now known by the fictional name of Madame John's Legacy and is part of the Louisiana State Museum as well.

Please take a moment to email Mr. Tulios at the Louisiana State Museum at mtulios@crt.la.gov and respectfully request that Beluche's but remain on display permanently. You can also reach out to Jason at the Friend of the Cabildo at Jason@friendsofthecabildo.gov with the same request. The more people they hear from, the more seriously they will take this petition.

The moment is now. We need to act. I count on the Brethren to come through to preserve a fading part of the maritime history of the Americas: the memory of Renato Beluche.

Please leave your comments with any questions or concerns, or to let me know if you had any response to your emails.

Finally, thank you my dear friends. My heart is still here, with Triple P, even if my mind must be elsewhere.

Merci, and bonne chance!

Bust of Renato Beluche with a mural of the Battle of New Orleans in the background, by kind courtesy of Thais Solano

Update: so it does look at is the email address I included in this post are incorrect. Corrections:

Mr. Tullos - mtullos@crt.la.gov
Jason - Jason@friendsofthecabildo.org

My mistake (that's what I get for hurrying!)

People: The General and the Pirate

Tomorrow marks the 246th anniversary of the birth of the seventh President of the U.S.A.: Andrew Jackson. While, in our comically PC world, Jackson is now a "controversial" figure, I would happily stand by him on the floor of Congress or in battle. Much like my other favorite American leader, Theodore Roosevelt, Jackson "got shit done." It's really difficult to be PC and keep a country together.

Of course another Triple P favorite - Jean Laffite - figured into the life of then Major General Jackson when he offered his services to fight the British on Chalmette plane. Unfortunately, how and where these two fascinating characters met is lost to history. But there are still some erroneous suppositions in that regard that cling to the situation like toilet paper to a stiletto heel: if you look at them to closely, they're just embarrassing.

Take as an example the following quote from master historian H.E. Brands' biography Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. The book is extremely well written and researched and, aside from the fatal flaw we're about to discuss, it is surely my favorite of the many modern biographies of Jackson. So it is doubly disappointing that Brands, like Winston Groom in Patriotic Fire, relies on the as yet unauthenticated "Journal of Jean Lafitte" for his discussions of the Baratarian leader.

Here is one such example, from page 271 of the first printing. The quotes are from the Journal and include a extremely self-satisfied tone on Laffite's part as well as a very specific reference to Dominique Youx being Laffite's brother:

(Laffite had a rather fanciful recollection of the events leading to Jackson's decision to accept the services of him and his men. "I could not waste any more time waiting for a chance that would put me face to face with General Jackson," he wrote many years later. "With a few officers of my staff, I came across the General at the northeast corner of Saint Philippe and Royal Streets. I explained to him that my conduct had been marked with a loyalty and a patriotism unequaled during the thirty-eight years that had passed since the declaration of American independence. I challenged the General to a duel, in reply to the unfounded and punishable insults directed upon us. In spite of the respect I had for his uniform, I must say that the general's intelligence seemed much inferior to mine. He refused to accept my challenge. I threatened to slap his face, but my eldest brother, Dominique Youx, intervened as a conciliator. Later the General received us in his office at 106 Royal Street." At this point in Laffite's story, Jackson saw the light and brought him on board.)

All the little missteps in that paragraph aside, it is truly disheartening to see a businessman as intelligent and capable as Laffite reduced to the role of megalomaniacal chihuahua yipping at the heels of a great mastiff. In fact, Jackson and Laffite were equals in their own way but Laffite had a good deal more to lose if the discussion had gone south, including potentially his freedom. Hollow words and face slapping of superiors were rarely the tack of the Laffite brothers... or Dominique Youx for that matter.

Happy Birthday, Andrew Jackson. You'll always be my favorite President just as the Laffites will always top my list of pirate. For what ever that's worth: Huzzah!

Header: Major General Andrew Jackson by Samuel L. Waldo via American Gallery

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Card/Careen

The card was intimately familiar to our sailing ancestors, just as it was only a few short decades ago to anyone trying to find their way in unknown territory. The face of the magnetic compass is and was known as a card and poets have sung its praises for centuries. As Admiral Smyth quotes from Plato in The Sailor's Word Book: "Reason the card, but passion is the gale." Unfortunately, our appreciation for the compass and so the card has at least depreciated in recent years.

Relating to the card are the cardinal points - north, south, east and west - and the cardinal winds which originate from those points. The cardinal signs are those more familiarly known as the zodiac, through which the sun passes. The cardinal points of the ecliptic are those zodiac signs into which the sun enters at the equinoxes - Aries and Libra - and the solstices - Cancer and Capricorn.

Careening, as Admiral Smyth tells us, is:

the operation of heaving the ship down on one side, by arranging the ballast, or the application of a strong purchase to her masts, which require to be expressly supported by the occasion to prevent their springing; by these means one side of the bottom, elevated above the surface of the water, may be cleansed or repaired.

This operation was quite an undertaking and all ships without the benefit of copper sheathing by necessity needed to be cleaned off at intervals. Seamen, and pirates in particular, would covet secluded careening beaches that would allow for not only a thorough overhaul of their ship but also time ashore to bathe, collect fresh water and provisions and all the other simple things that time aboard ship might not allow. There were many such spots in particular around the Gulf of Mexico not the least of which included Matagorda, Isla Mujeres, Galveston, Barataria and various spots on the Florida coast.

The term careening actually comes from careen which is a corruption of the word carina: keel. A ship is said to careen at she when she inclines to one side to such a degree that her keel is seen above the waves.

And that's enough for now, I'd say. May you sit upon a warm careening beach this evening, Brethren, with all the best of everything to your hand.

Header: Harbor Scene by Andrew Andrews via American Gallery

People: Goodnight Sweet Prince

February 5, 1823: Jean Laffite, known so well today and yet so little known, dies aboard his privateer General Santander after a firefight with either American or British pirate hunters. The "prince of pirates" is buried at sea, according to William C. Davis in The Pirates Laffite, somewhere in the Gulf of Honduras. Coincidentally, this Gulf is also the final resting place of the "prince of seadogs" Francis Drake.

The above, aside from that part about Drake, is still a controversial statement among Laffite scholars largely due to the so called "Journal of Jean Lafitte" which we have discussed here at Triple P on more than one occasion. Although the journal has yet to be authenticated, many scholars continue to cling to its assertion that Laffite somehow escaped the Santander - leaving his men, one assumes, rather spinelessly to face the navy ships - recovered from his wounds on land, made his way back to the U.S., took on a new identity and settled down to farm corn in Iowa. I'll say no more about the absurdity of that statement other than to point out that General Santander's confrontation with pirate hunters was documented in the press shortly after it occurred while the journal does not mention it - or even the ship for that matter - at all.

We may know a lot about Laffite's life - and much more now than we did prior to Davis' incredibly well researched book - but his appearance and mannerisms have not come down to us. No contemporary portrait of the man exists (save the above, which is highly questionable) and the Laffite legend has built up a hard crust on the actual personality of the man.

Returning to Davis, here then is a nice description of what people remembered of Jean Laffite when he was the Commandant of his operation on  modern Galveston island:

If Jean Laffite showed any difference in his dealings with people, it was that he treated his subordinates with a coolness approaching the aloof, while visitors got a warm welcome. He spoke good English, with an accent that left no doubt as to his Bordeaux nativity, and which [Warren] Hall found gave additional zest to his impressive conversational skill...

Hall found Laffite "always affable, but perfectly impenetrable." Gaines thought much the same, finding Laffite gentlemanly, sober, and thoughtful, but distant from his subordinates, rarely smiling. He had the manner and bearing of a leader, and relied on his personality and prestige to maintain control, though he occasionally wore a brace of pistols on his belt when he thought it lent weight to his authority. He did not brook disobedience, and could punish malefactors severely, but apparently with the sort of rude equitability that even the roughest men respected...

Clearly Laffite was a man in his element around the less than savory types that might be drawn to a distant outpost of misfits and miscreants. And from that capability to make the dregs of humanity fall in line and at the same time appear both elegant and eloquent to the ostensibly more refined, came a significant portion of the legend we now know.

