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Was the Journal of Jean Laffite an Original, a Copy or a Forgery?

October 19, 2013 in American History, Ancient History, Caribbean History, general history, History, Louisiana History, Texas History

This photo of the Laffite family copybook on the left and the Journal of Jean Laffite n the right was contributed by Pam Keyes. Both documents were acquired by the Sam Houston Regional Library from John A. Laffite.

What is the difference between a forgery and a copy? How can you tell something is a good copy of an original document and has not been altered? And if it is, indeed, a copy, how do you go about recognizing alterations in the copied document? What is the distinction between a facsimile and just a copy, and is every good forgery a facsimile?

These are questions that come up over and over again in life. Sometimes people rely on physical evidence to determine the age of a document, based on the age of the papyrus it is written on or the ink it is written in. If it’s a clay tablet, carbon dating can help establish its age.

But the age of a copy is not conclusive when it comes to the question of when the original might have been written. Here is one example: we have many, many copies of the Old Testament. But we have no original. That does not mean that there was no original; it may have been written so long ago that it would have been destroyed by now, and the only reason we know about it is because of the copies. It is also possible that the original of some or all of the books was not written down but passed orally from one generation to the next, so that the scribe or scribes who first wrote it down were not the authors of the text. The original might have been a sequence of memorized words that passed from one living brain to the next until someone transcibed it. Once transcribed, this text was copied extensively. The copies were not forgeries. They were not meant to pass for originals. They were merely meant to transmit and preserve the text. Copies are all we have.

The copies were made by scribes, and their job was to write down word for word, letter by letter the same things as the scribe who came before them did. But sometimes a scribe made an error. Sometimes the error is so obvious that any modern reader of Hebrew could point it out and correct it, as if it were a typo. But because the scribes were sworn to copy exactly what was written and not add or subtract a jot, when they spotted an error, they just kept copying it word for word, letter for letter. Over the generations, quite a few errors accumulated.

In addition to all this, since the Old Testament is composed of more than one book, written at more than one time, by more than one author, there are arguments about which books are more authentic or which are just something that got inserted much later and really does not belong there. And also, some things have been intentionally altered by later scribes to go along with changing social mores and religion. Biblical scholars often have to use document-internal evidence to try to ferret out what is what. And the discovery of an older copy, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Kaifeng Scrolls, which may have been less open to more modern tampering, can shed some light on what the original is more likely to have been like.

Having established that authorship and scribeship are separate issues, we should also take into account the difference between the copy of a document’s textual content and a facsimile copy which is meant to represent exactly how the original document looked, even though it is not the original.

In the case of the Old Testament, scholars now understand that when the text was first set down in writing, it could not have been in the Assyrian script in which Hebrew is currently written, which was borrowed from Aramaic and imported into use for Hebrew after the Babylonian exile. Instead, early Hebrew was written in letters more nearly resembling the ancient Phoenician alphabet. But as much as the letters were different in appearance, it was still the same alphabet with a one to one correspondence of symbols to symbols. Hence the text has come down to us letter by letter transcribed, though the letters look entirely different from those in the original. The text matters. What it looks like, considering that there is no original, does not matter. Nobody claims that any of the scrolls that we currently have access to, however ancient, is a facsimile copy of an original.

In all these cases, none of the copies are deemed to be forgeries, just because they are not original. Forgery, for the purposes of this discussion, would only occur if a modern person tried to create an older looking scroll and pass it off as something that it is not. But even in the event of such an attempt, most of the text would still be an accurate copy of another copy. The thing that would make it a forgery would be trying to pass a new copy off as an old copy. It would not change the document’s validity as some sort of copy of a very old document that no one currently living has ever seen the original of.

The Old Testament is not the only book to be subject to this kind of scrutiny or to require this type of analysis. Many a copied document can be found which has no original extant, and all can be subjected to the same type of analysis.

Take what is commonly known as “The Journal of Jean Laffite.” Ostensibly this was an original document presented by John A. Laffite, aka John Andrechyne Laflin, aka John Nafsiger or John Matejka, as the original, unaltered one and only journal of the famed privateer. Some have claimed it to be a forgery, created by the man who presented the document to the public. But even if it is a forgery, what exactly would that mean to those who are interested in the text rather than in the artifact in which the text is embedded?

The Journal as an artifact is a kind of notebook written upon by an ink pen, with a number of old newspaper clippings inserted within, and with some drawings and other extraneous matters. To determine its age would allow us to know if it was written at the same time as the text purports to have been written, but it does not tell us who is the author of the text, nor when the text was composed.

Composing a text and writing it down are two very different things. In some cultures, oral texts are passed on from one generation to another until one day someone writes them down. The person who transcribes these oral texts is not the author. That person is merely a scribe. Authentication of the text, in the event the scribe is suspected of having invented it, involves finding other versions of the same text elsewhere, circumstantial evidence of the existence of the text that long predates the writing and also text internal evidence that indicates through linguistic cues just how old the text really is.

In determining whether the Journal of Jean Laffite text is a hoax devised in the twentieth century or a genuine text from the period and by the person it is ascribed to, here are some of the issues that must be addressed:

The language in which it is written: in this case, a Creole French patois common to the Cuba-Haiti islands sprinkled with some hispanicisms. According to linguist Gene Marshall, who studied and translated it, the writing is in a style common before 1850.
The spelling and other idiosyncracies not common to all writers of the dialect.
The story it tells in terms of its detail and accuracy.
Whether it is similar to other such documents, if any are available
The voice of the author or narrator, and whether it conforms to the voice of other available documents known or believed to be written by Jean Laffite in the latter part of his career.
The handwriting, but not necessarily as proof of scribeship or authorship, but as possibly pointing to the author or the scribe of the original document, in the event that it is a forgery.

If the text is genuine, but the particular copy which we have available at the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center is not the original or not of concurrent age with the text, then it may well be a financial loss to the institution that purchased it, as its market value would be greatly reduced. But its value as a historical text would in no wise be diminished, if the sequence of words that it enshrines is a genuine and authentic transcription of a text whose author was the privateer Jean Laffite. That is the difference between the value of a forgery and the value of an accurate copy of a text.

It is said that John Andrechyne Laflin, aka John A. Laffite, aka John Nafsiger, did not speak French at all. It is said that those French speakers he had access to were not speakers of that dialect of French used in the Journal. It is known that there was not just one copy of the journal but at least two, as another copy was lent to Madeleine Fabiola Kent, who used it as background information when writing her novel The Corsair. If all these facts are true, and if indeed it were to turn out that John A. Laflin/Laffite/Nafsiger did copy the text of the Journal of Jean Laffite in a hand that looks very much like that of the famous privateer’s, then he could not have been its author, though he may have been a forger. If he was a forger, what did he forge? A copy of an original. But the very existence of the copy tends to corroborate the existence of an original.

How could a man who did not read or write French forge a document in a French Creole? One way is if he was indeed an expert artist, by looking at the original not as a text at all, but as a picture that must be copied line by line, angle by angle, correctly, much in the way a photocopier duplicates a text or a photo without understanding what it is copying. To do this, a forger has to be a great savant or a great artist. There is no evidence that John Andrechyne Laflin/Laffite/Nafsiger had that kind of skill or talent. Even if he did, the Journal of Jean Laffite is probably not a facsimile copy of the original journal, because it incorporates genuine newspaper clippings into the notebook in which the journal is copied.

Even if there was no forgery, and the document known as the Journal of Jean Laffite was actually written by the hand of Jean Laffite himself, it is still a copy. There is nothing blotted out. The text flows without interruption. Clearly this is a composed text whose composition took place elsewhere than in this notebook. The copy we have is just a copy. And there were other copies, for it was Jean Laffite’s stated intention to leave a copy for each of his grandchildren, of whom there were several.

When examining the Journal of Jean Laffite for purposes of proving its authenticity or lack of same, it is also good to keep in mind the following basic rules of thumb:

Though Jean Laffite may be the author, this does not mean that everything he wrote was true – or for that matter, that anything he wrote was true. People have been known to prevaricate when telling the story of their lives. They have even been known to misremember. Therefore, finding an inaccuracy or historical untruth does not necessarily cast doubt on the authenticity of the text.
If the language of the text is very different in one or more sections than in the body of the work, it is more likely that those parts are not part of the original document but were added or embellished upon later.
Suspected alterations should be judged by the four corners rule for document interpretation: the internal consistency of the document will determine what parts must be errors or extraneous.

A forgery is an attempt to create a facsimile copy that passes for an original. A forged signature, for instance, to be effective, needs to duplicate an original signature almost identically. A copy that is not a forgery is merely the transmission of a text through duplication. It need not look the same in its typography or handwriting. Sometimes a copy is also a forgery. But being a forgery does not necessarily prove that a copy is a bad copy. In fact, the better the forgery, the more a copy resembles the original.

REFERENCES

http://www.historiaobscura.com/an-interview-with-pam-keyes-about-jean-laffite/ (For background on Jean Laffite scholarship.)

http://www.bubblews.com/news/1356968-what-is-forgery-and-why-is-it-wrong (About Forgery and the artistry it involves)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Memoirs-Jean-Laffite/dp/0738812536 (Gene Marshall Translation and commentary)

http://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-possibly-written-centuries-earlier-text-suggests.html (For what the Hebrew letters used to look like during the period when the Hebrew Bible was first written down.)

Tags: Andrechyne, Assyrian Writing, facsimile, forgery, Hebrew, Jean Laffite, John A. Laffiten, John Andrechyne Laflin, Nafsiger, Old Testament, Pam Keyes, Phoenician alphabet, Sam Houston Regional Library, The Journal of Jean Laffite 3 Comments »

by Aya Katz

An Interview with Pam Keyes about Jean Laffite

September 30, 2013 in American History, Caribbean History, general history, Louisiana History, Texas History

Pam Keyes is the Research Coordinator of the Laffite Society and a well known expert on the history of Jean Laffite and of the artifacts and written evidence that are available on the life of the famous privateer. In this interview, I asked her questions concerning Jean Laffite that have been preoccupying me for some time.

