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!)

History: A Tantalizing Find

Ahoy Brethren! I hope this post finds you all in booty, wenches and grog... Or at least grog. I've missed you all and think of you often, honestly.

Today I'm sharing a recent find of shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, that haven for Laffite, Beluche, Aury, Gambi, Youx and a hundred other early 19th century pirates/privateers who served the revolutionary states of Central and South America to various degrees of faithfulness.

This article from ABC online talks about a "thrilling" find of not one but three shipwrecks from around the Laffite era - circa 1810 to 1825. The ships are small, two masted, and carrying no more that eight guns. From the minimal information in the article, which as it notes raises more questions than answers, it appears that the ships may have wrecked in weather such as a gale or hurricane.

For me, a distant relative of Renato Beluche and an old archaeologist at heart and by training, this really gets the imagination running. Could one of these ships be the lost L'Intrepide, captained by Beluche before the War of 1812 and lost in a hurricane off the Louisiana coast some time in 1810 or '11? Beluche and his surviving crew were stranded for some weeks on Little Cat Island, which is now under water, and only rescued when another Laffite associate happened to sail close enough to the island to see their driftwood fires. The size and armament of the ships certainly raises the possibility.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, however. It may be too much to hope for, and perhaps just my wild, seafaring imagination taking me places that the same archaeologist in me knows I should not rightly go.

And yet, oh how exciting are all those possibilities...

Header: The Night Watch via Naval Architecture

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

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Corsair

We have made it to the middle of December, Brethren, and that means that for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere our time in darkness is soon to be redeemed by light. The Solstice is only six days away. It also means that chez Pauline is celebrating the 232nd birthday of my favorite uncle: Renato Beluche, corsair-extraordinaire. So, as a bit of a birthday present, I'm changing things up for this SMS and offering the definitions and etymologies of the key words used to mean a raider on the high seas. Not all mean "pirate" and some distinctions are subtle. Points we can be a little prickly about in my family.

Buccaneer: The general understanding is that the word is an anglicized version of the French boucanier, one who cooks things on the type of barbeque known in old San Domingue as a boucan. Admiral Smyth, in The Sailor's Word Book has this to say under his buccaneer entry:

A name given to certain piratical rovers, of various European nations, who formerly infested the coasts of Spanish America. They were originally inoffensive settlers in Hispaniola, but were inhumanly driven from their habitations by the jealous policy of the Spaniards; whence originated their implacable hatred to that nation.

Corsair: Also of French origin; corsaire means privateer in French. We know from their letters that many of the Laffite brothers' men referred to themselves as "corsairs." Renato Beluche certainly did. In a letter to a Venezuelan newspaper in 1822 he wrote: "General Padilla remembers that I was a corsair. And what is the matter with that?" Where the General had implied piracy on Beluche's part, the accused took onus and reminded the readers that he sailed under Bolivar's flag as a privateer. The term was also applied to pirates from Barbary shores.

Filibuster: This too began as a French word: filibustier meaning freebooter. In this sense, which originally meant a soldier of fortune, it was applied by the Spanish to the original buccaneers. By the early 19th century it had taken on a new meaning in North and South America. Filibusters were the secret groups of speculators formed, particularly along the Gulf Coast and most notably in New Orleans, to supply arms to South American rebellions for cash. Again the Laffites, Dominique Youx and Beluche were involved in a post-War of 1812 group of filibusters supplying small arms and cannon to Mexico.

Pirate: The Latin word pirata may have meant sea captain but the English word pirate is essentially the seagoing version of the land-based word highwayman. A pirate is a sea robber with no connection to cause or country - other than themselves and their ships.

Privateer: Admiral Smyth says it best:

Men-of-war equipped by individuals for cruising against the enemy; their commission is given by the admiralty, and revocable by the same authority. They have no property in any prize until it is legally condemned by a competent court.