Header: Alleged portrait of Jean Laffite drawn by a sailor named Lacassinier who claimed to have known both Jean and Pierre at Galveston circa 1819; originally published in the Galveston Daily News September, 1926

People: The Battle of New Orleans and the Brothers Laffite

Since I'm still recuperating, I'm pulling a post from the archives. Of course I'm tweaking it a little, because I just can't help myself; enjoy!

We refer to the Battle of New Orleans as occurring on January 8, 1815, but in fact skirmishes, feints and brutal gore took place for a three week period beginning before December 21 and ending with a definitive surrender by the British on or around January 15. Unfortunately, most people today believe that the battle was a futile wast of effort and life, the Treaty of Ghent having been signed (signed is the word used in almost all cases when discussing this myth; rarely does the word ratified come into play) on December 24, 1814. Please see this excellent post at History Myths Debunked and just stop that nonsense already.

That piece of misinformation is just one of the many puzzling things to come out of one of America's most easily forgotten darkest hours. Another that is in ongoing debate among scholars of such things is where, just exactly, were Pierre and Jean Laffite over the course of those fateful three plus weeks.

At the Centennial of the battle, it was popular to attribute much of the victory to the combined efforts of one brilliant General and a rag-tag, polyglot group of local Louisianans, volunteers from Kentucky and Tennessee, enslaved and free blacks and, of course, pirates. The seamen of Barataria as a group and the Laffite brothers in particular were singled out as one of the most influential reasons for the victory. Nearly 100 years ago, as was the case only a decade after the war, "the Laffite brothers" was translated in popular culture and imagination as "Jean Laffite." The tide has turned now, with modern historians claiming that the Baratarians had little if any impact at Chalmette. William C. Davis, for instance, claims that only two percent of Jackson's forces were actual Baratarians. 

I would argue that the truth is somewhere in between these two radically different opinions. But let's first examine what the experts have to say.

Lyle Saxon, whose Lafitte the Pirate was first published in the lat 1920s, is certainly the least reliable of our sources. His book is more storytelling than history and, although it is a wonderful read, it is full of the myths and legends about the Laffites - and Jean in particular - that are now so engrained in the popular imagination that they have become ersatz facts. Even so, Saxon's only comment on what the Laffites were up to amounts to no more than a paragraph explaining that "Pierre Lafitte was given a position of trust on [January 8]..." and Jean was in the Gulf, guarding against a "rear attack." He goes on to defend Jean against the label of evading service, but he has nothing further to say on the matter.

In The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans, masterful historian Jane Lucas deGrummond argues that - as her title implies - those pirates from Grande Terre were a big part of Andrew Jackson's victory on Rodriguez Canal. DeGrummond was a more than capable researcher who sited sources religiously and argued with a very convincing voice. Still, in the thirty plus pages devoted to the three weeks of battle, her book has nothing to say about any contribution made by the Laffites aside from them providing a significant amount of flints, shot and gunpowder to the effort.

Next we have Jack C. Ramsay, Jr. In Jean Laffite, Prince of Pirates, he devotes a full chapter to the Battle of New Orleans. Though his overview lacks the detail of deGrummond's, it is concise enough. This makes the omission of any specific action by the Laffite brothers during the fighting particularly glaring. He brings them back to the fore of his narrative only at the end of the chapter, noting that General Jackson praised their "courage and fidelity" in his famous speech on January 21.

The definitive modern work on the lives of the Laffite brothers is William C. Davis' The Pirates Laffite, and Davis puts a new spin on what the siblings were up to at Chalmette battlefield. The entire book, well researched and documented to be sure, is skewed toward Pierre. Davis is not an apologist but a sympathizer; he is clearly trying to return Pierre's memory to our consciousness, it having been overshadowed by Jean's for almost 200 years. It is a commendable endeavor, but it has a fatal flaw: wherever there is ambiguity in the record as to which Laffite a document or memoir is referring, Davis gives the nod to Pierre.

Thus, Davis presents up with Pierre as not only close, personal adviser to Andrew Jackson but as tracker for General John Coffee in the swamp beyond Rodriguez Canal. Late in the battle of January 8, Pierre is a commander of men, sent with General Humbert to assist General Daniel Morgan on the west bank of the Mississippi. The elder Laffite brother even delivers a speech to Morgan's men, penned by Jackson himself. Meanwhile Jean, whose mission to General Reynolds at Little Lake Barataria is well documented by surviving orders written in Jackson's hand, is skulking around Grande Terre and presumably up to no good. Davis mentions that Jackson's orders of December 22 required Jean to return to Chalmette as quickly as possible but then seems to toss that fact out the window. Like the proverbial baby with the bathwater, he throws Jean back into the ignominy of evading service which Saxon once argued so vehemently against.

What then is the truth of the matter? Were the Baratarians a help or a hindrance, or of no consequence at all? And what of their leaders, the men who spelled their last name differently than any other "Lafitte" in Louisiana? As I said earlier, the truth must be somewhere in the middle.

The Baratarians were most effectual as artillerists, on Battery Number 3 in particular. These twenty-four pound guns, commanded by Dominique Youx and Renato Beluche, were the bane of the British throughout the fighting. Also, most of the sailors aboard Commodore Patterson's Carolina and Louisiana were Baratarians; both ships bombarded British encampments on Chalmette with great success. The brothers themselves, aside from providing men and material, were certainly put to active duty if not directly on the line or aboard ship.

Were the Laffite brothers heroes? That is a loaded question. But were they at the battle with the men they knew and called brothers? Most definitely. Anything more specific than that is open to interpretation...

Header: A 1950s postcard featuring New Orleans' famous "Pirates' Alley" from the author's collection

History: The Battle of New Orleans

I officially have influenza which I will happily use as my excuse for lack of posting here at Triple P (you all don't need to read feverish ramblings.)

I did want to take a moment, however, to commemorate the 198th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. With any luck, I should be back later this week with more on Andrew Jackson's pirate-fueled victory over the British on Chalmette Plantation.

Header: The Battle of New Orleans by Charles H. Waterhouse via Wikipedia

History: Raising the Flag in New Orleans

On a cloudy, cool Tuesday, December 20, 1803, the United States flag was raised in the Place d'Armes (now Jackson Square) in the city of New Orleans. This final stop on any cruise down the Mississippi River was a critical port that the U.S. needed to ensure her ability to move goods from her heartland to ports on the Eastern seaboard and foreign ports as well. The city was also a hub for pirates and smugglers. The loosely knit band known as the Baratarians, led by Jean and Pierre Laffite was just beginning to gel as Spanish rule ended and les Americaines took over.

The flag raising was a bit of a non-event for locals used to exchanges in political and military powers. People turned out to watch, then shrugged and went on about their business. This may have been somewhat of a shock to the Americans judging from the article written by John F. H. Claiborne for an 1843 issue of the Concordia, Louisiana Intelligencer. Claiborne, the brother of Louisiana Territory and first State Governor William C.C. Claiborne, was a prolific writer (find his papers online here) whose description of the issues at hand on 12/20/1803 brings the hopes and anxieties of Americans to sparkling life.

On the 17th of September, 1803, Mr. Jefferson communicated [the Louisiana Purchase] treaty to the Senate. It was speedily ratified, and Wm. C.C. Claiborne, the Governor of the Mississippi Territory and General James Wilkinson were appointed to receive the provinces, which were still in the hands of Spain, owing to the non-compliance of France with certain stipulations of the treaty of St. Ildefonso. The government of Madrid threw every obstacle in the way of the American diplomatists, and its Minister at Washington, the Marquis de Caso Yrujo, remonstrated earnestly against the transfer, in the name of his King, as being in direct contravention of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, and upon the ground that the title of Louisiania was still in the Crown of Spain. Mr. Madison [James Madison, then Secretary of State]communicated these remonstrances to M. Pichon, ambassador from the French republic, and received from him every assurance that his government guaranteed the treaty, and would allow no obstacle to its execution. The impression generally prevailed that the Spanish authorities would resist the delivery of the province, and, on the 24th October, 1803, Mr. Madison thus wrote to Mr. Monroe, "It remains to be seen how far Spain will persist in her remonstrances, and how far she will add to them resistance by force. Should the latter course be taken, it can lead to nothing but a forcible for a peaceable possession. Having now a clear and honest title, acquired in a mode pointed out by Spain herself, it will, without doubt, be maintained with a decision becoming our national character, and required by the importance of the object."