Pam discusses her own history with the Laffite Society and its precursors, the primary documents that she has examined herself that pertain to Jean Laffite, the evolution of Jean Laffite’s signature, the controversial Journal of Jean Laffite, and the way Jean Laffite may have viewed himself.

Could you tell us a little of how you came to know about Jean Laffite and to take an interest in his life story?

I first came across Jean Laffite when I was nine years old and my parents and I went to a double feature movie in 1964 at the drive-in featuring the 1958 “The Buccaneer” along with Danny Kaye’s movie “The Five Pennies.” I was quite enthralled by the movie (not to mention the extreme charisma of Yul Brynner who played Jean Laffite) and the message of how Laffite helped the Americans even after they blew Barataria to bits. There was even a Classics Illustrated comic book about the movie which I got at the neighborhood grocery store that week, and well, everything just sort of snowballed from there. Of course I found out from the encyclopedia that the movie had been romanticized by DeMille, and there was no governor’s daughter, nor Corinthian pirated American ship, etc., but the basic story was true.

My local library had a couple of books about the Battle of New Orleans in the children’s section, but nothing else. When I got a bit older, around 11 or 12, I found Madelyn Fabiola Kent’s novel “The Corsair” in the adult section, and read it voraciously. I did not know at the time that Ms. Kent had used one of the Jean Laffite journals for background information for her novel. Puberty hit, and my interest in Laffite dropped off by the wayside until I was around 15, when I started looking for more about Laffite. This was not easy to do, considering I lived in Oklahoma, some 750 miles from New Orleans, and at the time there was no such thing as the internet, only letters.

In Antique Trader’s newspaper which the library carried, I found a classified ad listing a copy of Stanley Arthur’s “Jean Laffite, Gentleman Rover,” and purchased it. I remember it was quite exciting to learn from that book that there were Laffite manuscripts and journals around, and that a descendant was living in Kansas City in the 1950s when the book was published. I wanted to see the frontispiece 1804 portrait of Laffite in person, and I was sure that the museum at Kansas City probably had it, so I convinced my parents to take me to Kansas City on a search. No portrait was found, nor any other leads on that trip, and I returned dejected, but not ready to give up.

I placed an ad in the Kansas City Star newspaper asking for information about the Laffite portrait from anyone who knew anything about it. One of John A. Lafitte’s old neighbors in Kansas City responded and gave me the name and address of the descendant’s ex-wife, Lacie Surratt, who had remarried and moved to Spartanburg, S.C. Lacie gave me the name of her friend Audrey Lloyd, a Laffite researcher in Midland, Texas, and Audrey in turn pointed me to Robert Vogel, who was just at that time starting a new group called The Laffite Study Group, based in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. Vogel led me to longtime Laffite researchers Ray and Sue Thompson at Gulfport, Miss., Dr. Jane de Grummond, a history professor at Louisiana State University, John Howells, a Laffite enthusiast at Houston, Texas, and historian Dr. Jack D.L. Holmes.

We all carried on a lengthy correspondence over the years. Vogel came to visit me in Oklahoma when he was on his way down south one year, and I visited Dr. de Grummond at her home in Baton Rouge three times, but most of us never met face to face. I had corresponded with Howells for 25 years before I met him at Galveston in the late 1990s when I went to a meeting of the Laffite Society, a group which had formed after the Laffite Study Group disbanded around 1991. I also met Lionel Bienvenue, who served as historian at Chalmette Battlefield, around the time the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park was being created. I was a member of the citizen input group for plans for the park in the 1980s.
There’s a lot, lot more I could relate, but that’s the gist of how my interest in Laffite started. My favorite movie to this day is the 1958 Buccaneer.

What primary documents have you examined over the years concerning Jean Laffite’s life? The signature of Jean Laffite in his letter to President Madison is quite different from the signature in the Journal of Jean Laffite. Is this dispositive of the issue of authenticity of the journal? Do you think the same man could have made both signatures? How does each of the signatures compare to other signatures attributed to Jean Laffite in other documents?

The signature of the letter to President Madison

The very first primary document signed by Jean Laffite that I ever saw was his 1815 letter to President Madison. I was 11 years old at the time, walking through a manuscript display at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., when I spotted the Laffite letter. Somehow, I intuitively knew even then that Jean had not written the body of the letter, with the incorrect spellings, etc. Some years later, after seeing other Laffite manuscripts, this early assumption on my part turned out to be valid. The signature, however, is correct for Jean at that period of his life. Both Jean and Pierre Laffite’s signatures changed over the years: Pierre’s, due to ill health; Jean’s, due to a psychological shift, based upon my study of the few available manuscripts available. There are several notarial documents in the New Orleans Notarial Archives signed by Pierre, but only a few that are signed by Jean, and all bear a rather small understated form of his pre-Battle of New Orleans signature, usually with the first name being shortened to Jn with a strike through the first name from the cross on the double t’s, and the surname enclosed in a circle paraph.

In the New Orleans city archives at the New Orleans library, I happened across a previously unknown Jean Laffite signed document when I opened up a case file pertaining to Vincent Gambie from 1815, and a statement signed by Jean Laffite quite literally dropped into my lap. This one bore a transitional signature, still small, but without the strike-through. Some Laffite manuscripts I have only seen in exact copies and color photographs, such as the Oct. 4, 1814 French letter Jean Laffite wrote to Edward Livingston at a very tumultuous time in Jean’s life. This one has the first name struck through, and the last name circled to focus importance on the Laffite surname.

Next up for examination is the Laffite signature on the Le Brave ship’s articles document, from August 18, 1819 (the original is at the federal archive at Fort Worth, ironically the closest authentic Laffite manuscript to me, but I have never been there in person. I do, however, have an exact photographic image of the complete manuscript). The Le Brave signature is bold, larger than any of the preceding signatures, but with the same slant and same general form, with some significant differences: the strike through on the first name has now become an underline, and the first and last names are one unit. No longer is the Laffite name by itself encircled, but underlined with a fancy paraph that ties the bottom of the two f’s together. The ink pressure is heavy and fluid, with no hesitation. The whole body of the Le Brave document appears to be in the same penmanship as the signature, and that is interesting, too, as every millimeter of the paper is used on the right margin, sometimes with a curious dash where no dash is really needed. The handwriting is very legible. The next sample, also a photograph, is an 1819 letter to James Long which Jean Laffite wrote and signed (this is in the Mirabeau Lamar collection at the Texas State Archives, Austin.) The handwriting and penmanship are virtually identical to the Le Brave document.

The real test of a Jean Laffite signature and penmanship awaited me in examining first hand the Laffite Journal collection at Sam Houston Library, Liberty, Texas. I had the exact size color images of the Le Brave document of 1819 with me to compare side by side with the Laffite Journal signatures and handwriting. The Laffite Journal itself was a match, but some of the accompanying manuscript was not. Based on this comparison, it is my (admittedly layman) opinion that the Laffite Journal is authentic and not a forgery. No inconsistencies with the handwriting were found within the entire Laffite Journal. As for the language of the Journal, which at first glance appears to be an archaic Creole French, linguist Gene Marshall said it is polyglot with mixtures of English, Spanish and French, and shows a good command of grammar for the time

Jean Laffite signature from the Journal

The letter to President Madison contains a number of spelling errors as well as a poor choice of vocabulary. He spelled sentiment with an initial letter “c”, even though it is a French word borrowed into English and spelled in English the same as in French. He used the word “notorious” to describe himself and his associates without realizing that it had a bad connotation. What do his spelling errors and diction choices tell us about Jean Laffite’s command of English, his command of other languages, such as French and Spanish, his education and his social class?

Although Jean Laffite appears to not have been able to write fluently in English, he could read it fluently, as evidenced by his apparent favorite news publication, the Jeffersonian political editorial newspaper Aurora of Philadelphia, Penn. The fact that he was highly literate in a language not his own demonstrates that either he had had advanced schooling, or was intelligent enough to teach himself. According to historical accounts by contemporaries, Jean seems to have been better at conversational English than the written form, so perhaps he did teach himself by being around English speakers. This ability to do business in three languages plus a knowledge of proper manners helped secure his social status, too, as a middle man bridge between the rough, mostly illiterate ship captains, and the old French and Spanish families of New Orleans and environs.

How many copies of The Journal of Jean Laffite were there when John Andrechyne Laflin first made it public? Were they each believed to be in the hand of Jean Laffite? Is it possible that the original document could have been copied by hand by someone else so that each Laffite heir could have a copy?

We only know about two copies of the Laffite Journal: the one that Madelyn Kent read for her background material in The Corsair, and which she obtained from John A. Lafitte, who borrowed it from a cousin (so he said), and the Laffite Journal which is in the collection at Sam Houston. No copies of the one read by Kent are known to exist, but it is known that John A. did have to sue her in order to get it back. The cousin who owned it has never been found. The Laffite Journal we do have copies of is definitely a copy of an original document, but it is a copy made by the same person as who wrote the first, that is, it is completely in the Jean Laffite handwriting of the authentic Le Brave document of 1819. There are no mistakes crossed out, and the writing goes into the right hand edge, even into the gutter of the journal book. I used to own a similar autobiographical journal, an ms written by a Connecticut shipbuilder in 1848 for his descendants, and it also was a handwritten copy, one of five written for his grandchildren. There were no writing mistakes in it, either. Stylistically it was very similar to the Laffite Journal, leading me to believe in the 1840s, that was the thing some men did, was write out the stories of their lives for their descendants. The thing that is striking about the Laffite Journal is he starts right off saying he doesn’t want his descendants to release the contents of the journal until 1952 (one hundred and seven years from the start of the journal). John A. Lafitte could not read French, so he couldn’t read that, but interestingly, 1952 is precisely when the contents of the journal did begin to be released.