The issue of proper libel by a court is the real sticking point in the difference between pirate and privateer. Letters of marque, like any other document, can be easily forged. But courts for condemning legal prizes are not so easily come by.

Sea-dog/Sea-wolf: These terms sprang up in England during the reign of Elizabeth I who used them to describe her sea captains - her favorite being Sir Francis Drake - who raided the Spanish Main. In that sense, another euphemism for privateer.

I believe that list covers the highlights fairly well. Happy Saturday, Brethren; may your commission stay valid, and the courts of libel smile upon every prize you bring in.

And Happy Birthday, Uncle Renato, you old corsaire you.

Header: Engraving from a painting of Renato Beluche by Francisco Capuleta now in the Museo Naval de Venezuela

Booty: Documents Fit for a Pirate

So you've a pirate or privateer in the family (lucky you) and you're looking for just the right gift to put a smile on their face this holiday season. Clearly you enjoy seeing that golden tooth of theirs gleam. Well look no further, mates because Pirate Documents has absolutely everything you could want - and more.

Need an authentic letter of marque? They've got that. From the very early days of anti-piracy legislation in the 15th century to the Civil War, PD covers it all. An example of the handsome document purchased for me by the First Mate is featured above; it's probably very similar to the one acquired by my dear Uncle Renato for his schooner Spy.

Looking for ship's articles from the Golden Age of Piracy? You'll find that, too. Or how about maritime quotes? What says serious seafaring quite like having a quote from William Bligh hanging in your cabin?

But don't stop there. For the more quirky folks on your gift giving list you might consider a marriage license circa 1800, a vampire hunting commission, a pact with the devil from 1633 or - my new personal favorite, the Code Duello of 1777 which was generally recognized in Britain and the U.S. That's good stuff.

Click over and roam around Pirate Documents' wonderful site. I can personally vouchsafe the quality of the items they offer. Enjoy, and happy Friday!

Header: United States Letter of Marque c 1812 via Pirate Documents

History: Same Old Refrain

Of course the Brethren have heard it all before. Pauline gets her knickers in a twist every now and then and goes off about the Battle of New Orleans. On and on about how it wasn't an unnecessary battle, how the Treaty of Ghent meant nothing at the time as it had not been ratified by both parties, how for a "war won by Canada" it sure seemed like General Jackson and his back woods rabble gave the British a sound whipping on January 8, 1815. And do not ask about her ancestors for all love!

Nothing sticks in my craw quite like the myth of the "unnecessary" battle on Chalmette plane. It really gets me when I hear - again and again - that this is what we're teaching young Americans even as I type. No mention of the hardships visited on New Orleans and her people and surely no mention of the British battle cry for this obnoxious invasion: Beauty and Booty! A lovely English euphemism for rape and pillage. Let's just sweep that under the rug while Pauline rants on.

Well, for a change, I'm not the only one. This post over at History Myths Debunked does a wonderful job of busting the Battle of New Orleans myth. Mary, in her inimitably thorough style, even goes so far as to quote Article 2 of the Treaty which is then expanded on by commenter Bob Huddleston. As Bob notes, New Orleans and her surrounding waters were actually "fair game", militarily speaking, for the British until March of 1815.

Click over and read this succinct post and then, for the love of our ancestors U.S. teachers, stop telling your kids that the Battle of New Orleans didn't mean anything. It was our last stand against Britain and if Jackson and his men had failed, the United States as we know it would not exist today. It was that big a deal.

Header: Battle of New Orleans by Victor Nehlig via American Gallery

Booty: In the Footsteps of Rogues

This post is meta all around, but it also gives you a nice hint at an historical diversion should you find yourself in New Orleans this month or next.

New Orleans dot com is currently offering their Pirates, Passions and Patriots Walking Tour. The tour began on International Talk Like A Pirate Day and runs for a full month through October 21st. As described on the website, the tour allows you to "roam the streets of the French Quarter at night with a lively, local tour guide who will spin the tale of how Lafitte [sic] and his marauding band of misfits came to the city's rescue in the Battle of New Orleans."