In pursuance of the resolution so calmly, yet firmly expressed in this dispatch, the American Commissioners were instructed to get possession at all hazards; to seize New Orleans by a coup de main, if necessary, and for this purpose the regular troops at Fort Adams were placed at their disposal, and the militia of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Territory ordered to be in readiness. A detachment of troops from the Mississippi Territory descended to Natchez, eager for the contest, for the whole west was embittered against the Spaniards, owing to the exactions levied on its commerce. No occasion, however, arose for its services. Before the Commissioners reached New Orleans, the Spanish authorities had surrendered the province to M. Laussat, colonial prefect and commissary of the French Republic. On the 20th December, 1803, he formally transferred it to the American Commissioners, and the flag of the Union was, for the first time, unfurled in the city of New Orleans.

Unfortunately, Spain - and her sometimes ally, England - would continue to argue that France's sale of the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. was illegal according to international law. Both powers would back up their argument with a hard fight. Spain through intelligencing and subterfuge - including employing Aaron Burr and both Laffite brothers to such ends - and England through force of arms at the Battle of New Orleans.

Despite all that and more, the flag of the Union continued to sail over the city of New Orleans. And long may she wave.

Header: Raising of the United States Flag in New Orleans, 1803, by Thor de Thulstrup via Britannica online

History: The Battle of Lake Borgne

I've written about the Battle of Lake Borgne here before. Fought entirely on water and, for the most part on December 14, 1814, the events leading up to the battle are just as interesting as those that followed. The entire dance began on December 8th, and no one - to my mind - has written about this brief but critical conflict with more enthusiasm than Dr. Jane Lucas deGrummond in her 1961 publication The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans. Her zest for the subject is clear in not only her descriptions but the way she addresses some of the characters as if they were not historical figures but old friends. She never calls Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones by his full name, for instance, but refers to him throughout by his familiar naval nickname: Tac Jones.

I could paraphrase until I was blue in the face but why bother? Here, for your enjoyment, is Dr. deGrummond's recitation of the Battle of Lake Borgne:

While Jackson thought all his orders were being executed, Admiral Cochrane's invasion fleet approached Chandeleur Island. On December 8, his 74's anchored off that island while the rest of the fleet took a position between Ship and Cat Islands. Only the lighter vessels could navigate from this point which was the entrance to Mississippi Sound - the shoal coastal waters between Mobile and Lake Borgne.

Cochrane had a good understanding of the area, not only from maps and books published a few years earlier by English observers in America but also from information which certain Spaniards, formerly residents of New Orleans, gave him. This was confirmed by Spanish fishermen who had a village of 20 or 30 huts about one mile from the mouth of Bayou Bienvenu which emptied into Lake Borgne.

The British could not attack New Orleans from the mouth of the Mississippi. Vessels dependent upon sails could not hope to pass Fort St. Philip and English Turn against the strong current of the river. Neither could they enter Lake Pontchartrain and attack New Orleans from the rear because Cochrane thought Fort Petites Coquilles defending the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain had 40 pieces of artillery mounted and 500 troops. These would be sufficient to annihilate any force that tried to enter the lake through Rigolets.

Cochrane decided to bypass the Rigolets and attack New Orleans from a point which he could reach by crossing Lake Borgne and ascending Bayou Bienvenu. The mouth of this bayou was 60 miles from where his ships were anchored. His plan was to land all the troops on Isle-aux-Pois which was midway between the ships and the mouth of the bayou. He had only enough small vessels to transport one-third of his troops at a time. From Isle-aux-Pois the landing craft, guided by Spanish fishermen, could transport troops in relays the 30 remaining miles to Bayou Bienvenu.

Meanwhile, Tac Jones and his five gunboats had been studying the concentration of British ships between Ship and Cat Island. The British sighted the gunboats on December 12. They would have to be captured because Cochrane's troops had to be ferried 60 miles in open boats. Jones saw that the British had discovered him and scurried before the wind, hoping to make the 50 miles to Fort Petites Coquilles on the Rigolets.

In hot pursuit was Captain Lockyer (the same Captain Lockyer who had been sent to Jean Laffite) with 45 barges, 43 cannon and 1,200 sailors and marines. The flotilla pursued the gunboats two days.

On the morning of December 14, Jones and the gunboats had bad luck. The wind died away completely at 1 A.M. The gunboats were between Malheureux Island and Point Claire on the mainland. Jones stationed the gunboats in line across the channel and waited.

About 9:30 Captain Lockyer saw Commodore Porter's old gig, the Alligator, trying to join the five gunboats. He detached four boats with nearly 200 men to capture this cockle-shell. In his report he described his splendid prize as "an armed sloop."

One hour later the enemy came within range and the gunboats deliberately opened fire. The battle lasted three hours. Ten Americans were killed and 35 wounded. All the gunboat captains except one were wounded. The British captured the gunboats at a cost of 17 men killed and 77 wounded. They returned to Cat Island with their prisoners and captured gunboats.

Jones and the other wounded were put on the Gorgon, a large storeship. There a tall and gentlemanly individual conversed freely with them "respecting his future arrangements for the discharge of his duty." He was to be the future "collector of the revenue of his Britannic Majesty in the Port of New Orleans."

Dr. deGrummond's noticeable eagerness to describe each place by name is typical of southeastern Louisianan and indeed Gulf Coast storytelling. The names fascinate us just as much as the story does. What a marvelous job of including detail the Doctor has done here. I could read it over and over and, in the end, feel sorry only for the unfortunate dead and wounded. Oh, and that poor, unnamed guy who anticipated growing very wealthy off the "revenue of his Britannic Majesty in the Port of New Orleans."

Don't count your eggs before they're in the pudding, dear sir.

Header: The Battle of Lake Borgne by Thomas L. Hornbook via Wikimedia 

Horror on the High Seas: Gambi's Ghost

Happy Hallowe'en, Brethren and welcome to the final installment of Horror on the High Seas week. Whether you are sad to see it go or happy it's almost over, I hope you enjoyed something about our week of spine-tingling, grotesque and sometimes tragic tales.

Today, a ghost story. What could be more fitting for Hallowe'en? I first told this story online over at HoodooQ last April. It is familiar in many forms around southeastern Louisiana, where ghost pirates and buried treasure are a time honored tradition. The story was included in the Depression era collection Gumbo Ya~Ya, edited by Lyle Saxon. In Saxon's version, the island where the treasure is buried is called Isle de Gombi. In this version, the pirate is none other than Vincent Gambi himself.

So sit back, relax, bundle up if need be and allow yourself to slip away to an ancient, Louisiana bayou, where the frogs are chirping, the willow-the-wisps are flitting, and the drown just won't stay dead...

There was a quadroon man named Louis who lived on Bayou Grand Caillou. He was and fisherman. Sometimes he was happy with his trade. Sometimes he was not. Louis heard, from the other men who pulled oysters and mud bugs out of the bayou, that a nearby island was the spot where the Baratarian pirate Gambi had buried a horde of treasure. Now the talk went that Gambi was the most ruthless and treacherous of the pirates who aligned themselves with the famous Jean Laffite. He would slit a man's throat for no reason. It was said that if anyone tried to steal his buried treasure, his ghost would slit that man's throat as well.

Louis was a brave man if, it must be admitted, not very bright. He began to inquire about the pirate's treasure. His friends told him he was crazy. But Louis persisted. Finally one old Cajun told him that the only way to find Gambi's treasure was to go to the little island on a full moon night and look for a patch of moss that glowed silver. That was were the pirate had hidden his horde.

Being brave, if not very bright, Louis waited until the next full moon. Then he packed up his little pirogue with a shovel and canvas and everything he thought he would need to bring that treasure home. He sailed out to the deserted island, which as it turned out was no more than a muddy chenier. There was nothing there but a broken down boat shed, two sad cypress trees and big patches of green moss that looked black in the darkness.