In the case of those who are firm in their belief that the Journal of Jean Laffite is a forgery, what evidence do they base this conclusion on? Has the the Journal been discredited to the satisfaction of all reputable historians or is this still an open question in historical circles?

There are many reasons why so many people consider the Laffite Journal a forgery, but the main one is the fact that the person who is first known to have had it, John A. Lafitte, was a proven con man whose abused wife secretly told her friend Audrey Lloyd that “he made it all up” and studied how to age paper and ink, etc., etc.

This pretty much damned John A. Lafitte and the Journal collection in historical circles, but only long after he had died. There are signs in the Laffite collection at Sam Houston that some things were obviously added and altered to enhance the value of the collection, and the whole collection went though two fires, one at John’s A’s house, and one at a tv station. He tried to sell the collection to autograph dealer Charles Hamilton at first, and Hamilton was quite enthusiastic about it, but then fishtailed out. The collection was sold shortly before John A’s death for $15,000 to Texas autograph dealer William Simpson, and Simpson had his friend, John Howells, examine it in detail for a couple of years before selling it to former Texas governor Price Daniel. (Howells had the collection sitting underneath his coffee table for those two years while he tried to authenticate it with examinations of the handwriting and paper). When the Laffite Journal first became public, historians Jane de Grummond and Harris Gaylord Warren both thought it was authentic back in the 1950s and 1960s. Dr. de Grummond believed in its authenticity until she died. I don’t know if Warren changed his mind, I didn’t correspond with him. Robert Vogel is extremely anti-Laffite Journal, a position he shared with Ray and Sue Thompson.

Because there was so much doubt about the circumstances surrounding the Laffite Journal’s provenance, most serious historians of later years haven’t even bothered to examine it in detail themselves. The only one who has done so is William C. Davis, who spent three days looking at it. He based his unbiased conclusion that it wasn’t authentic on the surrounding material in the collection, plus historical inaccuracies in the translated journal. He is not a handwriting expert, so did not make a comparison in that respect. He weighed it solely based on its historical aspects, and noted that there is nothing in it that wasn’t in some book or newspaper article published before the Laffite Journal came to light. One current historian who does think it is authentic is Winston Groom, but he never conducted an onsite examination of the Laffite Journal and collection, confining his research to telephone questions of the Sam Houston archivist at the time, Robert Schaadt (who also believes in the authenticity of the Laffite Journal).

The final chapter remains to be written about the Laffite Journal, though; it has never successfully been proven to be a forgery, nor has it ever been proven to be authentic. It remains in a gray, enigmatic haze. With modern technology, the question of its authenticity could be determined forensically, but no one wishes to do this. Sometimes people prefer to let things stay a mystery even when an answer can be obtained.

Is there any documentary evidence, such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports or other official documents to verify the lineage of the descendants of Jean Laffite?

Re documentary evidence of descendants of Jean Laffite, there is only a bit regarding the birth and death of his son by his black mistress, Catherine Villard. There are some indications that he had a daughter, Adele, by Catherine. Adele’s descendants seem to mostly be in Puerto Rico now. The black descendants of both Pierre and Jean Laffite are hard to track because during the 1800s, most passed for white and intermarried with whites by hiding any traces of their black lineage. This is especially true of Cubans who migrated to Puerto Rico. Several direct descendants of Pierre Laffite and his black mistress Marie Villard have been located, and there is every reason to believe that Jean could have just as many. Regarding the white wives and marriages for Jean given in the Laffite Journal, no documentary evidence has been found. Likewise, no evidence has been found for Jean’s white children, except for one statement from the Sallier family of Lake Charles that a daughter of their family was named for Denise Laffite.

7. What can we learn about the character of Jean Laffite from the various letters to the editor that he was known to have sent in during his lifetime? What were his politics? How did he see himself as a public figure?

Jean Laffite did not leave many letters from which to interpret how he felt about things, or even what his personality was like, but the one prominent letter to the editor which he did write gives some clues about who he was, and his self-image. This letter, published in the Aurora newspaper of Oct. 3, 1815, was written while Jean was staying in Baltimore before proceeding to Washington, D.C., to try to get an audience with President Madison. The weekly Aurora publication of Philadelphia was the pre-eminent Jeffersonian publication of its time nationally. Jean’s choice of this newspaper to publish his letter shows that he shared its pro Jeffersonian democracy and anti-Federalist sentiments. It is not surprising that he would like this editorial stance, given that the paper was heavily sympathetic to the French and Napoleon.

In the letter Jean takes issue with lies that have been published in various gazettes the past two years calling him a pirate who preyed on American ships, and says he has letters of marque which prove that he and those working for him were privateers. and he never committed an act of piracy. He further states that if anyone can show that he or those he ordered did commit an act of piracy or injustice, they should contact the appropriate officials and he would willingly appear to answer any such charges. He did not want people to call him a pirate, because in those days, pirates were hung. Privateers, who were licensed by their letters of marque from Cartagena or Buenos Ayres to take Spanish ships, were respectable captains who made fortunes legally from their captured prizes. Pirates were regarded as ruffian murderers who thought nothing of torturing captured crews in truly horrible ways. Privateers were thought of as captains who treated their captured prizes humanely. Pirates were regarded as scum. Privateers were honorable, and often gentlemen. However, the only true difference between the two often just boiled down to a piece of paper with a seal attached, a paper which might or might not be legitimately from Cartagena or Buenos Ayres.

What can be learned about Jean from that letter to the editor? He wanted to be regarded as a proper gentleman privateer captain, someone who could be respected. He cared about his social standing, not just in the New Orleans area, but at large, which is why he wrote the letter to the editor.

This desire for respectability is quite likely the reason why the Laffites assisted Jackson and the Americans during the British invasion of Louisiana. Jean and his brother Pierre were already socially accepted by the French residents of New Orleans as middlemen for smuggling ventures, but they seem to have both wanted acceptance by the Americans and fractious Gov. William C.C. Claiborne as well. Jackson’s lack of flints, powder, and skilled artillerymen provided the perfect opportunity to gain respect, especially after the Americans destroyed the Laffite base at Grande Terre a few months before and jailed several Baratarians captured there, and after Pierre had spent a miserable summer in the Cabildo jail before escaping. The Laffites could have packed up and left for other places, but they stayed put to help, because that’s what they both wanted to do. Why? It seems quite obvious they wanted to be thought honorable, even in the face of extreme adversity from those they would help. A presidential pardon had been extended to them, but neither Laffite ever accepted one.

Jean Laffite gained prominence over his brother Pierre in the aftermath of the Battle of New Orleans, but something happened that soured him on New Orleans and made him want to not rest on his laurels. Jean did not become a hero overnight. New Orleans politics were as corrupt then as they are now, and the Laffites found themselves fighting to get restitution for the losses they had suffered from the Baratarian raid. Most of it went into the pockets of raiders Patterson and Ross. Jean made his trip to the East Coast in late 1815 to try to get restitution from the president, but the mission was a failure. He must have been very depressed upon his return, enough so a mapping expedition into Arkansas territory with his friend Arsene Latour seemed like a good idea to get away from it all. He accepted a new role along with Pierre as a spy for Spain, even though they had preyed on Spanish ships. Jean made a coup on Louis Aury and assumed control of Galveston, a place where he finally realized his potential without the domineering brother Pierre nearby.

This happy state of affairs wouldn’t last long, though, as the severe hurricane of Sept. 12, 1818, made a direct hit on Galveston and nearly decimated the Laffite camp. Jean was strong enough emotionally to take charge of the recovery efforts and was able to get food and water to the other survivors, but things were never as good after that. The year of 1819 was a year of financial ruin for the United States, and it was likewise a horrible year for Jean Laffite, as his newly purchased ship Le Brave, with his signed and fully written ship’s articles onboard, was caught in an act of piracy off the Belize by US authorities. The captain and crew, with two exceptions, were found guilty of piracy in New Orleans and sentenced to be hung. Jean Laffite had reached his nadir, his name was attached to a pirate ship. Under US pressure and protection, he abandoned Galveston not long before the Le Brave pirates were strung from the yardarms at New Orleans.

Jean and Pierre drifted toward Las Mujeres, then split apart. Jean got caught by Cuban authorities but due to some friends there got put in the hospital and managed to escape, then made it to Cartagena to get a commission as a privateer on the General Santander. He was a licensed privateer again, but not for very long, as he ran afoul of merchants in Kingston who petitioned for his arrest due to piracy on merchant vessels in the Bay of Honduras and Balize. A newspaper account in the Gaceta de Colombia claimed he had died in a sea battle with two Spanish vessels off the Honduran coast, but it seems like too neat and tidy an ending. He needed to disappear, considering there was a noose waiting for him in Kingston. Newspaper stories were easy to make up. So did he give up the sea life and return to the US under an assumed name, as the Laffite Journal indicates? Well, since the handwriting and signature of the Laffite Journal of the 1840s is identical to that of the Le Brave ship’s articles of 1819, the answer must be yes.

RELATED ARTICLES

http://www.historiaobscura.com/the-scrapbook-of-jean-laffite/

http://www.pubwages.com/26/lobbying-the-madisons-letters-to-james-and-dolley

http://www.historiaobscura.com/the-new-orleans-bank-run-of-1814/

://www.bubblews.com/news/1203349-the-signature-of-jean-laffite

Tags: Aya Katz, Jame Madison, Jean Laffite, Laffite Society, Pam Keyes, The Buccaneer, The Journal of Jean Laffite, the languages of Jean Laffite, the signature of Jean laffite 8 Comments »

by Jerilee Wei

Was Your Ancestor A United States Sea Fencible?

