Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
a Spanish galleon spotted Pierre's ship and gave chase—Pierre, Jean's only real friend in the
world.
Pierreescapedinaskiffwithafewothers.Thesemenheadedashore,ditchinginadesolate
cove. Their skiff was recovered later in a lagoon known as Las Bocas. Pierre came down
with a fever, was terribly ill. He made his way on foot, wandering to a village called Santa
Clara, then to a village called Telyas. The pirates carried him to a hut, where he lay as his
fever climbed. Perhaps he saw things in those hours, understood things for the first time.
Palm fronds,green andblue, the colors ofthe pirate life. Hedied onNovember 9,1821.Pink
flamingosrisingfromthebay—wasthatthelastthinghesaw?Twomenwerewithhim.They
carried his body back to Santa Clara, where he was buried in the churchyard. A priest named
José Gregorio Cervera performed the ceremony. According to his friends, Pierre was given
a headstone with his name and the date of his death—no one knew exactly when he'd been
born—but it's since vanished. Much later, Mexican officials placed a stone cross at the spot
where Pierre Lafitte is believed to be buried.
Jean sailed on, unaware of his brother's death. The news reached him months later when
hecameashoreintheVirginIslands.Ithadbeencarriedinthewayofarumor,porttoport.It
nearly killed Jean. He went to the wharf, where the ships stood at anchor, and the men drank
in the rigging, and the sky was black, and the wind never stopped blowing. Jean vanished
after that; the episodes of his later years and death are largely unknown.
In his disappearance, as in so much else, Jean Lafitte the pirate is the spiritual father of
NewOrleans.Thisisacitywhereafriendtellsyouhe'sgoingtogetadrinkandnevercomes
back; you see him 30 years later, in the same clothes, wandering with a go cup, face light-
ing up when he spots you, and he points and says,
There you are!
Boston or Chicago can
have a Ward Cleaver-type patriarch who dispenses conventional wisdom, but New Orleans
needsafatherascrookedandmysteriousasthetown.GeorgeWashingtonwasfromVirginia.
Abe Lincoln was from Kentucky. Teddy Roosevelt grew up in Manhattan. But no one knows
whereJeanLafittecamefromorwhohereallywas.SomesaidhewasaCatholicfromSpain.
SomesaidhewascuredofreligionasaboyinFrance.Somesaidhisfatherwasanoblekilled
bytheguillotine.Somesaidhisfatherwasafisherman,hisfingersscarredbynets.Somesaid
he was raised in wealth; some said he was the pauper who grew into a pirate king.
Others have claimed him as a Marrano, a descendant of Spanish Jews forced to convert
to Christianity but who continued to practice their faith in secret—or, if not practice, then at
least be aware of the secret thing that made them different. According to
The Early Jews of
New Orleans
by Bertram Korn, Jean and Pierre's parents died young, leaving the boys to be
raisedbyamaternalgrandmother,MariaZoraNadrimal,whoseownhusbandhadbeenkilled
duringtheSpanishInquisition.Itwasthisgrandmotherwho“plantedtheseedofhatredinher
grandsons,” which would manifest itself at sea, when the Lafittes took delight in plundering
Spanishships.ThenameLafittemaybeavariationoftheHebrewnameLevi.Afewdecades