Louis pulled his boat up high onto the broken shells of the island's shore. He looked around, hands on hips, almost sure that old Cajun had tricked him good. Then he saw it. A patch of moss that glowed like silver close to one of those scraggly trees.

He set to his task right away. The chuff and hiss of his spade, the croaking of frogs and his own breathing were the only sounds beside a mournful wind off the Gulf. But then Louis heard another sound, like something being dragged across the shells at the water's edge. He turned and was surprised to see his pirogue down in the water when he was sure he had dragged her high up on land. Throwing down his shovel, Louis marched into the water. He dragged that boat clear up to the other sorry cypress tree, and tied her to it.

Louis stomped back to the hole he had started, grumbling about the wind and the tide. Just as he was putting spade to soil he noticed four ugly, hairy feet with their toes just hanging over the edge of his little ditch. At that moment, Louis felt cold despite the heat. He gulped, although his mouth was dry as winter. Mustering all his dumb bravery, he looked up from his spade.

There stood two grinning, horrible pirates. They were sodden with water and seaweed. Mud bugs crawled through their beards and clothes. Their cutlasses dripped red with rust or blood - Louis did not want to know which. They stared at him with eyes that gleamed cold silver.

Now Louis was a good Catholic and he knew what to do when the Devil jumped up. He fell to his knees, crossed himself, and began to recite the Hail Mary over and over again. After his seventh sincere recitation of the prayer to the Virgin, Louis opened just one eye. Sure enough, those silver-eyed, watery pirated had disappeared and Louis, to his everlasting relief, was still alive.

As Louis' breathing settled down, he heard that awful scraping sound once again. Turning, he saw a third pirate sitting comfortably in his pirogue. This one wore a long dagger, held a fine ivory-handled pistol and sported a long, bristling black mustache. He was also dripping wet, covered with detritus and creatures from the Gulf and wearing high leather boots that marked him as a man in charge.

"Gambi?" Louis ventured.

"At your service," the phantom replied. "And if you do not get in this pathetic dinghy and row for your life, I will shoot you for no good reason." Gambi smiled a wicked smile. One gold tooth gleamed like fire in the moonlight.

Louis didn't need to hear that order twice. Abandoning his tools, he untied his boat, jumped in and began to row. He rowed as hard as he knew how while the pirate sat across from him, grinning and pointing his pistol and Louis' gut.

Once the pirogue was a few leagues out in the bayou, Gambi's ghost put away his ancient pistol. Without another word, he slipped over the side of the boat and disappeared into the black paint water. Louis would later say that he knew for truth the creature was not of this Earth as no bubbles rose to the surface when it sank.

So Louis went straight home and there is wife nearly shot him herself, for he looked so different. His hair had turned white to a strand and he would never smile again. Though he told his story to anyone who would listen as though trying to relieve himself of memory, it wasn't long before Louis went to bed one night and died right there in his sleep. Rumor among the fishermen said that old Louis had joined the phantom pirates on that chenier off Bayou Grand Caillou...

Header: The Pirate's Ghost by Howard Pyle via Wikimedia

History: The Crafty Spy

With the celebratory goings on over the bicentennial of the War of 1812 here in the U.S., I’m feeling the itch to get back to my roots and talk a little bit about the contributions made by a certain pirate ancestor.  Since the war was initially about insults at sea and fought on wave to a large degree, it only makes sense that Renato Beluche would want to get in on the action, so to say.

Beluche, who was at the time of his birth the oldest son of “Big” Rene and Rose Laporte Beluche, took to the sea at an early age.  His father died sometime after Renato’s eighth birthday leaving a pregnant wife and a mound of debts.  The young man went where he could get work, down to the docks, and by the age of 16 owned and captained his own vessel.  By the time the U.S. declared war on Great Britain in June of 1812, Beluche was a seasoned privateer and a lieutenant in Bolivar’s Cartagenan navy.

Probably close to half of the ships that cruised under an American flag during the war were privately owned and holding a letter of marque from the U.S. government.  According to Dr. Jane Lucas de Grummond, who published the definitive biography on Renato Beluche in 1983, six of those commissions were issued out of New Orleans in August of 1812.  One of these went to a schooner named Spy.

Spy was nominally owned by a New Orleans merchant named Stephen Debon, according to the commission.  Debon turned command, and the letter of marque, over to Beluche.  This is perhaps a less curious turn of events than it may appear.  Throughout his career, Renato Beluche owned one or more privateers, sometimes captaining them himself and sometimes turning command over to others among the loose-knit band of pirates and privateers who called Barataria their home port.  Ships were then and still are vulnerable things and, in a pinch, it was always better to sail for someone else than not to sail at all.

Beluche had recently lost his own brig, L’Intrepide, along with a prize to a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.  Doubtless Debon’s offer of a ship and a commission was too good to refuse.  Therein, however, may lay the conundrum of the business relationship between Monsieur Debon and Captain Beluche.

In November of 1812, Stephen Debon brought suit against Renato Beluche in a New Orleans court.  The complaint claimed that Debon, as owner of Spy, had been cheated out of his share of prize money by Beluche.  This had occurred, said the complaint, because Beluche had taken more than one prize into Barataria rather than bringing them into New Orleans as specifically outlined in Spy’s U.S. letter of marque.

On the face of it, Debon appears to be in the right. In order to lawfully libel a prize, the captain of the privateer must bring said prize into the port from which he (or she if you will) received his commission.  Unfortunately for Monsieur Debon, he was dealing with a man who had learned his craft well and whose close friends and associates, the Laffite brothers, had connections in court.

Beluche engaged one of those connections, former New Orleans District Attorney John Randolph Grymes, who went to work rebutting Debon’s complaint immediately.  Grymes argued that of course Beluche had taken prizes into Barataria, no one was disputing that.  Those prizes were Spanish merchants, however, taken under Beluche’s commission from Cartagena.  Should Spy capture a British vessel under the auspices of the U.S. letter of marque, he would bring it to New Orleans for legal libel and Debon would promptly be paid his share.

Another Laffite sympathizer, Judge Dominique Hall, saw things the way Grymes outlined them.  He dismissed Debon’s complaint and, probably in the same pen-stroke, authorized the libel of a British merchant, Jane, recently brought into New Orleans as prize by none other than Beluche aboard Spy.  Perhaps his share of her cargo of mahogany and logwood, which the Louisiana Gazette estimated at “35 to 40$ per ton”, was enough to make Debon realize he needn’t trouble himself further.

The legal wrangling, which only went on until February 1, 1813 when Judge Hall announced his decision, is an excellent example of the crafty use of letters of marque by the men who sailed out of Barataria.  As William C. Davis notes in The Pirates Laffite, international law forbade the holding of more than one country’s letter of marque at any given time.  With this in mind, Debon’s argument was legally valid. 

But, as my dear Uncle Renato clearly knew better than Monsieur Debon, nothing gets shit done like having powerful friends who have friends in high places.

Header: Ship at Sea by Marcia Woodbury via American Gallery

People: Shadow of a Privateer

It was a perfect example of how the violence and barbarity that lay beneath the surface of privateering could suddenly and frighteningly erupt once the restraints of legal pretense were removed… The collapse of Cartagena negated any remaining legitimacy of its privateering commissions. ~ from The Pirates Laffite by William C. Davis


In the above instance, the “it” in question are the savage actions of a certain shadowy privateer who was a fringe member of the Laffite brothers’ freebooting band. The man was William Mitchell, and though his origins are lost to history, some of his actions remain as bloody testament to the worst atrocities committed under the guise of “privateering.”

Mitchell’s name – if it is not an alias as was occasionally the case with the privateers of the era – would lead one to believe that he was American or possibly Canadian by birth. The Anglo-Saxon ring of his moniker gives it a certain legitimacy. Privateers connected with Barataria who chose to use aliases, such as Vincent Gambi and Renato Beluche, generally stuck with Gallic names: Jean Roux for the former and Rene Brougman for the latter.

Mitchell is not mentioned in any records associated with the Laffites’ New Orleans operations and indeed his name finds no place on the rosters of those Baratarians who fought at the Battle of New Orleans. What he did prior to the fall of 1815 cannot be said with certainty. Since we know he was captaining his own vessel, Cometa, at that time, it is safe to assume that he came from a seafaring background.