September 2, 2013 in American History, Louisiana History

As a life long student of history, the first time I came across the term “sea fencible” I was shocked to learn that this British naval militia term for the men who were in a naval militia to provide defense in times of war between France and Britain — also applied to the seafaring men who protected the cities of Baltimore, Boston, New York, Norfolk, and Philadelphia between 1813 and 1815. This little known Congressional Act passed by Congress on July 26, 1813 during the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain allowed for ten separate companies to protect the ports and harbors of the United States. The officers received monthly pay, rations, and uniforms. The pay ranged from $23 on the low end to $40 for Captains. The enlisted sea-fencibles who were generally boatswains, gunners, and privates received pay that ranged from $12 for privates up to $20 for a boatswain. The United States sea fencibles only existed from July 26, 1813 to February 27, 1815 when Congress repealed the act and then replaced it with the Corps of Sea Fencibles.

Oddly, the commanding officers were under the direction of the army while the rest of these Sea Fencible company was under the direction of the Navy. Typically, a company consisted of a total of 107 men, officers and enlisted combined. Currently, there is a push to establish a comprehensive list of War of 1812 ancestors made possible by the War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files at Fold3.com. Because there are over 7.2 million pages within 180,000 files that are in extremely poor condition restoration efforts are a huge undertaking. Donations are being sought: Preserve The Pensions for this very worthy cause of making these pension records free and available to all historians, genealogists, and public seeking to know this little known part of history during the War of 1812.

In the meantime, it might be fun to contribute to the preservation of knowing who severed as a sea fencible under the officers listed below from other sources that a bound to exist in books, documents, and hidden away in historical society collections. Was one of your ancestors one of them? If so we’d love to hear from you, please include any document citations.

Alphabetical List of Known Sea Fencible Officers That Served in the War of 1812

*Note: Dates are date of rank.

Adams, William P. 1st Lieutenant, Massachusetts, June 21, 1814

Addison, William H, Captain. Maryland – April 27, 1814

Barker, Peleg, Captain, New York, July 11, 1814

Bayner, Richard, 1st Lieutenant, North Carolina, August 7, 1813

Boner, John, 3rd Lieutenant, North Carolina, August 7, 1813

Brooks, Frederick, Captain, North Carolina, August 7, 1813

Bunbury, M. Simmons, Captain, Maryland, October 1, 1813

Contourier, John J., 1st Lieutenant, South Carolina, August 4, 1813

Cummings, James J., 1st Lieutenant, North Carolina, August 1, 1813

Davis, John S., Captain, New Hampshire, June 27, 1814

Du Bose, John, Captain, August 1, 1813

Dubose, John , Captain, South Carolina, August 4, 1813

Foy, Gregory, 1st Lieutenant, Maryland

Gill, John, Captain, Maryland, November 25, 1813

Gorsuch, Gerard, 3rd Lieutenant, Maryland

Green, George W., 1st Lieutenant, Maryland

Hardwick, John, 3rd Lieutenant, August 1, 1813

Isaacs, John M., 3rd Lieutenant, New York, July 2, 1814

Kalm, John, 1st Lieutenant, Delaware, July 22, 1814

Lytke, William, 2nd Lieutenant, North Carolina, August 1, 1813

McNair, George, 3rd Lieutenant, Maryland

Mitchell, Bird B., 2nd Lieutenant, North Carolina, August 7, 1813

Morris, Lemuel, Captain, New York, August 4, 1813

Newell, Thomas M., Captain, Georgia, August 1, 1813

Newman, James, 2nd Lieutenant, Maryland

Nicols, Abraham, 1st Lieutenant, Georgia, August 1, 1813

O’Neal, Ferdinand A., 2nd Lieutenant, Georgia, August 1, 1813

Robinson, Caleb P., 2nd Lieutenant, Maryland

Russell, William, 1st Lieutenant, New York, June 4, 1814

Tabor, Pardonr, 2nd Lieutenant, New York, June 18, 1814

Terry, Noah, Captain, New York – June 18, 1814

Williamson, John M., 1st Lieutenant, New York – June 18, 1814

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by Jerilee Wei

The Six Crew Members Who Deserted “La Bergere” in 1785

July 28, 2013 in American History, general history, Louisiana History

There are always stories behind the story. There are always stories hidden within the story. This is one of them. Let’s begin by thinking about how the headlines today often portray cruise ship horrors where passengers are stranded with non–working toilets, no hot water, no electricity, incompetent and non-responsive foreign crews and other such inconveniences for just a few days. The passengers disembark with YouTube videos of their “trip from hell” eager to post their indignant protest over their recent voyage. Their ordeal makes the nightly news around the country and eager lawyers even emerge to get those ship passengers their due for their ruined voyage. Ruined trips aren’t a modern problem. Ship horror stories are nothing new, not even on the obscure pages of history, just ask any Cajun or Acadian historian.

More than 700,000 Cajun people are living today in Louisiana. Even more of us live outside Louisiana. Virtually every Cajun in the United States shared one common bond — their Acadian ancestors most likely arrived on one or more of these seven ships (Le Bon Papa, La Bergere, Le Beaumont, St. Remi, L’Amitie, L Ville d Archangel, and La Caroline). They were among the survivors of Le Grand Derangement brought upon them by the British who stole their lands, burned their homes, destroyed and separated families, and sent the remainder into exile and imprisonment. Out of eighteen thousand Acadians, more than half our ancestors perished during this cruel and tragic chapter in history that began in 1755. Thirty years of exile later, nearly sixteen hundred of these Acadians jumped at the chance to relocate in the New World once again. However, their journey back to the promised land began with another hardship, that of the voyage.

Fears of being ship wrecked were the least of the worries of “impressed” sailors.

The hidden story here revolves around the second of the seven ships, “La Bergere.” It’s not about the Acadians onboard who had no privacy with seventy-three families consisting of two-hundred and seventy-three people of all ages crowded and cramped on a small ship of three hundred tons, with two decks and one lone cannon. The passengers slept on the floor and in hammocks. No running water of course, in 1785, but they did have barrels of water. No toilets of course. There was certainly no way to bathe. The only fresh meals anyone had were what could be caught on the voyage. This supplemented the daily ration of bread, hard biscuits, cheese, salted and dried cod fish, salt meats and light vinegar. Taking into consideration that their voyage would last 95 long days and nights, the inconvenience of a stranded and limping cruise ship passenger of today — probably isn’t worth mentioning. They would have laughed at modern day ideas of suffering.

On a side note, it is worth mentioning that the passengers of this ship’s ordeal did not end once they arrived in New Orleans. You see, they traveled minus their luggage and trunks. Nothing got loaded on the ship. They arrived in New Orleans on August 15, 1785. Two months later, they were still in New Orleans awaiting their luggage that never arrived on subsequent ships. All their few possessions, lost once again. It is also interesting that while history did not record any disease traveling with this ship, as it did on some of the Acadian sister ships, it is known that six elderly passengers died during that trip. Another aspect is that seven children were born during that voyage. That should have made the cramped and uncomfortable accommodations quite a tale to tell for the other passengers, not to mention the women who bore those infants and what they must have endured arriving in this New World.

There is a bigger story here. It isn’t found in the mystery about the ship that was owned by Mosneron Dupin or the elusive Captain Alexandre Deslande. The hidden story within this Acadian story is instead — about the crew of twenty-five men, with the oldest being the cook at age 48 and the youngest crew member being a 13 year old cabin boy. It lies in the question of why six of the crew members would abandon this ship just ten days before it arrived in New Orleans and what became of them?

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT THE CREW OF “LA BERGERE”

MAJOR OFFICERS

CAPTAIN – Alexandre Deslandes (age 32) of Nantes

SECOND CAPTAIN – Rene Brechard (age 35) of Sables of “Olonne

LIEUTENANT – Jospeh Legle (age 19) of Paimboeuf

SURGEON – Ange Bouffart (age 24) of Rennes

PILOT – Pierre Darbefeuille (age 19) of Nantes

PETTY OFFICERS

BOATSWAIN – Francis Frioux (age 41) of Paimboeuf

COXSWAIN – Jean Guillaume (age 34) of Montoir

FIRST CARPENTER – Julien Thaul (age 33) of Paimboeuf

SECOND CARPENTER – Luc Clereux (age 36) of Pellerin

NON-PETTY OFFICERS

Antoine Buchete (age 48) of Nantes

SEAMEN

Louis Fantou (age 38) of Nantes

Guinolay Forest (age 24) of Batz,

Jean Vacares (age 23) of Genes

Renes Camus (age 47) of Vannes

Nicholas Lhuilier (age 23) of Oron in Lorraine

Felix Felon (age 24) of Avignon

Francois Sevin (age 19) of Dinan

Jean Chedanteau (age 20) of Montoir

Jean-Pierre Marchand (age 20) of Paimboeuf (2nd Cooper)

Yves Goudelin (age 21) of Diocese of St. Brieuc

Pierre Marce (age 20 of St. Mars-du-Desert

Nicolas Blouin (age 25) of Angers

CABIN BOYS

Jean Normand (age 15) of Bourgneuf

Francois Friou (age 13) of Paimboeuf

Francois Audat (age 14) of Clisson

The exodus of seamen began in August 4th, 1785 when Louis Fantou and Nicolas Lhuilier deserted the ship at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The very next day — Francois Seven, Jean Chedanteau, Yves Goudelin, and Nicolas Blouin would also abandon ship. That was half of the seamen onboard “La Bergere.” Did they swim to shore? Did they row ashore? Where did they go? Remember, in 1785, the penalties for deserting ship were not only the loss of pay, but also under penalty of probable hanging. Were conditions that awful? Was there a mutiny involved? Or did these men plan all along to seek their fortunes in the New World and never intended to go back to France? What would become of them?

