Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1896-09-12
The STORY Tetler.
TRUE STORY OF LAFITTE.

It does not seem just the right thinl
to 20 about in an iconoclastic wa.
shattering the historic and traditiona
idols of our school days, but truth i
mighty and must prevail. hav'
been giving some attention to ou
time.honored pirates of late, and afte
much research have been forced t,
the conclusion that America has very
little reason to be proud of her pirates
as such. I never did have any faitf
in the piratical genuineness of Captain
Kidd, and as for Jean Laitte-well
am going to expose Jean right now, a.
a very poor quality of pirate. 1t il
true Jean has had great reputation
on the Texas and Louisiana coast
where most of the people take it easy
and work their imaginations only.
For every bay, inlet, swamp, bayou
and island of that waterlogged coun.
try, there are hundreds of yarns o.
sea fights, cruel murders, scuttled
ships, captive maidens, all beautiful
though sad, .scapperst. Running over
with blood, and buried treasures. Ac.
cording to report, enough treasure
is buried along these shores to ever.
lastingly break the gold market, and
as for silver, there is too much of il
to deserve notice. There are guardian
ghosts galore and piles of buried lucre
the location of which is known to old
Negroes, Mexicans, swamp-dwellers
and parties with maps, who, strangely
enough, never profit by their knowl-
edge. In every one of these old tales,
Jean Lafitte appears, towering pre-.
eminent over all.
As q matter of fact, these stories
have no more of truth for their basis
than Sir Walter Raleigh's old fable Of
the golden city of Manoa. 1t might
be asked why this dissemination of
untruth is 30 prevalent. The north:
ern visitor and the occasional cores
pondent come down here, and they
want to know about Laftte. The
native is of an accommodating dispo-
sition, and hates to disappoint the in
quirer, whether he knows anything or
not. If he does not know, as is the
case nearly always, he concocts a tale
to suit the occasion, helping bis imag-
ination with thousand fragments of
stories he himself has
heard from others.
mir uo On rrrru
I have heard q tale about Lafitte
getting in a sea fight and running low
on ammunition. The quick thinking
pirate Immediately hauls out bis treas.
ures of gold and silver, and molds them
into cannon balls, ETC., fires away and
gains hard fought victory.
I read lately that Ex-Governor Hogg
had accurate and unquestioned infor-
nation as to a vast amount of treas
ure buried by Laftte down IN Mexico.
All he had to do was to 60, dig II up and
celebrate. Yet Governor Hogg is
negligent, for he is at Pres
ent in Wall street, New York, where
there is treasure sure enough, engaged
in the laubable enterprise of coaxing
capital into Texas investments.
There is man even now down in
Louisiana seeking information concern
ing Laftte. I last heard Of him from
the swamps around Lake Charles. He
writes, and a newspaper calmly pub,
fishes it, that hefs there trying to hnd
where and how Laftte died. OF all
the places in the world! He might as
we'll 90 to Saghalieu to get information
regarding the removal of the late Sit
ting Bull. He is just as far from the
place of LaAtte's decease, as his pres
ent location is distant from Yucatan.
Now the United States had various
dealings with Lafitte, and the accounts
of these dealings were properly filed
away among the records at Washing
ton, mostly in the form of the husi-
nesslike reports of naval officers. The
contemporary historians of his times
in Louisiana wrote of him, and they
probably knew what they were writ
ing about. The Central American re-
publics, also, Venezuela and Mexico,
had various connections with this re-
puted pirate, and preserved the re-
cords of the same. Tehse things throw
so much light on Laftte's record that
it is easy to form an accurate estimate
as to what manner of man he was.
Judging from such evidence can
but arrive at one conclusion. Laftte
never was a pirate in the ordinary
acception of the term, and never could
have been found guilty of piracy by
any competent and fair court. He
never buried any treasure in Texas
and Louisiana, and append a sketch
of his true history, to show the rea-
sons for such conclusions.
TRUE STORY OF LAFITTE.
Jean Latitte was Frenchman, from
Bayonne. His family left France and
settled upon an estate in the island OF
Hayti. The Haytlans rebelled against
the French dominion, and, being
successful, the Lafittes lost their prop
erty and were compelled to leave,
taking refuge in New Orleans. About
this time, the United States purchased
the Louisiana territory from France
and New Orleans, of course, was part
of the purchase. Jean Lafitte and his
brother were blacksmiths and opened
O.