Cartagena, one of the first cities in Bolivar’s revolution against Spain to declare independence, had been under siege by the Spanish for over three months as of December, 1815. Louis Aury, an old Laffite associate, was in charge of a rebel fleet whose captains included familiar Baratarians such as Dominique Youx, Jean Jannet and Renato Beluche. These men harassed Spanish ships and attempted blockade runs to feed the starving citizens trapped inside the city, but to no avail. The city finally surrendered but the Spanish – who could not take care of the withering citizenry – gave lip service to allowing Aury’s ships to rescue the Cartagenans and remove them to other shores. In the end they would chase some of those ships down and send all aboard to a watery grave.

Mitchell and his Cometa joined this mission of mercy, taking on some of the cities wealthiest citizens including her Governor.

The ships, packed with refugees, were to set out for Haiti where Bolivar was in negotiations with her President for assistance with his floundering uprising. Storms and Spanish ships beset the little flotilla. Ships were separated and some foundered all together, going down with all hands. Mitchell, seeing an opportunity, veered off from the set course and put in at San Andres Island not far from Nicaragua. Here he dumped his starving passengers after divesting them of all their worldly goods. He and his men went on to sack the only city on the island, killing the Spanish governor and taking more loot including about twenty slaves. Cometa sailed off toward the Gulf of Mexico with Mitchell and his crew richer by an estimated $40,000.

Not finished by half, Mitchell took a Spanish vessel somewhere in the Gulf and relieved her of some $25,000 in silver. With that, he pointed Cometa toward the Mississippi, intent on heading for New Orleans to sell what he could not spend, including the slaves.

Mitchell’s plan went awry at the Balize, the small customs station located where the river meets the Gulf. Here inspector John Rollins, confronting Mitchell after a sweep of Cometa, was told in no uncertain terms that the captain had every intention of selling the humans in his hold when he reached New Orleans. Since importation of slaves was illegal, Rollins seized Cometa and Mitchell was indicted on three counts of piracy in May of 1816.

The atrocities committed by Mitchell at San Andres Island could very well have gone unknown to history had it not been for that indictment, which still exists in New Orleans as case number 0909. As Davis notes in his book, Commodore Daniel Tod Patterson remarked at the time of the indictment that Mitchell would never be tried. The Commodore’s comment held more than sarcasm; Mitchell would not see a day in court.

William Mitchell continued his piracy in the Gulf of Mexico, taking ships around Barataria, Galveston and Matagorda. He used Galveston as a base while first Louis Aury and then the Laffites ran thinly veiled smuggling operations from the bay. In fact, he was one of the first to receive an essentially bogus Mexican “commission” issued at Galveston by the Laffite brothers’ associate Humbert in February of 1817. He was also tapped as something of an errand boy for the brothers, sailing back and forth from Galveston to New Orleans aboard the converted gunboat Pegasus to retrieve supplies, arms and men. His last such mission ended with Pegasus being libeled by the U.S. for carrying illegal arms in February of 1820.

After that court action, which again never saw a climax, Mitchell disappeared from the record. Davis does give us a glimpse of the pirate’s possible end, stating that he “supposedly died May 1, 1821, on Great Corn Island off Nicaragua” which is somewhat unsatisfying to say the least.

The shadowy privateer known by the name William Mitchell remains a mystery, and we have only his evident treachery and brutality to remember him by. Something he has in common with so many of history’s pirates.

Header: San Andres Island via Wikimedia

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Tide

A regular periodical current of waters, setting alternately in a flux and reflux; it is owing to the attraction of the sun and moon, but chiefly the latter.


Thus begins Admiral Smyth’s discussion of the word tide in The Sailor’s Word Book. Obviously, tides and tidal fluctuations are an integral part of sailing, but just how many kinds of tides there are and how they can potentially effect a ship is somewhat daunting.

The word itself comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon tid which originally meant season or hour. A vestige of this usage remains in English when we speak of times of the year or day as in the examples given by Webster’s: Eastertide or eventide. The old proverb “Time and tide wait for no man” originally referred to hours of the day (time) and seasons of the year (tide) but for most of us that meaning has long since been forgotten. We now approach the proverb as a seaman might; for the tide will not wait and you better be aboard ship when it is time to weigh anchor or you’ll be left ashore.

Small ships can tide, using the word as a verb. This indicates working up or down a river with the tide and weighing anchor when the tide turns. This is possible for larger ships only in the mightiest rivers on earth; the Mississippi is a good example. Along the same lines, a bay that can only be entered by ships when the tide is in flux is known as a tidal harbor.

When a sandbar encloses a bay or harbor, it is often the case that ships can only come and go when the tide is high. To again refer to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, an example of such a “bar harbor” is Barataria Bay; no wonder it was so popular with pirates. In such cases, ships may refer to what is known as a tide ball. This float, similar to a buoy, is set out as a marker. When the tide is too low, it rests on the bar; when the tide is high, it floats freely. These are generally tethered by a cable either to a stake in the bar or on land.

Similarly, a tide gage can be used from the ship itself to measure the height of the tide.

Rip tides are familiar to anyone who has been to a beach. These are generally caused by two currents meeting and conflicting. Curiously, these can occur at sea but tend to have little if any effect on a ship’s course.

A ship is said to be in a tide rode when she is moved about while at anchor by the tide. This is obviously a different situation than a wind rode, when the anchored vessel veers due to wind.

Tide way is what a ship looks for in a river to move her out toward the ocean. This is the channel in the river where the tide runs the most strongly and is usually – but not always – toward the center of the river. Tide work is the amount of progress a ship makes in such a favorable tide. However, tide work can also indicate necessary cleaning or repairs done to a ship when the tide has left her either completely or partially out of the water for the period of its ebb.

As a point of interest, the highest and fastest tides in the world are seen at the Bay of Fundy in Canada. Contrarily, the lowest and most sluggish are in the Mediterranean.

And that is enough of tides for one day. Happy Saturday, Brethren; fair winds and good tide way to one and all.

Header: Beached by Dennis M. Bunker via American Gallery

History: Unfotunate Remembrances

Today is, to the best of history’s knowledge, the 245th anniversary of the birth of Andrew Jackson. Of course all the Brethren know that General Jackson is a Triple P favorite. This is due, for the most part, to his involvement with the Baratarian “pirates” who helped Jackson and his men prevail at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. From well-knowns like the brothers Laffite to more obscure – and yet more involved – seafarers such as Dominique Youx and Renato Beluche, Jackson used them all to good advantage on the line at Rodriguez Canal. For his trouble, he came away from New Orleans a national hero who was lionized as America’s “New Washington”.


Not everyone thought so very much of Jackson, despite the fact that few of his detractors had the stones to confront the General head on. The handful who did, like Louisiana State Supreme Court Judge Dominick Hall, did so in court. The rest spoke unkindly of Jackson in letter, memoir or foreign language – especially French. Some took an even more underhanded – and one would have to say cruel – route and attacked the General’s one true love: his wife.

Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson was born in the same year as her husband and was, like him, a child of the American frontier. Unlike Andrew, however, Rachel had very little in the way of formal education. She could certainly read and write, as well as hold her own in conversation, and she was possessed of an iron will that allowed her to bear up under the strains of illness, childlessness and long periods apart from her beloved husband. That said, she was a hard-drinking, pipe-smoking everywoman who preferred to run her plantation and sew her own clothes rather than mingle in glittering company.

In a place like New Orleans, where even a war on the doorstep could not so much as temporarily set aside a long-standing, European-based codified social structure, Rachel stuck out like a sore thumb. It only took the right sort of individual with an ax to grind to point that fact out, in the meanest way possible, to all of posterity.

Enter Vincent Nolte. Born to German parents in Italy, Nolte was a world traveler who had lived through everything from the Napoleonic Wars to the New Madrid earthquake. He was a banker, merchant and speculator who made a name for himself providing raw wool, cotton and linen to New Orleans and her surrounding areas. As a staunch opponent of the smuggling trade that emanated from the Laffites' Barataria, Nolte was nothing if not happy to see the pirates’ downfall shortly before the war came to his own back yard.