Only one of them, Nicolas Blouin, would emerge in official records to go on living in New Orleans and to have descendants today. Two others, however, unofficially would re-emerge as crew members some thirty years later under the employ of Jean and Pierre Laffite. They were both in their fifties when they fought in the Battle of New Orleans. The other three disappeared from all known recorded history. One single fact emerges about the seamen, both those who stayed with the ship and those who deserted — all of the twelve seamen started that voyage as “impressed” sailors — meaning that they were forcibly placed into service onboard that ship. It was a voyage that unlike their passengers they did not take willingly. One can only suppose that this was the story beneath the reasons they may have deserted.

Tags: 1785, Acadians, Alexandre Deslandes, Crew list La Bergere, crew members, deserters, Exiled Acadians, exodus of seamen, Jean Laffite, La Bergere, Passenger list La Bergere, Pierre Laffite 6 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Gideon Granger, a Postmaster General with an Intelligence Gathering Mission

July 24, 2013 in American History, general history

Gideon Granger (wikipedia)

Gideon Granger received his appointment as Postmaster General from the newly elected president,Thomas Jefferson, in 1801. Because Granger had been instrumental in helping Jefferson obtain the office of President in a highly contested and extremely confusing election — his running mate Aaron Burr very nearly beat him to the presidency — Jefferson was very much beholden to Granger. It was understood between the two of them that some very high office would be awarded to Granger as a reward for his services, but which office exactly it was not immediately clear.

Here is a copy of the letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote Granger offering the job with the United States Postal Service, reproduced here from the Raab Collection.

A facsimile of the original letter from Jefferson offering Granger the job (from the Rabb Collection)

The letter is dated October 12, 1801. Jefferson writes: “Since my letter of this day sevennight [sic], the question as to the public office has taken a turn different from what was then expressed. Neither of the two then named is to be vacant, but instead thereof the Postmaster general’s place, this being of equal grade, emolument and importance. I propose it to your acceptance with the same satisfaction as either of the others. Perhaps you will consider it as more eligible than the treasury, as that would have obliged you to call on your friends to become your sureties for of 150,000 D, that being the sum fixed by law. Judging the feelings of others by my own, this would not have been pleasant. Let me hear from you immediately while the same reserve as to others is kept up.” Jefferson closes with “affectionate respect.”

Gideon Granger served as Postmaster General from November 28, 1801 to March 17, 1814. He was still the Postmaster General during most of James Madison’s presidency. Here is a letter from Gideon Granger to President James Madison from 1811.

A letter from Gideon Granger to James Madison (from eBay)

Granger writes: “in consequence of receiving the enclosed note I have diverted the mails to be kept open this night, except the express mail — “.

What were the duties of the Postmaster General during the tenure of Gideon Granger? When was it all right to divert the mail, express or otherwise? What sorts of direct communication between the President and the Postmaster General concerning the mail, its delivery and its content would have been appropriate? Was intelligence gathering part of the mission of the Postmaster General’s Office?

The historian Henry Adams had this to say about Gideon Granger: “…the most active politician was Gideon Granger, the Postmaster-General, whose ‘intimacy with some of those in the secret,’ as Jefferson afterward testified, gave him ‘opportunities of searching into their proceedings.’ Every day during this period Granger made a confidential report to the President ”

Granger had Jefferson’s ear, and when he wanted to be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1809, Jefferson wrote to the then current president, James Madison, in support of Granger’s bid for that high judicial office. Madison did not accede to this suggestion, and instead he appointed Joseph Story, even though Story had not supported the Embargo Act sponsored by Jefferson.

Historian Roger Kennedy writes: “Granger remained Postmaster General but went into skulking opposition to Madison. There is strong evidence that he conspired with Clinton to replace the president in 1812, but until 1814 Madison still deferred to Jefferson’s expressed confidence in Granger. In that year .. the Postmaster went into outright revolt, appointing Madison’s political enemies to lucrative postmasterships. Madison had had enough and threatened to fire him. Granger turned … to blackmail. First he attempted to terrify Madison himself with disclosures about his wife. While Dolley Madison was a widow under reduced circumstances, Burr may have been only a friend, but , Granger let it be known, others had been more than friends, and he had letters to prove it.” (Kennedy 276).

Eventually Madison dismissed Granger, and the Postmaster ended his days as a country squire. However, for twelve years the United States Postal Service was presided over by a blackmailer, a letter opener and a government spy. What effect did this have on the correspondence between and among citizens?

One thing that people did was to write in cipher. These ciphers were often simple substitutions and not as sophisticated as today’s encryption. But such attempts to deal with government surveillance of private communication were sometimes met with countermeasures from the US government and by other governments. Sometimes when a letter was opened and found to be in cipher, it was simply not delivered.

An Excerpt from the Google Books version of Charles Felton Pidgin’s “Theodosia: The First Gentlewoman of her time”

Corruption begets corruption. A system of rewards of public office for political allies can have a lasting effect on the communication and morale of an entire nation, and this can lead to disastrous results both in times of peace and during war.

REFERENCES

http://www.raabcollection.com/thomas-jefferson-autograph/thomas-jefferson-signed-sold-thomas-jefferson-names-gideon-granger-his

Adams, Henry.

Kennedy, Roger G.

Pidgin, Chares Felton.

Suggested Reading

If you are interested in reading a fictional account of how Gideon Granger’s postmastership inhibited communication during the war of 1812, try this book:

Tags: Aaron Burr, corruption in office, Gideon Granger, government cronyism, intellligence gathering, Postmaster General, spying on the mail, Thomas Jefferson, United States Postal Service 4 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

The New Orleans Bank Run of 1814

June 25, 2013 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History

New Orleans merchants, planters, and other citizens rushed the Planter’s Bank, Bank of Orleans and Louisiana Bank in panic in mid April 1814, desperate to exchange their paper bank notes for specie (mostly gold and silver Spanish coins), but nearly all were refused, with the banks locking their doors early to avoid the hostile crowds. There was no specie to be had. Pandemonium ensued_ were the bank notes worthless tender?

The Louisiana public already was edgy due to the continuing wartime embargo and to the British warship blockade of the Balize below New Orleans. The British ships successfully harassed shipping by most merchants heading to and from New Orleans, plus the trade traffic from the Gulf of Mexico to the upper Mississippi River.. Almost the only ones who could avoid the blockades consistently were the Laffite brothers’ Baratarian privateers. The smugglers brought captured prize goods in to sell at auction, often at the Temple site near New Orleans, attracting large crowds of eager buyers who were only too happy to pay in silver reales, pieces of eight, and gold doubloons for such items as German linen, exotic spices, glassware, wine and other trade goods. Thanks to the restrictions of the War of 1812, the Laffites’ smuggling operation had a virtual monopoly on imported goods which were cheap due to avoiding the customs duty and the fact that the Laffites got them for free from captured Spanish prize ships.

When the New Orleans banks ran out of specie, it was only natural for the public to immediately pin the blame on the smigglers, sure that they, and they alone, had drained the port city of all that gold and silver.

Stoking the fires of public animosity toward the Baratarians that spring of 1814 was none other than prominent New Orleans attorney Edward Livingston. At an address to a meeting of concerned citizenry at Tremoulett’s Coffee House on April 29, 1814, Livingston concurred with the generally held sentiment, accepted as fact by the populace, that the scarcity of specie could “be almost entirely ascribed to the encouragement shown to the Baratarian pirates.” When specie could be obtained earlier, “immense sums were daily carried away to purchase goods at Napoleonville, as Lafitte (sic) has not unaptly denominated the capital of his empire.” Many planters made trips to the Laffite base at Grande Terre to purchase slaves and other goods, and it was Grande Terre that was nicknamed “Napoleonville.”

It is particularly curious that Livingston agreed with the public at this meeting that the Laffites were to blame, since at almost the same time as the bank run, Livingston was named chairman of the secretive New Orleans Association, an expansionist group of the elite which had evolved from the previous Baratarian Association of the Laffites and their privateers. The Laffites were members of the New Orleans Association, so apparently Livingston was playing both sides against the middle. Interestingly, it was also during this time period that Livingston became the power broker for the some 21 members of the elite who controlled the ciy economically and politically.

Presidents of all three New Orleans banks agreed it was in the best interests of the community to suspend payments in specie and to accept each other’s bank notes as payment in kind. They assured their customers that nothing would be neglected “to preserve your properties their full value, and maintain the public credit at a moment when the want of specie may produce the ruin of various classes of the community.” The statement was published widely and signed by Thomas Urquhart, president of the Louisiana Bank; Dusuau De La Croix, for the president of the Planter’s Bank, and Benjamin Morgan, president of the Bank of Orleans.

A committee composed of merchants William Nott, Caizergnes, H. Landreaux and P.F. Dubourg and attorney Mazureau was formed to investigate the cause of the shock upon the public credit in New Orleans, a shock which contemporary newspapers said was “severely felt through all the ramifications of Society.” According to New Orleans merchant Vincent Nolte, this committee did find the true cause of the specie shortage to have been a personal vendetta between the two chief cashiers at the Planter’s Bank and Bank of Orleans, T. L. Harman and Joseph Saul (both British-born immigrants), but the committee chose not to inform the public of this fact. Instead, the specie shortage was blamed on the “accumulation of produce in our stores, for which there is no vent, and in the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of receiving supplies through the usual channels.” In other words, they blamed the wartime embargo. The public dismissed this finding outright and continued to blame the Laffites and their men.

The species shortage continued throughout the summer with no relief, and animosity toward the Laffites simmered among the very merchants who had profited handsomely from their smuggled goods in happier times. Even some of the privateers’ French friends were getting hostile.

