Jackson Island

A map of "Tom Sawyer Island" from the Magic Kingdom

Ragetti
Mike Fink

**Jackson Island** or **Tom Sawyer Island** is the setting for the Frontierland attractions *Tom Sawyer Island* and *Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island*.

## Description

Jackson Island is a series of small islands located in the Mississippi River in Missouri.

### Features

* **Castle Rock:**
* **Cutthroat Corner**
* **Dead Man's Grotto**
* **Fort Langhorn**
* **Fort Wilderness**
* **Harper's Mill**
* **Old Scratch's Mystery Mine**
* **Pirate Point**
	+ **Lafitte's Tavern:**
* **Pirate's Den**
* **Smuggler's Cove**
* **Superstition Bridge**
* **Tom & Huck's Treehouse**
* **Wilson's Cave Inn**: During the 19th century, the Wilson's Cave Inn served as a lair for the river-pirates of Cutthroat Corner.

## History

### Disney Parks

Before it became known as Jackson Island, the isle was home to Indigenous peoples such as the Lakota. In the early 19th century the island was used by New Orleans pirate/smuggler Jean Lafitte made a business from smuggling contraband from the Caribbean into the USA through Baratia Bay, the Louisiana bayous and into American cities. Lafitte would predominately operate out of Pirate Point where he had a tavern outpost.

In 1815 Jean Lafitte was given a pardon in return for assisting President Andrew Jackson in fighting off the British in the battle of New Orleans towards the end of the War of 1812. As a result of this, the island became occupied by the forces of the United States military who made their base in the island's fortresses, reconstituted from trading outposts made for contact between white settlers and the Indigenous. The island was named to Jackson Island for president Jackson and would also go on to briefly serve as a home for frontiersman Davy Crockett and his sidekick George "Georgie" Russell during the wars. The island would also become a home for folk-hero boatsman Mike Fink who docked his boat the *Gullywhumper* on the west coast of the isle where he lived in a cabin.

In 1835 three boys named Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Jim Harper ran-away to Jackson Island which they subsequently renamed to, "Tom Sawyer Island". The three had all been presumed dead and were hiding out on the island while playing pirate with Tom declaring himself, "The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main". Amongst their ranks would be a young Sam Clemens who befriended the boys and played with them on the island. Though no official records of the island's history suggest they had ever truly had a presence on the island, this did not stop Tom and his friends from imagining that they were playing around the old stomping grounds of legendary pirates Jack Sparrow, William Turner, and Elizabeth Swann. In their minds, Will Turner's blacksmith shop was located on the island, the island's caves and shipwrecks were haunted by the spirit of Davy Jones, a pirate genie, and undead pirates afflicted by the Cursed Aztec Gold such as Pintel & Ragetti and a chained prisoner, and the skeletal remains of hapless buccaneers were just laying in the island shallows clutching their loot.

## Connections

### Haunted Mansion

In the late 1990s, Imagineer Eddie Sotto had the idea to retheme Tom Sawyer Island, as a way to combine Pirates and the Mansion into one story. Historical pirate Jean Lafitte would have been the owner of the Haunted Mansion and the central figure of the retheme. The transformation never happened, but some remnants remain in New Orleans Square, such as the 1764 archway and the Pirate’s Lair attraction.. In the Haunted Mansion he is more frequently referenced in non-canon materials such as the comics by SLG where he was an ally to the mansion's founder William Gracey, in the 2003 film continuity where he was an affiliate of Captain Ambrose Gracey who built the mansion, or the audio-book Nuptial Doom where the sea-captain who owned the mansion was a compatriot of Lafitte. These are based on how in an unused concept for the mansion, catacombs under the manor entered through Lafitte's tomb would lead to a pirate's lair on Tom Sawyer Island.

Additionally in the non-cannon Ghost Gallery storyline the dog from Fort Sam Clemens was an ancestor of the Hellhound in the Haunted Mansion while Wilson's Tavern was also visited by Little Leota.

### Oceaneer Lab

The Dead Man's Chest has also been seen in the collection of Captain Mary Oceaneer aboard her vessel the R.V. Oceaneer Lab.

### Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates Lair on Tom Sawyer Island features many characters and entities from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. This includes the ghost of Davy Jones, a ship implied to have been destroyed by the kraken, bone cages of the Pelegostos Tribe, a chest labelled, "Blackbeard" and the pirates Pintel and Ragetti from the films who appear in their cursed state along with an unidentified imprisoned pirate seemingly suffering from the Aztec curse.

The load-area for Pirates of the Caribbean is *Laffite's Landings* and is a boat-landing on the Blue Bayou. This naming choice might indicate a connection with Laffite's smuggling operations between Baratia Bay, through the bayou and into New Orleans. In Disneyland Paris, there is a portrait of Jean Lafitte seen in the possession of a citizen of Puerto Dorado on the isle of Isla Tesoro in the early 18th century. It is shown about to be auctioned off by the auctioneer pirate of *The Wicked Wench*and his enforcer Redd during the Wench's ransacking of Puerto Dorado. The nature of this anachronistic painting is yet unknown but might be the result of the supernatural.

### Skipper Canteen

One of the books in the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen is titled, *Keelboats of the Mississippi* by Fink. Given the title and surname it is very likely that this book was written by Mike though it is also possible that it was a relative of his.

## Trivia

* The Disneyland Paris counterparts to Tom Sawyer Island are Big Thunder Island in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Adventure Isle in Adventureland.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Laffite
2. ↑ https://www.disneyparkscripts.com/liberty-square-riverboat-magic-kingdom/
3. ↑ https://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2010/09/jean-lafitte-and-mega-theme-temptation.html