He was also happy to do what he could toward the war effort, offering bales of wool from his warehouses for the making of uniforms and only grumbling when Jackson commandeered his cotton to use as bulwark on the canal.

When the fighting was over, but New Orleans was still under marshal law per Jackson’s orders, Nolte approached the General in an effort to “settle his account”. As Nolte saw it, his had been a business transaction with the military. Now it was time for Jackson to reimburse the merchant for his losses. According to Nolte’s side of the story in his rather pompously entitled book The Memoirs of Vincent Nolte: Reminiscences in the Period of Anthony Adverse, or Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres which was published posthumously in1854, he was out a good bit of cash. He claims to have addressed Jackson with a bill in which each bale of wool cost the merchant 10 cents a pound, and each of cotton up to 12 ½ cents a pound. Jackson, seeing Nolte for what he was – a speculator who would have done business with the British had they won the day, and that without batting an eye – told Nolte in the nicest possible way to go pound sand.

After this, Nolte told anyone who would listen that Jackson was a penurious ego-maniac who would run the city and the people of New Orleans into the ground in his quest for ultimate power. This opinion did not stop Vincent Nolte from attending the balls and dinners given in the General’s honor, however, and one of them afforded the begrudged merchant a chance at ultimate revenge.

Nolte’s comments in his memoir are certainly best left to him:

After supper we were treated to a most delicious pas de deux by the conqueror and his spouse, an emigrant of the lower classes, whom he had from a Georgia planter, and who explained by her enormous corpulence that French saying, ‘She shows how far the skin can be stretched.’ To see these two figures, the general a long, haggard man, with limbs like a skeleton, and Madame la Generale, a short, fat dumpling, bobbing opposite each other like half-drunken Indians, to the wild melody of Possum up de Gum Tree, and endeavoring to make a spring into the air, was very remarkable, and far more edifying a spectacle than any European ballet could possibly have furnished.

Nolte’s unkindness comes down to the modern ear dripping with bad manners and ill-directed spleen. It’s unfortunate given the scope of both his life and his memoir that the above paragraph is one of the most often quoted from Nolte’s book. It is also an abject lesson for those who would leave something of themselves and their era behind them in writing. It probably goes without saying that, if we did not remember the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans and Andrew Jackson, Vincent Nolte would be quoted – at least in the United States – very little if at all.

Header: Possibly posthumous portrait of Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson, artist unknown

History: The Baratarians Pardoned

On February 6, 1815, the President of the United States did something that had not much been thought of prior to that date. Upon the recommendation of a man who, seemingly overnight, had become a national hero, President Madison pardoned en mass the men who had contributed – according to Andrew Jackson – so much to the victory at New Orleans that ended the War of 1812. Madison put pen to paper and, in one sweeping gesture, welcomed every Baratarian who served under Jackson into the fold of U.S. citizens. Prices on heads were dropped and warrants for arrest were sent to the trash heap; men who once hid in the shadows could now walk freely among their fellows. Here is the proclamation as quote in The Pirate's Own Book by Charles Ellms:


By the President of the United States of America, A Proclamation: Among the many evils produced by the wars, which with little intermission have afflicted Europe, and extended their ravages into other quarters of the globe, for a period exceeding twenty years, the dispersion of a considerable portion of the inhabitants of different countries, in sorrow and in want, has not been the least injurious to human happiness, nor the least severe in the trial of human virtue.

It had been long ascertained that many foreigners, flying from the dangers of their own home, and that some citizens, forgetful of their duty, had co-operated in forming an establishment on the island of Barrataria [sic], near the mouth of the river Mississippi, for the purpose of a clandestine and lawless trade. The government of the United States caused the establishment to be broken up and destroyed; and, having obtained the means of designating the offenders of every description, it only remained to answer the demands of justice by inflicting an exemplary punishment.

But it has since been represented that the offenders have manifested a sincere penitence; that they have abandoned the prosecution of the worst cause for the support of the best and, particularly, that they have exhibited, in the defense of New Orleans, unequivocal traits of courage and fidelity. Offenders, who have refused to become the associates of the enemy in the war, upon the most seducing terms of invitation; and who have aided to repel his hostile invasion of the territory of the United States, can no longer be considered as objects of punishment, but as objects of a generous forgiveness.

It has therefore been seen, with great satisfaction, that the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana earnestly recommend those offenders to the benefit of full pardon. And in compliance with that recommendation, as well as in consideration of all the other extraordinary circumstances in the case, I, James Madison, President of the United States of America, do issue this proclamation, hereby granting, publishing and declaring, a free and full pardon of all offences committed in violation of any act or acts of the Congress of the said United States, touching the revenue, trade and navigation thereof, or touching the intercourse and commerce of the United States with foreign nations, at any time before the eighth day of January, in the present year one thousand eight hundred and fifteen, by any person or persons whatsoever, being inhabitants of New Orleans and the adjacent country, or being inhabitants of the said island of Barrataria, and the places adjacent; Provided, that every person, claiming the benefit of this full pardon, in order to entitle himself thereto, shall produce a certificate in writing from the governor of the State of Louisiana, stating that such person has aided in the defense of New Orleans and the adjacent country, during the invasion thereof as aforesaid.

And I do hereby further authorize and direct all suits, indictments, and prosecutions, for fines, penalties, and forfeitures, against any person or persons, who shall be entitled to the benefit of this full pardon, forthwith to be stayed, discontinued and released: All civil officers are hereby required, according to the duties of their respective stations, to carry this proclamation into immediate and faithful execution.

Done at the City of Washington, the sixth day of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifteen, and of the independence of the United States the thirty-ninth. By the President, James Madison. James Monroe, Acting Secretary of State.

According to Winston Groom in his unfortunately historically flawed – he relies heavily on the so called “Diary of Jean Lafitte” written by Laffite maniac John Lafflin – but well written book Patriotic Fire, the proclamation reached New Orleans on February 27th. The stories of what each individual Baratarian did –or didn’t do – with his Presidential pardon will continue to be told here at Triple P, and elsewhere, for a long time to come.

Header: The Battle of New Orleans via alomani.com

History: Piracy Statutes of 1724 and Beyond

The British statute against piracy issued by the Crown in 1724 as an addendum to the nation’s civil law is one of the most far reaching pieces of legal action in history. The law, as it is presented in Johnson’s History of Pyrates effectively ended the so called Golden Age of piracy, leaving only pockets of plundering in out of the way places. A resurgence in freebooting would not occur until the late 18th century with the dawn of the age of privateering that began with the great American revolutions and ended when David Porter’s Mosquito Fleet put down the last of the “Caribbean” pirates.


You can find the statute as set down by Johnson online here. Over the course of a few recurring posts, I’d like to take a closer look at the points of law in the statute, and see how they have effect piracy and the battle against piracy over the course of almost three hundred years.

The first paragraph notes “Though Pyrates are called common Enemies, yet they are properly not to be term’d so.” Sighting Cicero, the law points out that only a group with an “ongoing Government or State” can be called an enemy and uses the example of the Barbary states, who should be afforded the “Solemnities of War, and the Rights of Legation.” It would be another hundred years before the combined forces of British, French, Dutch and U.S. navies put this point to the test in the Mediterranean and at last ended the predations of Barbary corsairs.

This principle was followed in dealing with pirates by almost every nation in the western world within just a few decades of the British statute. A pirate was not an enemy but a criminal; a rogue working under his own auspices and outside any law. This principle “of necessity” allowed privateering but set up a gray area in such ventures as well. “Unrecognized states” such as, at various points in history, Bolivar’s Grand Columbia, Mexican rebels, Texas, and others could have their privateers prosecuted and hanged as pirates because of their questionable status according to established nations. This was certainly the case with the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War.

This idea also, in an even deeper shade of gray, applied to the Laffite brothers Barataria operation. The brothers together, and Jean in particular, claimed Barataria was a sovereign state and therefore above the laws of piracy. Their ships were not engaged in criminal activity, they reasoned, but the taking of enemy ships. It is worth noting that, though the Laffites issued passports to those who wished to enter Barataria, they never went so far as to create their own letters of marque but used those issued from Cartagena, Caracas and Mexico.