By early July 1814 things reached a boiling point and Pierre Laffite was arrested in the French Quarter on a charge of piracy and thrown into the Cabildo jail. A grand jury formed around the same time, and issued indictments for piracy among other Baratarians as well. Jean Laffite stayed around Grande Terre and avoided the authorities. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Louisiana Gazette and New Orleans Advertiser in which he tried to allay the public’s suspicions about the earlier specie disappearance from the banks. Jean wrote that several rich prizes had been brought into Barataria, and that the public could share in the profits of the trade, as specie was not the only payment accepted. He stressed bank note money of the banks of New Orleans also would be received for goods sold, pointedly saying this was proof of the “blind and stupid opinion of the late Grand Jury of this city, who stated that our trade contributed to drain the country of its specie.” He stressed, “We deal in specie instead of carrying it away.”

However, the die was cast in the public eye of not only the New Orleans area, but throughout the nation, as reports of the Baratarians’ actions draining specie made the newspapers throughout the country. The negative public relations would soon prove disastrous to the Laffites and their operations.

When the British ship Sophie and Captain Nicholas Lockyer visited Grande Terre the first week of September 1814 and tried to bribe Jean Laffite into siding with the British, Jean wasted no time in turning over the British letters to Louisiana Governor W.C.C. Claiborne via Jean Blanque, saying he wished to assist the American cause. This was the chance at redemption that the Laffites needed, but it was far too late. Pierre Laffite escaped from the Cabildo jail even as the governor and his council perused the letters, and naval Commander D.T. Patterson already had orders in place to blast Barataria to bits, confiscate ships and property there, and arrest whomever could be caught. The public was not made aware that the Laffites had offered to help in defence. The existence of the British letters was later made public, but it seems everyone thought those were among the papers found by Patterson during his raid on Barataria.

Patterson and his gunboats arrived at Grande Terre on Sept. 16 and met with no resistance from the privateers present, per Jean’s orders not to fire on Americans. Both Jean and Pierre Laffite escaped to friends along the the German coast above New Orleans. Second in charge Dominique Youx and several other Baratarians were taken prisoner and placed in jail in New Orleans to face possible hanging.

In late September, a ship finally arrived in New Orleans from Vera Cruz with much-needed specie on board. The specie was immediately deposited in the Planter’s Bank but was not exchanged for bank notes among the populace.

The Laffites were now fully aware of how dire their situation was. In early October, 1814, Jean Laffite wrote a letter of entreaty to Livingston, thanking him for earlier assistance and begging him for whatever help he could provide in rescuing him from his current troubles. Livingston, for his part, was telling the newly formed Committee for Public Safety of which he was chairman, that the Baratarians’ assistance could be helpful for the American cause. Meanwhile, the Grand Jury was continuing to hand down indictments to not only Baratarians, but also to some New Orleans merchants whose papers had been found in the raid on Grande Terre,

When Major General Andrew Jackson arrived at New Orleans in early December, Edward Livingston was probably the one who convinced him to accept the Baratarians’ assistance in defending the city from the British. By mid December, Dominique and the other jailed privateers were freed on a conditional pardon, and the Laffite brothers emerged from hiding. Jackson’s men were poorly armed and had no backup supplies. Jean Laffite and his men provided all the gun flints and powder that the Americans had through the ending battle of Jan. 8, 1815, according to Jackson’s later accounts. Jackson also praised the Laffites and their men for their assistance in winning the battle against the British.

In reflecting about how all this came about, and the available information about the political and economic condition of the city, it seems the Laffites were motivated to help the Americans to expunge the extremely negative aftermath of the bank run of April 1814. The damage to their social standing was already done, though, and could never be wiped clean.

One has to wonder what would have happened if, at the time of the bank run, the public had been made aware that the real reason for it was that cashier Joseph Saul of the Bank of Orleans wanted to attract the Planter’s Bank customers of cashier T.L. Harman to his own bank as they were mostly planters who allowed their deposits to lie longer than the merchants were accustomed to do. Saul had collected his rival’s bank notes until he had amassed a large group, then presented it to the Planter’s Bank on a day when he knew the amount of the notes far exceeded the silver held by that bank, Then Saul made sure everyone at the coffee house knew about the shortfall, and the run on the Planter’s Bank happened, but it didn’t end there. The public also rushed to the other two banks, demanding specie when there wasn’t specie to be had. So why didn’t the investigating committee tell the public the true reason for the bank run? Most likely, no one wanted to be called out to a duel by Saul, who was notorious for being a hothead and an expert boxer who thought nothing of beating someone up for irritating him.

People will always believe what they want to believe, so even if the truth of the matter had been stated at the time, perhaps the Baratarians would still have been blamed. Perhaps not.

Maybe, in a what if alternate ending, the Patterson raid would never have happened, and the Laffites would have moved away from New Orleans before the British invasion so they couldn’t have been said to have assisted the British; Jackson and his men would have had no flints or powder to fight the British when they advanced at Chalmette on that famous day of Jan. 8, 1815 and thus would have lost the battle. General Pakenham would have lived and declared a British victory. The Treaty at Ghent would be nullified, the US would have returned to British rule. Everything would have turned out differently, all due to a case of petty jealousy among two bank cashiers.

8 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Theodosia Burr Alston’s Letters on Behalf of Burr in Exile

June 24, 2013 in American History, general history

Aaron Burr went into exile in Europe in 1808 following his acquittal in the trial for treason. At first he had high hopes of procuring funding for his interrupted Mexican expedition, but those were soon crushed when Spain and England became allies. Burr was forced to leave England, and with this began a lonely journey through Europe with ever diminishing funds. Throughout it all, Burr kept up a correspondence with his daughter Theodosia Burr Alston, whom he did not wish to alarm by his dire circumstances, but who nevertheless served as his closest confidante.

One urgent problem that delayed Burr’s return to the United States was that having given up all hope of successful funding in Europe, he did not have a passport to allow him to reenter his native land. On the 10th of November, 1810 Burr wrote from Paris:

Alas, my dear Theodosia, I have no hope of seeing you this winter. 
It is more than five months since I have been constantly soliciting 
from this government a passport for America. Fair promises and 
civil words have been received, but nothing more. It would be folly 
to hope, yet daily some new occurrence or new promise inspires new 
hope. . . . The only consolation which I can offer you for this dis- 
appointment is that my health continues unimpaired, and I have 
the present means of support. A little addition to those means would 
not be inconvenient. Continue to write to that gentleman on whose 
unpaid notes I relied, and of which not a cent has been received. . . . 
Not a line from you since August, 1809, fifteen months ago. It is 
only by mere accident that I know you were living last July. ... I 
live with a very amiable Genevoise family, of which I am a member. 
Every morning I devote half an hour, sometimes an hour, to you.

. Theodosia, for her part, made every effort that she could to secure help for her father, most notably in her letters to Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin and to the first Lady, Dolley Madison.

Below is a letter to Secretary Gallatin dated March 9, 1811 that Theodosia sent from The Oaks:

Though convinced of your firmness, still with the utmost diffidence 
I venture to address you on a subject which it is almost dangerous to 
mention, and which, in itself, affords me no claim on your attention. 
Yet, trusting that you will not withhold an opinion deeply interesting 
to me, and which your present station enables you to form with 
peculiar correctness, I venture to inquire whether you suppose that 
my father's return to this country would be productive of ill conse- 
quences to him, or draw on him farther prosecution from any branch 
of the government. 

You will the more readily forgive me for taking the liberty to make 
such a request, when you reflect that, retired as I am from the world, 
it is impossible for me to gather the general opinion from my own 
observation. I am, indeed, perfectly aware how unexpected will be 
this demand; that it places you in a situation of some delicacy; and 
that to return a satisfactory answer will be to exert liberality and 
candour; I am aware of all this, and yet do not desist. 

Recollect what are my incitements. Recollect that I have seen my 
father dashed from the high rank he held in the minds of his country- 
men, imprisoned, and forced into exile. Must he ever remain thus 
excommunicated from the participation of domestic enjoyments and 
the privileges of a citizen; aloof from his accustomed sphere, and 
singled, out as a mark for the shafts of calumny ? Why should he be 
thus proscribed and held up in execration ? What benefit to the coun- 
try can possibly accrue from the continuation of this system ? Surely 
it must be evident to the worst enemies of my father, that no man, 
situated as he will be, could obtain any undue influence, even sup- 
posing him desirous of it. 

But pardon me if my feeling has led me astray from my object, 
which was not to enter upon a discussion with you. I seek only to 
solicit an enlightened opinion relative to facts which involve my best 
hopes of happiness. 

Present, if you please, my respects to Mrs. Gallatin, and accept 
the assurances of my high consideration.

To Dolley Madison, Theodosia wrote:


Madam 
You may perhaps be surprised at receiving a letter from one with 
whom you have had so little intercourse for the last few years. But 
your surprise will cease when you recollect that my father, once your 
friend, is now in exile; and that the President can only restore him to 
me and his country. 

Ever since the choice of the people was first declared in favor of 
Mr. Madison, my heart, amid the universal joy, has beat with the hope 
that I, too, should soon have reason to rejoice. Convinced that Mr. 
Madison would neither feel nor judge from the feelings or judgment 
of others, I had no doubt of his hastening to relieve a man whose 
character he had been enabled to appreciate during a confidential 
intercourse of long continuance, and whom (he) must know incapable 
of the designs attributed to him. My anxiety on this subject has, 
however, become too painful to be alleviated by anticipations which 
no events have yet tended to justify; and in this state of intolerable 
suspense I have determined to address myself to you, and request 
that you will, in my name, apply to the President for a removal of the 
prosecution now existing against Aaron Burr. 