Really, what better way to spend an evening in the Big Easy? Don't forget, Brethren, you can stop in at Pat O'Brien's and get a hurricane in a go cup so you're walkin' and drinkin' all at the same time. As they say on the NFL network, it's serious fun!

I'm sorry but I would love to be that lively, local tour guide. Although I probably wouldn't exactly follow the script. Being a descendant of a key member of that marauding band of misfits, I don't tend to cotton to the usual legendary stuff. The historical truth is so much more interesting.

So be sure to take the tour if you're in the Crescent City before 10/21. Tell 'em Pauline (or Captain Swallow to whom I am indebted for the info on the walking tour) sent ya.

And so ends Triple P's one thousandth post. This is a milestone I never imagined reaching when I started this blog in 2009. Now, all I can imagine is going forward. Happy Friday, Brethren!

Header: Yul Brynner (a relative of our very own Timmy!) rehearsing for his role as Jean Laffite in the movie "The Buccaneer" via LIFE photo archives

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

Booty: Family Tree

When I was in elementary school we used to climb on the dinosaur about once a week and roam over to my mother's parent's home.  It was always something I looked forward to; not one of those horrible "eat your Brussels sprouts" experiences.  Gran and Grandpa were really wonderful people.  In many ways, they were far more easy going than my own parents.

One of the things I liked best about Gran's house (and it was always "Gran's house") was the two over-sized volumes of Norman Rockwell works that were always kept in the spare room.  They were books Gran bought when Rockwell was at the height of his popularity as the Saturday Evening Post illustrator and they doubtless cost her dear.  The fact that she and Grandpa allowed me to look through them, and then Grandpa left them specifically to me, has always been a wonderment in my life.  One I am thankful for indeed.

My favorite illustration, of all the amazing art in both books, has always been the one above.  Entitled "Family Tree", it shows the ancestry of the charming red-headed mite pictured at the very top of the branches.  I would literally stare at this painting for an hour, taking in all the detail, memorizing the faces and the fashions and - as you already guessed - marvelling at the detail of those ships.  Oh, those ships.

How I wished my family could be like this one, with pirates and prospectors, Native Americans and saloon girls.  I got lost in those faces and imagined something far less "white bread" for me and mine.

I think it was this painting, at least in part, that drove me to genealogical research, which helped me find those less "white bread" people in my family (pirates! African-Americans! smugglers! whores!) and ultimately led me to my historical novels and thus right here to Triple P.

In fact, when I look at that painting now, it is surprising how very close it comes to portraying my own family.  There's my husband's ancestors on the right, staunch backbones of the U.S. from hardworking, square-jawed Pennsylvania stock.  Then there's my antecedents on the left, rogues and trailblazers; people who always needed more space and a bigger sky.  We even have a red-headed mite to put at the top of the tree, although ours is - thankfully - a girl.

Happy Friday, Brethren.  Find what inspires you today, or tomorrow, and chase that horizon no matter what.

Header: Family Tree by Norman Rockwell courtesy of Curtis Publishing Co. (click to enlarge; you'll be glad you did)

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

Ships: Commodore Patterson's Own

Today is officially the end of NOLA Navy Week, but the celebration of the U.S.’s victory in the War of 1812 will continue until January of 2015. To commemorate the end of a week of ships and sailors down on the bayou, I’d like to offer a brief overview of the two American ships that helped General Jackson defeat the British on Chalmette plain.


Both Louisiana, a purpose-built sloop of war rated for 16 guns, and Carolina, a schooner of 14 guns, were under-manned when Daniel Tod Patterson, then Commodore of the New Orleans Naval Station, took over their command in 1814. Carolina was largely crewed by New Englanders fresh from merchant service, none of who had much if any experience working artillery. Louisiana, on the other hand, was a ghost ship. Thanks to the raid on the Laffite brothers’ Baratarian strong hold in September, both ships were full to bursting with guns, ordinance and black powder. What they had in might, however, they lacked in men.