The issue of enemy vs. criminal continues to create problems for modern navies battling pirates in Southeast Asia, the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere. The pirates claim they are freedom fighters from nations in revolt; the navies claim they are thugs. Iran’s recent protest against U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf is an excellent example of this ongoing issue.

This idea also applies in part on the issue of “Subjects in Enmity with the Crown of England”, mentioned a few paragraphs later. In this point of law, a foreigner whose country is at war with (in this case) England but is serving aboard a pirate ship run by a British national is not subject to prosecution as a criminal. Though the foreigner would still be tried for piracy, his proceeding would be under the auspices of Martial rather than Civil Law. This may appear to be splitting hairs but it certainly gives the foreigner an out that his mates would not have. Enemies of the state can be exchanged for prisoners of war or espionage.

All this legal jargon goes right out the window in paragraph number six:

If Pyracy be committed on the Ocean, and the Pyrates in the attempt be overcome, the Captors may, without any Solemnity of Condemnation, hang them up at the Main-Yard; if they are Brought to the next Port, & the Judge rejects the Tryal, or the Captors cannot wait for the Judge, without Peril or Loss, Justice may be done upon them by the Captors.

At this point the gloves are off and so are all bets. Those capturing pirates on the high seas may quite literally do with them as they please “without peril or loss”. Since just about every sovereign state with an Atlantic coast established similar piracy statutes by the mid-18th century, piracy was a very dangerous profession indeed. Even men that we think of now as legal privateers – John Paul Jones and Renato Beluche, for instance – could easily have been put to death “on the Ocean” under similar law.

That’s enough for today, I think. Next time, bribes, goods and when ransacking a ship at anchor is – and isn’t – piracy.

Header: 19th century engraving of a pirate via gutenberg.org

History: The Battle of New Orleans and the Brothers Laffite

Sunday marks the 197th anniversary of the decisive battle fought on Chalmette plain that ended the War of 1812. We refer to the Battle of New Orleans as occurring on January 8, but in fact skirmishes, feints and brutal gore took place for almost a three week period beginning before December 21 and ending with a definitive surrender by the British on or around January 15. Unfortunately, most people today believe that the Battle of New Orleans was a futile waste of life, the Treaty of Ghent having been “signed” on December 24. As we’ve discussed before, the Treaty was not ratified by the U.S. Congress until after January 8. This was due to a clause ante bellum in the Treaty that would cede all territory occupied by the British on or after December 24th to their sovereignty. This included the areas in and around New Orleans.


But that piece of misinformation is just one of the many puzzling things to come out of one of America’s most easily forgotten “darkest hours”. So let’s pick another one to examine, and let’s keep it close to our seafaring hearts. May I suggest where the heck Pierre and Jean Laffite were over the course of those fateful three plus weeks?

At the Centennial of the battle, it was popular to attribute much of the victory to the combined efforts of one brilliant General and a rag-tag, polyglot group of local Louisianans, volunteers from Kentucky and Tennessee, enslaved and free blacks and, of course, pirates. The seamen of Barataria as a group and the Laffite brothers in particular were singled out as one of the most influential reasons for the victory. At that time, as was the case only a few years after the war, “the Laffite brothers” was translated in popular culture and imagination as “Jean Laffite.” The tide has turned now, with modern historians claiming that the Baratarians had little if any impact at Chalmette plain – William C. Davis, for instance, claims that only two percent of Jackson’s forces were actual Baratarians – and the brothers who commanded them had even less. I would argue that the truth is somewhere in between these two radically different opinions. But let us first examine what the experts have to say.

Lyle Saxon, who’s Lafitte the Pirate was first published in the late 1920s, is certainly the least reliable of our sources. His book is more storytelling than history and, although it is a wonderful read, it is full of the myths and legends about the Laffites – and Jean in particular – that are now so engrained in the popular imagination that they have become de-facto facts. Even so, his only comment on what the Laffites were up to amounts to no more than a paragraph explaining that “Pierre Lafitte was given a position of trust on [January 8]…” and Jean was in the Gulf, guarding against a “rear attack”. He goes on to defend Jean against the label of evading service, but he has nothing further to say on the matter.

In The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans, masterful historian Jane Lucas deGrummond argues that – as her title implies – those pirates from Grande Terre were a big part of Andrew Jackson’s victory on Rodriguez Canal. DeGrummond was a more than capable researcher who sighted sources religiously and argued with a very convincing voice. Still, in the thirty plus pages devoted to the three weeks of battle, she has nothing to say about any contribution made by the Laffites aside from them providing a significant amount of flints, shot and gunpowder to the effort.

Next we have Jack C. Ramsay, Jr. In Jean Laffite, Prince of Pirates, he devotes a full chapter to the Battle of New Orleans. Though his overview lacks the detail of deGrummond’s, it is concise enough. This makes the omission of any specific action by the Laffite brothers during the fighting particularly glaring. He brings them back to the fore of his narrative only at the end of the chapter, noting that General Jackson praised their “courage and fidelity” in his famous speech on January 21.

The definitive modern work on the Laffite brothers is William C. Davis’ The Pirates Laffite, and Davis puts a new spin on what the siblings were up to at Chalmette. The entire book, well researched and documented to be sure, is skewed toward Pierre. Davis is not an apologist but a sympathizer; he is clearly trying to return Pierre’s memory to our consciousness, it having been overshadowed by Jean’s for almost 200 years. It is a commendable endeavor to be sure but it has a fatal flaw: wherever there is ambiguity in the record as to which Laffite a document or memoire is referring to, Davis gives the nod to Pierre.

So it is that Davis presents us with Pierre not only as close, personal advisor to Andrew Jackson but as tracker for General John Coffee in the swamp beyond Rodriguez Canal. Late in the battle of January 8 he is a commander of men, sent with General Humbert to assist General Daniel Morgan on the west bank of the Mississippi. Pierre even delivers a speech to Morgan’s men, penned by Jackson himself. Meanwhile Jean, whose mission to General Reynolds at Little Lake Barataria is well documented by orders written in Jackson’s hand, is skulking around Grande Terre and presumably up to no good. Davis mentions that Jackson’s orders of December 22 required Jean to return to Chalmette as quickly as possible but then seems to toss that fact out the window. Like the proverbial baby with the bath water, he throws Jean back into the ignominy of evading service that Saxon once argued so vehemently against.

What then is the truth of the matter? Were the Baratarians a help or a hindrance, or of no consequence at all? And what of their leaders, the men who spelled their last name differently than any other “Lafitte” in Louisiana? As I said early, the truth must be somewhere in the middle.

The Baratarians were most effectual as artillerists, on Battery Number 3 in particular. These two twenty-four pound guns, commanded by Renato Beluche and Dominique Youx, were the bane of the British throughout the fighting. Also, most of the sailors aboard Commodore Patterson’s frigates Carolina and Louisiana were Baratarians; both ships bombarded British encampments on Chalmette with great success. The brothers themselves, aside from providing men and material, were certainly put to active duty if not directly on the line or aboard ship. Were the Laffite brothers heroes? Oh no. Were they at the battle with men they knew and called “brother”? Most definitely. Anything more specific than that is open to interpretation.

Header: Fredric March as Jean Laffite in The Buccaneer c 1938

History: For Beluche's Birthday

Today marks the 231st birthday of one of my favorite ancestors, Renato Beluche. All the Brethren are well aware of his many claims to fame as smuggler, privateer, patriot and national hero in the United State, Venezuela, Columbia and Panama. It is unfortunate that so many people in his natal country are not aware of his contributions to their freedom and way of life. Although folks in Louisiana and particularly New Orleans continue to keep his memory alive.


With so many note-worthy actions packed into one 80 year life (and they say corsairs died young!) it is not surprising that Uncle Renato is occasionally claimed by other families in the Western Hemisphere as their own. Who wouldn’t want a golden apple among the branches of their family tree?