Statesmen, I am aware, deem it necessary that sentiments of lib- 
erality, and even justice, should yield to consideration of policy; but 
what policy can require the absence of my father at present ? Even 
had he contemplated the project for which he stands arraigned, evi- 
dently to pursue it any further would now be impossible. There is 
not left one pretext of alarm even to calumny; for bereft of fortune, of 
popular favor, and almost of friends, what could he accomplish? 
And whatever may be the apprehensions or the clamors of the igno- 
rant and the interested, surely the timid, illiberal system which would 
sacrifice a man to a remote and unreasonable possibility that he might 
infringe some law founded on an unjust, unwarrantable suspicion that 
he would desire it, cannot be approved by Mr. Madison, and must 
be unnecessary to a President so loved, so honored. Why, then, is 
my father banished from a country for which he has encountered 
wounds and dangers and fatigue for years ? Why is he driven from 
his friends, from an only child, to pass an unlimited time in exile, and 
that, too, at an age when others are reaping the harvest of past toils, 
or ought, at least, to be providing seriously for the comfort of ensuing 
years ? I do not seek to soften you by this recapitulation. I only 
wish to remind you of all the injuries which are inflicted on one of the 
first characters the United States ever produced. 

Perhaps it may be well to assure you there is no truth in a report, 
lately circulated, that my father intends returning immediately. He 
never will return to conceal himself in a country on which he has 
conferred distinction. 

To whatever fate Mr. Madison may doom this application, I trust 
it will be treated with delicacy. Of this I am the more desirous as 
Mr. Alston is ignorant of the step I have taken in writing to you, 
which, perhaps, nothing could excuse but the warmth of filial affection. 
If it be an error, attribute it to the indiscreet zeal of a daughter whose 
soul sinks at the gloomy prospect of a long and indefinite separation 
from a father almost adored, and who can leave unattempted nothing 
which offers the slightest hope of procuring him redress. What, in- 
deed, would I not risk once more to see him, to hang upon him, to place 
my child on his knee, and again spend my days in the happy occupa- 
tion of endeavoring to anticipate all his wishes ? 

Let me entreat, my dear Madam, that you will have the considera- 
tion and goodness to answer me as speedily as possible; my heart is 
sore with doubt and patient waiting for something definitive. No 
apologies are made for giving you this trouble, which I am sure you 
will not deem irksome to take for a daughter, an affectionate daughter, 
thus situated. Inclose your letter for me to A. J. Frederic Prevost, 
Esq., near New Rochelle, New York. 
That every happiness may attend you, 

Is the sincere wish of 

THEO. BURR ALSTON.

Following the unfavorable response from Mrs. Madison, Theodosia wrote to her half brother, Frederic Prevost::

Your letter enclosing that from Washington reached me just before 
I left Springville. The long expected answer from Mrs. Madison 
was such as reason and experience unmixed with hope might have 
led us to suppose it. She expresses great affection for me, calling me 
her "precious friend," pays me compliments badly turned, and regrets 
that Mr. M. finds it impossible to gratify my wishes, &c. You will 
be more pleased to hear that I have received a letter from A. B., dated 
Gottenburg, where he arrived safely but with the loss of all his luggage, 
an accident he laughs at, although he is destitute of the means of 
procuring another supply. To my inexpressible relief he says that 
he has in view some means of support which will rescue him at present 
from this state of dependence. Yet I fear that he may say so merely 
to alleviate my anxiety, for what can he do at Stockholm ?

When Burr did safely arrive in the United States in 1812, after many delays and bureacratic debacles over the coveted passport, Theodosia was not able to meet with him. First, her son died of malaria, and then she was lost on board The Patriot on her way to a long postponed reunion with her father. But what cannot be denied is that both father and daughter remained loyal and devoted to one another as long as they lived, no matter how far separated in time and space by circumstances outside their control. Theodosia’s letters on Burr’s behalf are a testament to this.

REFERENCES

Pidgen, Charles Felton. (190&)Theodosia, the First gentlewoma of her Time; the Story of her Life, and a History of Persons and Events Connected Therewith.

theodosiafirstge00pidg_djvu.txt

Tags: 1812, Aaron Burr, Dolley Madison, Dolly Madison, exile, first lady, Frederic Prevost, Gallatin, James Madison, letters, Secretary of Treasury, Theodosia Burr Alston 3 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Jean Laffite as a Father

June 16, 2013 in American History, Caribbean History, general history, Louisiana History, Texas History

Sketch of Jean Laffite by Lanie Frick

According to The Journal of Jean Laffite, the famed privateer was the father of five children. He was married when he was seventeen to Christina Levine who bore him two sons and a daughter in close succession: Jean Antoine Laffite, Lucien Jean Laffite and Denise Jeanette Laffite. After Denise’s birth, Christina died, and Jean did not remarry until he was about fifty, By then his three children by Christina were grown.

Jean Laffite’s second marriage was to Emma Hortense Mortimore, and she bore him two sons: Jules Jean and Glenn Henri. But by this time Jean Laffite was in hiding and presumed dead, and he did not go by his real name in public. He may have adopted the name of John Lafflin, and his younger sons may also have gone by that name.

What sort of father was Jean Laffite? And did he treat all his children in the same way? We cannot know for sure, but there are some indications in his journal and in the few letters that were left behind.

Jean Laffite as a Single Father

From the time that Denise was a newborn until all three of his children by Christina were grown, Jean Laffite, according to the Journal that bears his name, was a widower and a single father. If he was involved with other women, he does not mention this. The journal was written for his children and grandchildren, and it was meant to be something they could pass from one generation to the next. As a member of the bourgeoisie, Jean Laffite practiced middle class morality, and he did not discuss anything that would not be appropriate to a general audience.

We know from what is written in the Journal that Denise was nursed by a black servant of her mother’s who had accompanied her to New Orleans from Port-au-Prince. Very little else is known about the early upbrining of the three children of Christina Levine.

We do know a little more about the schooling of his elder sons. Though Jean Laffite was a highly articulate man, both in person and in writing in several different languages, among them Spanish, French and English, his spelling in some of the documents bearing his signature left something to be desired. It seems that he wanted more of an education for his children, for he writes proudly of how at least one of his sons attended a language school in Washington City.

Jean Laffite as a Married Father

An oil painting by Manoel J. de Franca which is said to have been completed in 1842, depicting Emma, Jean, Glenn and Jules, when Jean Laffite was about sixty years old.
(According to Stanley Clisby Arthur in “Jean Laffite, Gentleman Rover”.

According to the Journal of Jean Laffite, following his retirement in 1823, Laffite suffered from a cold that would not go away and a rash all over his body. He was staying in the home of his friend John Mortimore, and that was when he met Emma, who helped to nurse him during his illness. It was, according to the Journal. a very real and deep love that developed between them. They married, and remained happily together for the rest of his life.

Of the two sons that Emma Mortimore bore Jean Laffite, only Jules survived to adulthood. The younger boy, Glenn, died in a freak accident in childhood. The Journal does not directly mention this death, though it is registered in the family Bible. Also, at one point in the Journal, it is mentioned that Jules is the only boy that Jean still has left at home, which would be odd if Glenn, being the younger, had matured and left home before his elder brother.

The narrator of the Journal seems averse to speaking about this loss, but there is a change of tone after the death of the younger son. Some things are too painful to write about.

Instead, at this point in the Journal, the narrator allows us to glimpse random little scenes from his family life. He tells how many teeth a certain Dr. Forbes has recently pulled from his mouth and how many teeth he has left. And he discusses the tutors of his son Jules and of his grandsons, and what subject each of them is responsible for.

The education of his son and grandsons is recorded, but the death of the youngest child is left entirely to the imagination of the reader.

My son Jules and my two grandsons, Eugene and Francis, have learned German. Mr. Jacob Phillipson was their teacher.

Mr. Bonfils was also one of the teachers of my son Jules.

Mr. Edward Chase is in the process of trying to teach music to my son Jules. My grandson Francis is also studying music with Mr. Chase.

My son Jules and Jack Clemens go on horseback and ride in the park on 14th street. Jules and William Morrison go hunting in the woods after wild animals.

These random and somewhat disjointed accounts of Jules’ everyday life show that the father was very much interested in the education and development of the son. The two grandsons mentioned were probably the children of Denise and her husband Francis Little.

We stayed, my family and I, at the house of the old Prairie [Praire], situated on the olive Route, about four miles west of St. Louis, as well as at the house of Shackett, situated around fifty-five rods to the west of the Praire [?] house.

Mr. Freeman Little, the seller of funeral supplies, is a member of the family by marriage.

My son Jules paid $25.00 to Elmer for stealing the slave Stephen after the death of his owner, Madame Smith.

The subject of slavery is one that comes up randomly throughout the narrative. While Laffite justifies his selling of slaves captured from Spanish and English vessels, he is clearly not happy with the institution of slavery, and he seems proud of his son Jules for trying to free a slave following the death of the slave’s long term owner.

Dividing the Laffite Fortune Per Stirpes

In the passages that were quoted above, we can see that Jean Laffite was able to blend his two families, the children by his first wife, and the children by his second wife, into a harmonious whole. But it was not always that easy. When he first announced his engagement to Emma Mortimore, Denise was very much opposed to it. It was only when both she and Emma had children that Denise softened, and then she and Emma became good friends. One way in which Laffite avoided provoking envy among his children was by a wise division of his fortune among his first and second families.

There are two ways to divide an inheritance. One is per capita — by the head — and the other is per stirpes — by the stock.

People who tend to divide all their property among their heirs equally tend to disregard that some heirs have many children and others have few, and they tend to favor those persons in their family who left many offspring. But a fairer distribution is by the stock, acknowledging the different lines, and treating each progenitor equally, regardless of how many children they had. In most cases, the division takes place after death. But when Jean Laffite retired, he took all his property and divided it into two parts: one part for the children of Christina Levine and the other part for himself and his new wife and young minor children. He distributed the first half equally among Antoine, Lucien and Denise. The second half he kept to live on, and eventually leave to his current wife and her children.