This was, in large part, due to Andrew Jackson’s reluctance to include those “hellish banditti” from Barataria among his forces. The sailors and artillerists from Grande Terre were either imprisoned along with Dominique Youx, who was bent under heavy chains in the Calabozo, or in hiding for fear of joining their brethren. The Laffites themselves were far to the north in Donaldsonville. Renato Beluche, one of the luckier of the privateers, had managed to get his ship La Popa away from those captured by Patterson as they cruised toward the Balize.

By November there was no question that the British were on their way to New Orleans with their battle cry for the attack being “beauty and booty.” Even the Ursuline sisters in their sheltered convent knew what that was about. Patterson could not reasonable find capable men to crew Louisiana and work Carolina’s guns on such short notice; all the merchant ships who could had left the area taking the local sailors with them. He was shrewd enough to know not to cut off his own nose to spite his face, however – even if Jackson wasn’t – and we can reasonable imagine that it was the Commodore who began the dialogue about using the Baratarians to crew the American ships.

If Patterson did start the dialogue it probably wasn’t with General Jackson, at least at first. He would have been swatted away like a fly at that point. Knowing that, it’s probable that Patterson instead approached Louisiana Governor William C. C. Claiborne and Jackson’s aid, personal friend and long-time resident of NOLA, attorney Edward Livingston. Somehow these men managed to change Old Hickory’s mind. The Baratarians were released from prison and their warrants set aside, provided they agreed to serve either aboard ship or by land. Legend even speaks of a covert meeting between Jackson and the Laffite brothers. This initial meeting was, if it ever happened, so secretive in fact that we have no reasonable historical record of where or even when it took place.

Regardless, Patterson had the seasoned men he needed and just in time. As the British hunkered down on Villere plantation, Carolina and Louisiana slipped down the Mississippi, dropped their anchors and began a near constant bombardment of the enemy. British soldiers, already soaked through by the cold, December rains, were made even more miserable by the constant cannon fire. The threat of death or dismemberment from the persistent guns made it impossible for the British even to build fires to cook over or keep warm by.

Eventually, the British got lucky. Their own guns were trained on the ships, using shot heated before being placed in the cannons, and they hit Carolina’s powder magazine. She literally blew up and sank where she sat. Surprisingly, only one man was lost.

Louisiana kept up the bombardment, which assisted the work of the artillerists on Rodriguez Canal. Toward the end of the high-pitched battle on January 8, 1815, the British managed to cross the river and head up the west bank bent on taking Louisiana and turning her guns on Jackson’s line. Louisiana packed on her sails but found herself in an unfortunate and ill-timed dead calm. Patterson, an able and seasoned seaman, did not let a lack of wind deter him. Within minutes he had men in boats literally rowing Louisiana out of harm’s way via her cables. Moments later the British forces surrendered to Jackson.

Louisiana continued in the service until 1821, when she was broken up and some of her timbers used on other ships.

Both the schooner Carolina and the sloop Louisiana, under Patterson’s capable command, figured prominently in the U.S. victory at the Battle of New Orleans. And their crews, whose names are largely forgotten today, came not just from Yankee shores but from the ranks of those “hellish banditti” whom New Orleans always embraced.

Header: U.S. schooner Alligator, whose lines and sails were similar to those of her contemporary, Carolina

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Seaman

This is a term seldom bestowed among seafaring men upon their associates, unless they are known to be pre-eminent in every duty of the thorough-paced tar; one who never issues a command which he is not competent to execute himself, and is deemed an authority on every matter relating to sea-craft.


