Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Wednesday, May 3, 2000

When 'Buc Days' were real

In celebration of Buc Days, in want of a better excuse, let's consider Jean Lafitte, the most famous pirate, buccaneer, freebooter of the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast. There are many legends linked to the name of Jean Lafitte - and some of them are true.
   He was born in Bayonne, France, in 1780, the son of a Spanish mother and French father. He arrived in New Orleans in 1804 with his brother Pierre. Jean Lafitte operated a blacksmith shop between Bourbon and Dauphine streets, but by 1808 he had a smuggler's base on Barataria Bay below New Orleans. The governor of Louisiana put a price on Jean Lafitte's head, offering $500 for his capture. Lafitte came up with his own wanted poster, putting up $15,000 for the capture of the governor.
   Lafitte dealt in smuggled slaves and was in partnership for a time with Jim Bowie and his brother Rezin. Lafitte was not your classic pirate with a black patch over his eye and a knife between his teeth. He was more likely to be dressed as a gentleman in gray pantaloons and silk shirt. He was described as handsome, with a dark complexion and sleepy eyes.
   He was enlisted by Gen. Andrew Jackson to help defeat a British invasion force in the Battle of New Orleans, fought on Jan. 8, 1815. He was a hero and the toast of New Orleans for a time, but he was not one to quit while he was ahead. He resumed his piratical trade and was run out of his base at Barataria.
   He sailed his fleet to a sheltered bay off the Texas coast and in May 1817 set up shop on Galvez's island. It was a not-quite deserted island. Another Gulf pirate, Louis-Michel Aury, had been using it for his base. But he was gone and Lafitte moved in.
   Lafitte built a town on the ruins of Aury's old camp. He called it Campeachy. The island had been named for a Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez. Besides Aury's pirates, the island had other constituents, the fierce Karankawas. Lafitte called them "demons from hell! They ate two of my men!" Lafitte gained possession of the entire island after one battle in which 30 or more "Kronks" were killed.
   Campeachy was located on the spot that would later become the city of Galveston. The place consisted of slave pens, a slave market, gambling dens and saloons. Lafitte attracted the riff-raff and hard cases of all nations; he had more than 1,000 followers to man 20 ships in the harbor. He built a fort-like house called Maison Rouge. After a hurricane in 1818, Lafitte moved to his flagship, "The Pride,'' and used the red house for a hospital.
   Lafitte's pirates held sway all along the Gulf Coast. One visitor to Campeachy said gold doubloons were more plentiful than biscuits. Lafitte operated under "letters of marque'' given him by rebel regimes in South America. His brigs plundered fat and slow Spanish merchantmen, mainly, but one of his ships made a mistake and captured an American vessel. A punitive force of U.S. warships showed up in 1820 and invited Lafitte to move on. The pirates set fire to Campeachy and sailed away from Galvez's island on May 12, 1820.
   What happened afterwards has been lost in the mists of time. Lafitte had bases on St. Joseph and Matagorda islands and he had a watering spot near Port Isabel on South Padre Island. Some believe Lafitte and his men had a rendezvous off Live Oak Point and divvied up their booty. One legend says he had a camp on Padre Island and it was here where he buried some $2 million in Mexican silver bars and Spanish gold under a millstone marker. These "Treasure Dunes" were located on the northwest tip of Padre Island beside Packery Channel. Another legend says a golden spike driven into the heart of a Spanish dagger plant (the yucca plant) marked Lafitte's buried plunder somewhere west of Corpus Christi.
   Lafitte went on to the Yucatan peninsula, where he died in 1826. That ended the legendary era of buccaneers on the Texas Gulf Coast. Many of Lafitte's lieutenants and mates settled along the coast and became respectable citizens. But perhaps one of his freebooters was not quite able to give up his piratical ways. When Sam Houston was governor, a man was hanged on Mustang Island for setting false lights in the sand dunes, trying to wreck vessels entering Aransas Pass.
   Sources: Caller-Times archives; Galveston News, Aug. 15, 1939; Frontier Times; "The Indians of Texas'' by W.W. Newcomb Jr.; "Lone Star'' by T.R. Fehrenbach; "Coronado's Children'' by J. Frank Dobie; "A Texas Coastal Bend Trilogy'' by Hobart Huson; "From Sail to Steam'' by Richard Francaviglia; and "Texas Forgotten Ports,'' Vol. 2, by Keith Guthrie.
  

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