Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
protected—was established during the first river boom, when the keelboats crowded the wa-
ter bank to bank, and the deck hands took their restless ennui as a cause to raise hell in the
Vieux Carré.
Any river city whose wealth is concentrated and dispersed on ships is going to be lousy
with pirates. New Orleans attracted them from its earliest days. The geography invites it. A
dozen miles outside of town, the land gives way to swamp, bayou, bay. Lake Pontchartrain,
north of the French Quarter, dumps into Lake Borgne, which dumps into the Mississippi
Sound, which is protected from the Gulf of Mexico by barrier islands. If you designed a sea-
scape for piracy, this would be it. There were big islands—Grand Terre, Grand Island—in
the sound, but also lonely outcroppings where the seagrass waved and the earth vanished if
you stepped on it. There were islands covered with dwarf oaks and Spanish moss, a screen
from outsiders. There were groves in the water, trunks rising from the waves. There were
low-lyingislandsthatdisappearedinfloodtide.Therewereinletsandswampsandlandmarks
that served as rendezvous points for pirates, the most notorious being the temple, a mountain
of clamshells that had dominated a barrier outcrop as long as even the oldest Indian could
remember. There were channels between islands, some deep enough to float a ship, some so
shallow onlyaraftcouldgetthrough.Ifbeingchased byaBritish man-of-war,apirogue-rid-
ing pirate could vanish into a narrow, weed-bedecked channel, then emerge into a lost bay.
The entire area was a tangle: reefs, storms, sea surges, tides, roots, alligators, shells, catfish,
and turtles as old as the world. Turn around twice and you're lost forever.
Old Spanish maps identify it as Barataria. The origins of the name are mysterious. Some
say it comes from part two of
Don Quixote
, in which Sancho Panza is appointed governor of
an island called Barataria, a name that rings mock heroic in the original. It echoes the Span-
ish word
barato
, which means “cheap.” In other words, Barataria is Bargainland, a Filene's
Basement for the pirate set, where all items have just fallen off the back of a truck. The bay-
ouswereasmuggler'sparadise,wheregooddealscouldalwaysbefound.Overtime,Baratar-
ia became the subconscious of the city, New Orleans reflected in a dark mirror, a refuge for
all those who'd been driven out or had chosen to live beyond the law. Thieves hid stolen
goods there; fugitives vanished into the weeds. There was a permanent population of run-
away slaves. It was a warehouse where the criminal inventory was stored. (Blackbeard took
refuge in Barataria in 1718, drifted and dreamed as bounty hunters searched in vain.) It grew
alongside thecity.Thebiggerthewarehouses onTchoupitoulas, thebetter thebusiness inthe
bay.
By the 1800s, Barataria was attracting buccaneers. It was everything a pirate wanted: far
away yet close at hand, convenient, within reach of shipping lanes that carried the wealth of
theNewWorld.Themenwholivedtherewerenotpiratesinthetraditionalsense—theywere
privateers. In strongboxes they carried letters of marquesses, documents that deputized them
into foreign navies, giving them the right to prey on ships flagged by enemy nations. In the