Thus begins Admiral Smyth’s definition of the often improperly used word seaman in The Sailor’s Word Book. In the terms used by seasoned mariners, a seaman in a sailor’s sailor. Almost without fail he is an officer who has come up through the ranks, if not starting out there, he has at least spent time as a foremast jack where he learned to heave a lead and haul a cable like any other tar. In his capacity of command he has not lost the memory of those days and, indeed, continues to embrace the work of running a ship. He pushes on the capstan, reefs the sails and works the pumps alongside those he commands. He is sound in judgment; no flogging captain has ever been called a seaman. This type of commander runs a happy ship.

From the annals of history, the names of such captains tend to spring to mind more readily than those of a different nature. Horatio Nelson, James Cook and Thomas Cochrane are all premier examples when discussing the Royal Navy. On the other side of the Atlantic, John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur and David Porter are names that only scratch the surface of such a list. Then too, perhaps to many’s surprise, there were such men among pirates and privateers: Bartholomew Roberts, for instance, was known as an artist, the word used in his era for an expert navigator, and a sober if initially reluctant captain. Woodes Rogers was a right seaman as well, and I would be remiss as an admirer and a descendant to go without including the Baratarians Dominique Youx and Renato Beluche.

In mentioning those last two names, which I always do fondly, the perhaps unfamiliar term seaman-gunner comes to mind. This is a man who has such thorough knowledge of guns and artillery that he is well qualified to both lead a gun crew and train men to the guns. As both men proved on Rodriguez canal that fateful week in 1814-1815, they were both veteran seamen-gunners.

Seamanship is, as Admiral Smyth advises:

The noble practical art of rigging and working a ship, and performing with effect all her various evolutions at sea.

Finally, albeit reluctantly, I must mention that to this day the seaman’s disgrace is another term for that worst case scenario known as a foul – now frequently spoken as fouled – anchor. And a shame it is, too.

Happy Saturday, Brethren; may you all, in your lifetimes or only shortly after, be remembered by your peers as able seaman.

Header: Crow’s Nest by Scott Waddell via American Gallery

Booty: NOLA Navy Week

Since I’m still more “under the weather” (another nautical term) than not, I’m going to let some remarkable and breathtaking pictures do the talking today.


NOLA Navy Week is in full swing down in my ancestral neck of the woods. Beginning last Tuesday, the celebration kicks off the three year commemoration of the United States' second battle for independence, the War of 1812. The festivities will wrap up in 2015, coming full circle and back to NOLA to remember the climactic Battle of New Orleans. A quick salute here to Triple P favorites – and in some cases relatives – present and participating at the battle: Pierre and Jean Laffite, Dominique Youx, Renato Beluche, George Ross, Vincent Gambi, General Humbert and, of course, Andrew Jackson.

With that, allow me to offer these pictures from the Times-Picayune via NOLA.com of some of the gorgeous ships coming in to celebrate with all of New Orleans. Note in particular the men of Ecuador’s beautiful tall ship Guayas, saluting the city from her crosstrees.

Tall ship festivals and Navy weeks are planned at port cities around the U.S. throughout the commemoration. Check your local schedules as far as nearby ports or follow the U.S. Navy on Twitter for continuing updates.

Fair winds to you and to those who sailed before us; rest well, Brethren.

Header: The glorious USCGC Eagle coming into port at New Orleans with the help of a trusty tug via Military Feed

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: 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

Booty: For Sale: One Pirate Ship

If you’re like me, you have dreamed of owning, and in particular sailing, a fully-rigged, accurate-to-every-detail replica of your favorite pirate ship. Some may wish for Drake’s Golden Hinde, others might long for Black Bart Roberts’ Revenge, Sam Bellamy’s Whydah or Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. Or is a privateer more to your liking; John Paul Jones’ Bonhomme Richard, or a handsome frigate like the dear Surprise perhaps? For me the dream will always be Renato Beluche’s brig General Bolivar, the quintessential Gulf privateer.


