The Cairo bulletin., 1912-08-15

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blacksmiths. Prob Gl XGMzMzW
| ably jeans JEA An 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
rouah work while he stralled about
the city and planned bigger enter
| prises.
Jean LATTE was a blackguard. But
he was a manly, likeable backguard.
| And, once at least. he did cur country
| valiant service. He was a pirate. yer
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 1890, never
| again to be heard of. Others say 1t
was Pierre who get sail in 1890 and
who persisted somewhere in the ocean,
while Jean went to Iucatan and liVed
six years longer In ill,earncd luxury.
| The fact remains that there is no aD-
| sclnte knowledge as to whence Jean
| LATTE came or whittier he vanished.
| He was a man Of mystery.
Louisiana in those days consisted
| largely of rich, unsettled land. into
these waste spaces the pioneers be-
gan to come. Huge plantations sprang
I'D. 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
| 81 900 in the New Orleans market.
| Then the United States declared the
horrible African slave trade Illegal.
J This stopped the imports. The plant
! ers clamored for more slaves. Gangs
of snlugglers met the demand by
| secretly buying slaves intended for
| Spain's 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
! ffte brothers became slave SNUG
glers,
Then jeans fertile brain still furth-
er improved his business in Il 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 1t into
practice. He also seized vessels laden
with other valuables, and altogether
he prSspered exceedingly.
Latitte himself did not go in search
! Of such prey. He was business man,
not a cheap sea rover. BY this time
he had a number of good ships and
nearly one thousand men to send on
! his piratical errands. He had a forth
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, no
was unconquerable. One night a 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" tmeaning lit
| orally "prominenceD And thus the
word boss" came into our own Ian
guage. He seldom spoke to his men
except when he had to and held alooR
from them.
By iudicious brides to the right au-
thorities he managed to steer clear of
factiye 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 LATTE a cap
tains commission and $4,000 to join
them with his men. Instead of ac-
cepting. he sent word OF the OFFER
(and Of the British plot against New
Orleans) to the American government,
volunteering his services in exchange
for pardon. The British, In revenge.
destroyed his Barataria stronghold
and seized his ships. But the Ameri-
can general, Andrew Jackson latter
cursing him for "hellish bandit") &C
cepted Latitte's offer. And the pirate
| fought brayely for America in the bat
lie of New Orleans, receiving a. par
don for all past crimes,
After the war LATTE went blithely
back to his old ways. With his men
he settled on an abandoned island,
where now stands the city of Calves
ton, and made that place his new
headquarters. Thus he was in a
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 conhscated goods, they were
placed on sale, and LATTE and Bowie
each reaped gooGly profit.
A visitor to the pirate lair wrote:
Gold pieces are as plentiful here as
biscuits"
In 1920 the government captured
Lafitte's Galveston camp and hanged
MANY Of his followers.
|