Perhaps the most debated, if not necessarily famous, argument for Renato Beluche quite literally being someone else comes from the family of Puerto Rican freedom fighter Mathias Brugman. As an example, some Brugman historians offer the comparison signatures of Pierre Brugman (top) and Renato Beluche (bottom) above. They note that the bold, looping Bs of both signatures seem too similar to have been written by different hands. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mathias Brugman was born in New Orleans in 1811 where his parents, in the baptismal records of St. Louis Cathedral, are listed as Pierre (or Pedro) Brugman, born in Curacao and Isabel (or Ysabel) Duliebre, birthplace unknown. Mathias had a brother and a sister whose births are also noted in the same records. In 1816, the family permanently relocated to Puerto Rico.

The name Brugman (sometimes noted as Bruckman or Brukman) is the source of the speculation that Mathias may in fact have been the son not of Pierre Brugman, Dutch merchant, but of Renato Beluche, American privateer.

Some specific discussion on the issue appears at the Brugman Family Commentaries on the Familia website where it seems the argument is that the two men may have been one and the same. The evidence for this is slim; particularly when one looks at the commentaries themselves, but the argument seems to continue, bouncing around the web like a curious if little-known meme. Feel free to read the entire commentaries for yourself, but allow me to point out a few specific items.

The text notes that Beluche’s date of birth was December 7, 1780 and that his father’s place of birth is listed as Tours, in France. As Jane Lucas De Grummond notes in her definitive biography Renato Beluche: Smuggler, Privateer and Patriot, 1780-1860, the corsair was born on December 15 and baptized on the following 7th of January. The records list his father as Rene Beluche of New Orleans. According to the genealogical data I have been able to uncover, Rene was the son of Charles Beluche who was born in France in 1697, possibly in the village of Pigot on the Bay of Biscay. It should be noted that, in typical fashion, the baptismal record at the Cathedral is somewhat incorrect; the baby’s given name is listed as Raynado, not Renato.

The real confusion begins with a French letter of marque issued in March of 1810 for the brig L’Intrepide. The owner of the ship is listed as Joseph Sauvinet, a prominent New Orleans merchant and Laffite associate from the earliest days of Barataria. Her captain, according to Dr. De Grummond who is taking her information from legal documentation of the U.S. Navy, is named as Pierre Brugman. A description of Brugman, also in the ship’s papers, shows him to be a virtual twin of Beluche: He is thirty years old, five feet three inches tall and has brown hair. Probably the most arguable point in favor of this Captain Brugman being the revolutionary Mathais’ father is the birthplace he gives: Curacao.

From here, however, the argument begins to unravel. L’Intrepide was, in fact, captured as a pirate by Commodore David Porter in March when she came into the mouth of the Mississippi “in distress” and her captain’s name was then given as Brugman. The captain was never found aboard her, however, and Beluche – not Brugman – appeared at the French consulate a few days later seeking redress for the unlawful seizure of his ship by the U.S. Navy. The ship in question’s name is listed as L’Intrepide.

By May of 1810, L’Intrepide was back in the Gulf where a documented prize, La Ynvicta Espana, was taken by her. As De Grummond notes, this prize is listed in the Historic New Orleans Collection Catalogue No.44-2; the captain of L’Intrepide in this document is named Beluche.

The name Pedro Brugman is again connected with privateering activity in 1815. He is listed as captain of the privateer La Popa in connection with a cross complaint filed against the U.S. Navy. La Popa was owned by Renato Beluche and the complaint referred to a prize taken by her almost immediately after the Battle of New Orleans under a Cartagenan letter of marque. Given that the U.S. had not yet officially recognized Cartagena as a separate state and Beluche was awaiting official pardon from the President after serving on the line with Andrew Jackson, one can easily see why he would want to use an alias in such a case.

Perhaps the most head-scratching evidence provided by the Brugman Family Commentaries is the line “…Beluche, alias Brugman, disappeared during late March 1810 eluding charges for smuggling and did not resurface until February 1817.” Though smuggling charges were certainly brought up on more than one occasion against more than one Beluche, those would have been the least of Renato’s worries. In fact, much of his time between 1810 and 1817 was spent in well documented and above-board pursuits. His name appears on a U.S. letter of marque issued in 1812 as captain of the schooner Spy which would go on to capture the British warship Jane in December. Beluche’s name appears in court records in connection with the libel of Jane the following January. Within a few months of this filing, Beluche would be listed among the mariners holding some of the first letters of marque issued from Cartagena and his service as gun captain of a 24 pound cannon on Rodriguez Canal during the Battle of New Orleans is more than well documented.

I personally have no doubt that Beluche and Brugman were two separate men and that Mathias Brugman, the Puerto Rican revolutionary, is not the son of my ancestor. The curious point though, at least for me, is not those distinctive signatures. It is the letter of marque with Brugman’s name listed as captain of L’Intrepide and the accuracy in the documentation of his birthplace. Did Brugman in fact command the brig until her capture by Porter at the Balize? When she was released, did he turn over her command to Beluche or did Sauvinet, her rightful owner, select someone else – namely Beluche – in his stead? Or did Beluche know Brugman personally and simply choose the guise of an acquaintance when the need for discretion arose?

Finally, are the signatures shown above so very similar that they can unequivocally be said to have been consistently penned by the same hand? For that, I have an answer; no, they’re not. Beyond that, well, this is what makes history – and genealogy – so much fun.

Header: Comparison of Pierre Brugman and Renato Beluche signatures via Familia

Ships: The Pirate's Choice

In 1713 the shipyard of Andrew Robinson at Gloucester, Massachusetts launched a completely new type of ship. She was light, no more than 100 tons in her true form, shallow of draft at a sleek five feet, could be run by as few as 75 men and sailed briskly regardless of the direction of the wind. Robinson called her the schooner and she ushered in a new age of fast, effective sailing not dreamed of prior to her introduction.


The word schooner is a conundrum as there are similar words in most Latinate languages and German as well. John Batchelor and Christopher Chant offer that the word actually comes from the Scottish dialect of Gaelic in their The Complete Encyclopedia of Sailing Ships. According to them, schooner derives from scoon:

… a verb describing the skipping progress of a stone skimmed over the water.

No more poetic description could be used to help one imagine the quick, bouncing form of a schooner in full sail. The sails, routinely fore-and-aft, were rigged on two masts and at first included one or two square topsails on the fore. These were replaced in the late 18th century by so called jackyard topsails that were shaped very much like a jib sail (as illustrated on both fore and main mast in the painting at the header). This configuration of sail made the schooner a viable option for all types of conditions as she did not have to run before the wind to attain high speeds, as was the case with square-rigged vessels. She could sail with the wind on any quarter, turn and tack more readily and quickly, and keep to coastal waters where larger, deeper draft ships would founder.

This speed, ease of handling and ability to be run by a smaller crew, as fore-and-aft sails were more easily handled than square rigging, made the schooner the ship of choice for just about every use. By the dawn of the 19th century, she was being built in Europe as well as the U.S. and could be found in virtually any port around the world. She was used as a mail packet, a tender for ships of the line, a troop and supply transport. Most notably, she was a favorite vessel of both pirates of the Golden Age and the new breed of privateers that came after them. A stop in the Laffite brothers’ Barataria Bay circa 1810 would have revealed half a dozen schooners of various rigging at anchor at any given time. Along with the hermaphrodite brig – which itself was a variation of the schooner type – nothing was more trusted or handy in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean at the time.

Because of its popularity with the men of a piratical bent, the schooner was also the ship of choice for the best of pirate hunters. David Porter, the brilliantly successful Commodore of the Mosquito Fleet that virtually wiped out the tail end of the pirate class in the West Indies, counted on schooners to enter lagoons and bays around islands like Cuba. This allowed him and his men to ferret out the worst offenders and relieve U.S. merchants of the predations that were costing the entire country an arm and a leg.

In the 1840s, with the dawn of the California gold rush and the need for even more speed, the schooner type was modified again. Square rigging was added to her light frame, along with a third mast, and the legendary clipper ship was born. Schooners are still a favorite vessel with sailors of all types, myself included. Their ease of handling and beautiful lines are hard to resist. And what could be better than to be aboard a fast runner on a clear day? Not much at all.

Header: Early 19th century clipper ship by an unknown artist