The Daytona daily news. [volume] (Daytona, Fla.) 1903-1926, 1912-12-06


ably lea IA JEAN LATTE
splendid, handsome giant, the hero Of
this story-never welded hammer or
shod horse in all his career. In
stead, he made negro slaves do the
rough work while he strolled about
the city and planned bigger enter
prises.
Jean Lafitte was a BLACKBOARD. But
he was a manly, likeable BLACKBOARD.
And, once at least, he did our country
valiant service. He was a pirate. Yet
some historians say he went to sea
but twice in his life-once when he
came from France to New Orleans as
a youth and once when he sailed
away from America in 1920, never
again to be heard of. Others say it
was Pierre who set sail in 1920 and
who persisted somewhere in the ocean,
while Jean went to Yucatan and lived
six years longer in ill-earned luxury.
| The fact remains that there is no alb
solute knowledge as to whence Jean
| LATTE came or whittier he vanished
| He was a man of mystery.
Louisiana in those days consisted
| I6SAy VI liCtlS UuoClllN0 idh0. 4AtO
these waste spaces the pioneers be
gan to come. Huge plantations sprang
up. To work the plantations there
was need for thousands of negro
| slaves. And the slave trade between
Africa and America throve tremen-
| dously. A negro that cost $40 in his
African Jungle could often be sold for
| $1,000 In the New Orleans market.
Then the United States declared the
| horrible African slave, trade. illegal.
This stopped the imports. The plant
ers clamored for more slaves. Gangs
eef smugglers met the demand by
secretly buying slaves intended for
SPANS Cuban and South American
plantations and landing them by night
in the Louisiana bayous. There was
money In this sort of business. More
than in blacksmithing. SO, the La
| fitte brothers became slave Snug
| glers.
Then Jeans fertile brain still furth-
er improved his business In a rather
original way. What was the use of
buying negroes from the Spanish
slave ships off the Cuban coast when.
by selling those ships, he could get
the negroes for nothing? 1t was
clever idea and he at once put it into
Il practice. He also seized vessels laden
with other valuables, and altogether
he prospered exceedingly.
LATTE himself did not go in search
of such prey. He was a business man,
not cheap sea rover By this time
he had number of good ships and
nearly one thousand men to send on
his piratical errands. He had a forti-
fed town and harbor Of his own at
Barataria and made that place his
headquarters. Jean had marvellous
control over his men, and, though he
seldom troubled himself to fight, he
was unconquerable. One night band
of mutineers attacked him in his
cabin. Lafitte, single-handed, slew six
of them and beat off the rest
The pirates called Laftte, behind
his back, THE Old Man" To his face
they called him "Bosse" (meaning lit
orally "prominence"0. And thus the
word boss" came into our own Ian
guage. He seldom spoke to his men
except when he had to and held aloof
from them.
By iudicious brides to the right au-
thorities he managed to steer clear OF
active prosecution. though countless
governmental threats were hurled at
him.
When the British planned their at
tack on New Orleans in the War Of
1912 they offered Jean Lafitte a cap
tain's commission and $4,000 to join
them with his men. Instead of &C
cepting, he sent word of the offer
(and of the British plot against New
Orleans) to the American government,
volunteering his services in exchange
7 for a pardon. The British, in revenge,
l destroyed his Barataria stronghold
: and seized his ships But the Ameri-
: can general, Andrew Jackson latter
cursing him for "hellish banditD ac-
cepted Lafitte's offer. And the pirate
= fought brayely for America in the bat
r tie of New Orleans, receiving a par
: don for all past crimes.
5 After the war Lafitte went blltheIy
, back to his old ways. With his men
he settled on an abandoned island
where now stands the city Of Calves
r ton, and made that place his new
r headquarters. Thus he was in a
7 sense the real founder Of Galveston
He hit on an odd way TO sell his
struggled slaves. He would arrange
for Colonel Bowie Inventor of the
bowie knife) to seize them from him
! and to take them to New Orleans
; There, as confiscated goods, they were
placed on sale, and Laftte and Bowie
. each reaped goodly profit
. A visitor to the pirate lair wrote:
: Gold pieces are as plentiful here as
9 biscuits"
In 1920 the government captured
Lahtte's Galveston camp and hanged
many of his followers