Dreams like this are a wonderful way to pass a quiet moment but, for most of us at least, they will remain as formless as the ether. For those of you who are in all seriousness, though, there is a ship in the style of Henry Morgan’s Oxford currently available for sale.

As this listing at Maritime Sales online indicates, the ship is a 90 foot, Santa Maria style galleon complete with kitchen, bathrooms, electricity and a diesel engine. It is outfitted as our seafaring ancestors could never have imagined. Her commission is out of Honduras and according to the listing she can comfortably float 78 hands; pirates not included.

Clearly this is the ultimate fantasy. Her lines are unfortunately wide and her below decks look more like a summer camp cabin than a proper place to hang a cot. I’d hate to be in one of those beds in a high sea; in fact, I’m sure no one would be in them for long. But that’s not the point. This is like owning a floating bed and breakfast, and it can all be yours for the reduced price of $750,000 U.S.

Something to contemplate on this, the first of three Friday 13s in 2012.

Header: Pirate ship via maritimesales.com (click the link above for more pictures)

Seafaring Sunday: On Battery Number 3

... artillery could be decisive, and the Baratarians manning Battery Number 3 with their three cannon could speak with a voice far greater than their numbers.

Indeed they did.  On January 8 the British launched their attack, and almost from the first it became apparent that everything was against them.  Dense fog obscured their view of the Americans in their works behind the canal, while Jackson's artillery poured salvos into the mist and the British ranks.  Mismanagement at high levels exacerbated the Redcoats' problems, as did the fall of several high-ranking officers, including the British commanding general.  The enemy never even reached the American line, only a few men gaining the canal before being cut down or pushed back.  Within half an hour, two-thirds of the three thousand soldiers who began the attack had been killed or injured.  Though skirmishing continued for some hours afterward, the battle was over, and the Baratarian gunners had played an important role in breaking up the assault, with Dominique taking a second wound and Gambi shedding his blood as well.

~  from The Pirates Laffite by William C. Davis

Header: The Battle of New Orleans via Haysville Community Library

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

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Hail

While fair weather and a hale crew is always to be wished for aboard us, there’s more to be said about hail than hale, at least at sea.


Of course a man can hail from a city, state or country, whether it be his place of birth or where he currently resides, but so can a ship. She is said to hail from her port of origin, generally the place where she is registered. As an example, Renato Beluche’s schooner Spy, a privateer for the U.S. during the War of 1812, hailed from New Orleans as her letter of mark was endorsed by the Commodore there, Daniel Tod Patterson. Thus any prizes she obtained should rightfully be brought in to NOLA, weather and the soundness of the ship permitting. I will note, purely as a family aside, that the two men hated each other; war makes strange bedfellows indeed.

A ship can itself be hailed, and it is not only in naval service that certain rules apply for doing same. In general parlance, the ship doing the hailing will call “From whence do you come, and where bound?” The answer to these questions should be immediate, or suspicion is aroused. Ships may pass within hail when an urgent need for exchange of information precludes putting boats over the side or time does not permit same. In this case the senior vessel – determined by who is in command – heaves to while the junior passes her stern to receive orders or intelligence.

Hailing a ship at sea was done by voice, flag or gun depending on both distance and the situation. Hail shot was very small balls used specifically for hails and salutes. In the 15th and 16th centuries, a small cannon known as a hailshot piece was supplied to ships for this purpose. Its trajectories were small cubes of iron known as dice.

A man’s good friends within his mess, which may be all of them if he is fortunate, would be known to him as hail fellows. In essence, good company and brothers.

Hailing aloft is done to call the attention of those men who are up in the rigging. As Admiral Smyth snidely remarks in The Sailor’s Word Book:

… call men in the tops and at the mast-head to “look out,” too often an inconsistent bluster on deck.

And that is enough bluster for one day, I shall say. Fair winds and a following sea to all the Brethren. I’ll see you here tomorrow for Seafaring Sunday.

Header: Clipper Ship by Captain Arthur Small