Brave Lafitte, The

DESCRIPTION: "Each young land bird I'm sure has heard Of the ocean lamb and wolf," for Lafitte/Laffite is known by both titles. His piracy makes him rich, and he brings a girl to his island home. He is attacked near home, and his girl killed; he vows revenge
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1850 (The Forecastle Songster, according to Frank-NewBookOfPirateSongs)
KEYWORDS: pirate death revenge disguise cross-dressing
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
c. 1809-1821 - Career of Jean Laffite
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Thompson-BodyBootsAndBritches-NewYorkStateFolktales, pp. 41-43, "The Brave Lafitte" (1 text)
Frank-NewBookOfPirateSongs 68, "The Brave Lafitte" (1 text; #41 in the first edition)
Roud #V28306
NOTES [746 words]: Much of this song is "sort of true." The DAB gives a brief account of the life of Jean Laffite (the DAB spelling). He and his brother Pierre were real pirates, probably of French origin; by 1809 he was operating in the Gulf of Mexico and marketing his wares in New Orleans. In 1814, as the British prepared to attack New Orleans, they tried to bring Laffite to their side. Instead, he sided with the Americans, and helped fight off the British in the New Orleans campaign of 1814-1815; the Lafittes were given pardons as a result.
That didn't make them good citizens, though. If this song refers to anything, it is either to an attack by the Americans on Laffite in 1814, or more likely an attack in 1821, which ended with Laffite burning his island settlement and sailing away. His eventual fate is unknown.
Latimer, pp. 370-371, says of him and the people who lived around Barataria, Louisiana, "Before 1810 the Baratarians were sailors and fishermen of little consequence who made a modest living avoiding government duties and smuggling through French and Spanish domains. The prohibition on importing slaves -- imposed in Louisiana four years before it was imposed nationally -- prompted the previously small-time Baratarian smugglers to become big-time bootleggers of slaves.... In the summer of 1810 Lafitte became the Baratarians' agent in New Orlaneas, and... with 'a conscience as elastic as any politician could wish for,' he was soon chosen as their leader. With his brothers, Pierre and Dominique, he held sway over a successful business enterprise protected in the bay by a battery of heavy guns." They were perfectly happy to capture American ships as well as those of other nations.
By the time of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, "Lafitte was... desperate; his headquarters had been raided and burned, his ships had been sequestered, and his fortune was all but gone. If Louisiana fell to the British he and his men would be lucky to escape with their lives; hit if the Americans won, his lawyers told him, and if he could play some dramatic part in their victory, they might contrive a pardon and the possibility of recovering his treasure. On 18 December he called on Jackson and said that he had a substantial cache of powder and ammunition and 1,000 men willing to fight. Reluctantly, Jackson agreed to accept his services" (Latimer, p. 377). Clearly fighting on the American side didn't make him a good person. But the Americans won, so he managed to survive.
Latimer's general conclusion is that Lafitte's support didn't really help the Americans all that much -- but if he had accepted the British offer, the British probably would have approached New Orleans through Baratarian territory, and very likely would have won the battle they so signally lost. So Lafitte did do the Americans some good. Whether that justifies giving a pardon to a slaver is another question. Of course, Andrew Jackson gets no points for his treatment of Blacks -- he reportedly recruited slaves as soldiers with a promise of setting them free, then reneged on the promise (Latimer, p. 387).
None of the historical accounts of him offer any evidence of a girlfriend who is killed while in disguise. This appears to derive not from actual history but from popular journalism; DictPirates, p. 189, tells us that "Novels and fictional biographies have heightened the romantic elements" in his life, As examples he cites Byron's "The Corsair" and Joseph Ingraham's 1836 story "Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf." According to DictPirates, p. 190, Ingraham's book tells of Lafitte being "Redeemed by the love of a good woman." So I would guess that it is the source of this song.
There are many books about Lafitte; this list is not comprehensive (and may not always be the first edition):
Mary Devereux, Lafitte of Louisiana, ?, 1902
Ariane Dewey, Lafitte the Pirate, Greenwillow Books, 1985
Catherine T. Gonzalez, Lafitte: The Terror of the Gulf, Eakin Press, 1981
Winston Groom, Patriotic ire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Lafitte at the Battle of Los Angeles, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006
Lyle Saxon, Lafitte the Pirate, Pellican Publishing, 1989.
Robert Tallant, The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans Random House, 1951
There is also The Journal Of Jean Laffite: The Privateer-Patriot's Own Story, which I suspect is not worth the paper it's written on.
There was also apparently a movie by Cecil B. DeMille, "The Buccaneer." But I suspect it's pure fiction. - RBW
Bibliography Last updated in version 7.2
File: TNY041

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