In this way, Jean Laffite honored both of his wives and dealt fairly with each of his children. In the Laffite family, there was no quarreling over inheritance. All were well provided for.

REFERENCES

The Journal of Jean Laffite, a manuscript currently housed at Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center, Liberty, Texas.

Arthur, Stanley Clisby. 1952 Jean Laffite Gentleman Rover. New Orleans: Harmanson.

Theodosia and the Pirates: The Battle Against Britian

Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain

Tags: Arthur Stanley Clisby, Christina Levine, Denise Jeanette Laffite, Emma Hortense Mortimore, Francis Little, Gentleman Rover, Glenn Henri Laffite, images of Jean Laffite, Jean Antoine Laffite, Jean Laffite, Jules Jean Laffite, Lucien Jean Laffite, Manuel J de Franca, painting of Jean Laffite family, The Journal of Jean Laffite 6 Comments »

by Aya Katz

The Courtship of Theodosia Bartow Prevost and Aaron Burr

June 8, 2013 in American History, general history

The Hermitage Credit:thehermitage.org

She was the posthumous only child of Theodosius Bartow and Anne Stillwell Bartow. Named after her father, she bequeathed her given name, which she got from a father she never met, to a daughter that she left an orphan at the age of eleven. Known for her intelligence, wit and good character, Theodosia Bartow Burr was not said to be particularly beautiful. But she was deeply loved and chosen by Aaron Burr as his bride, despite being ten years his senior and already afflicted with cancer.

The facts prior to Theodosia Bartow Prevost’s association with Aaron Burr are known only in their starkness. Following the death of her father, Theodosius Bartow, in a carriage accident, her mother Anne Stillwell married Philip De Visme and had several children by him, half-siblings of Theodosia. Theodosia grew up in an educated, intellectually stimulating household and she spoke and read French as well as English. She married Jacques Marcus Prevost and bore him five children. He was in the British army, but of French Swiss descent. The couple established themselves in Bergen County, New Jersey, in an estate called The Hermitage. Eventually, after leading several campaigns against the American revolutionaries, Jacques Prevost was serving as governor of Georgia in 1778 under the British and then was later stationed in Jamaica in 1780, but his wife Theodosia remained behind in New Jersey at the Hermitage.

It is at about this time that Aaron Burr, serving the Continental Army, came on the scene.They met in August of 1778 on a trip down the Hudson. It happened like this: General Alexander sent Burr on a spy mission after his heat stoke following the Battle of Monmouth. He was to check on British positions in preparation for a combined attack by the continental army and French regiments. At the time, the French had a fleet off Sandy Hook. Burr was ordered to West Point in July of 1778. General Washington then ordered him to escort three highly placed Loyalists under a white flag down the Hudson River to the enemy side. Theodosia Prevost, wanting to rejoin family in New York City, got permission from General Alexander to board the same ship, along with her half-sister, Caty De Visme and a servant. Burr was the one who added their names to the passenger list. The trip took five days, and that was enough time to change everything.

After that, Burr visited Theodosia Prevost and her family in the Hermitage quite frequently and even wrote to his sister Sally about her, saying she had “an honest and affectionate heart.”

After his resignation from the Army in 1779, Burr was a frequent visitor at the Hermitage. Everybody who knew them knew that they were in love. Burr’s cousin Thaddeus wrote to him: ““I won’t joke you any more about a certain lady.” In 1780, Major Prevost, Theodosia’s husband, who was serving under the British in Jamaica, was gravely injured. He sent home reports that the medical conditions there were poor, and anticipating his own death, he sent his teenaged sons who were with him back to their mother in America.

Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr’s letters to other members of her family do not seem to have been preserved. But her letters to Aaron Burr show a remarkable ability to discuss philosophical issues as well as matters of the heart. She believed in the methods of education and the morality set forth by Rousseau in La Nouvelle Heloise, and was very much opposed to the advice of Lord Chesterfield to his son, even though Aaron Burr thought it good.

Your opinion of Voltaire pleases me, as it proves your judgment above being biased by the prejudices of others. The English, from national jealousy and enmity to the French, detract him. Divines, with more justice, as he exposes himself to their censure. It is even their duty to contemn his tenets; but, without being his disciple, we may do justice to his merit, and admire him as a judicious, ingenious author.

I will not say the same of your system of education. Rousseau has completed his work. The indulgence you applaud in Chesterfield is the only part of his writings I think reprehensible. Such lessons from so able a pen are dangerous to a young mind, and ought never to be read till the judgment and heart are established in virtue. If Rousseau’s ghost can reach this quarter of the globe, he will certainly haunt you for this scheme–’tis striking at the root of his design, and destroying the main purport of his admirable production. Les foiblesses de l’humanite, is an easy apology; or rather, a license to practise intemperance; and is particularly agreeable and flattering to such practitioners, as it brings the most virtuous on a level with the vicious. But I am fully of opinion that it is a much greater chimera than the world are willing to acknowledge. Virtue, like religion, degenerates to nothing, because it is convenient to neglect her precepts. You have, undoubtedly, a mind superior to the contagion.

When all the world turn envoys, Chesterfield will be their proper guide. Morality and virtue are not necessary qualifications–those only are to be attended to that tend to the public weal. But when parents have no ambitious views, or rather, when they are of the more exalted kind, when they wish to form a happy, respectable member of society–a firm, pleasing support to their declining life, Emilius shall be the model. A man so formed must be approved by his Creator, and more useful to mankind than ten thousand modern beaux.

Later biographers used this particular letter to explore the contrasting attitudes held by Aaron Burr and Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr toward the subject of educating their daughter, but it is important to remember that at the time this letter was written ( February 12, 1781), they had no children in common. Theodosia was a married woman, and Aaron Burr was her suitor. And the topic of this letter was whether committing adultery is all right. Theodosia, using literary allusions to Jean-JacquesRousseau and Lord Chesterfield, was letting Aaron Burr know that she thought it was not all right. Although her husband had already died, Theodosia did not know this, and she was adamant in her insistence that self-restraint was a better course of action than giving in to passions

There was already much gossip about the couple, even though they had not in fact acted on their love and carried on their courtship mainly through correspondence. In May of 1781 Theodosia wrote to Aaron:

Our being the subject of much inquiry, conjecture, and calumny, is no more than we ought to expect. My attention to you was ever pointed enough to attract the observation of those who visited the house. Your esteem more than compensated for the worst they could say. When I am sensible I can make you and myself happy, I will readily join you to suppress their malice. But, till I am confident of this, I cannot think of our union. Till then I shall take shelter under the roof of my dear mother, where, by joining stock, we shall have sufficient to stem the torrent of adversity.

It was not until December 30, 1781 that Caty De Visme wrote to Burr from The Hermitage: “If you have not seen the York Gazette, the following account will be news to you; We hear from Jamaica that Lieutenant Col. Prevost, Major of the 60th foot, died at that place in October last.’”

They were now free to marry. But the mores of society required a suitable period of mourning. For a widow to marry after less than a year of learning of her husband’s death was scandalous. And yet they had waited so long already.

On July 2, 1782 at the wedding of Cathy De Visme to Joseph Browne, Aaron Burr, Esq., of the State of New York, was married to Theodosia Prevost, widow, of the State of New Jersey. The marriage certificate, however, is dated July 6, 1782. In any event, their daughter Theodosia was not born until June 21, 1783, proving that they had waited patiently. They married when they did not because they had to, but because they wanted to wait no more. The marriage was to last twelve years, until Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr’s death on May 18, 1794. Aaron Burr never got over her.

References

The Letters of Theodosia Prevost Burr from FamilTales.org

http://www.thehermitage.org/history/history_people_prevost_theodosia.html

http://www.authorama.com/famous-affinities-of-history-ii-3.html

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=63069344

Theodosia and the Pirates:: The Battle Against Britain

Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain

Tags: Aaron Burr, Browne, Caty De Visme, courtship, George Washington, Jacques Marcus Prevost, Jean-Jacques Rouseau, La Nouvelle Heloise, Lord Chesterfield, Pilip De Visme, the courtship of Aaron Burr, The Hermitage, The Revolutionary War, Theodosia Bartow Burr, Theodosia Burr Alston 6 Comments »

by J-Hanna

The Serrano Indians And The Indian Rock Camp

June 6, 2013 in American History, general history, Pacific History

Acorns were a food staple for the Serrano Indians of the San Bernardino Mountains.

Today most people do not think much about acorns, except to put these in the category as being beautiful objects to collect nature walks. Crafters might use acorns to create a fall or winter decorations, but how many people actually think about eating acorns? About three hundred years ago there were no grocery stores in Southern California, and Native American tribes had to hunt and gather all of their food. Survival depending on rudimentary concerns such as food and shelter, but people still managed to enjoy life. Actually, the simple life probably had more perks to it over the hectic and chaotic schedules that us modern people live. Acorns were a staple food for the Serrano Indians of the San Bernardino Mountains, and they even used the caps of the acorns to fashion dice for games they played. However, how does someone go about eating an an acorn? First off, it has to be cracked open, and then soaked in water because it has a very bitter taste due to the tannic acid in the meat of the acorn . The Serrano Indians had camps near groups of large acorn trees since these were their main source of food. The Serranos are known by their Spanish name, which means mountain dwellers, but in their own language they referred to themselves as Yuhaviatam, which means people of the pines.

The Serranos were hunters and gathers who caught small game, but their main source of grains consisted of grinding acorns and pinon nuts. Acorns were cracked open with rocks, and soaked in water to leech out the bitter taste. After the bitter tannic acid was drained from the acorn meat, it was ground into a fine acorn meal used to make flat breads.

The place where the Serranos ground their acorns were on large rocks, which are called metates in Spanish. The Indian Rock Camp is located in the San Beranrdino Mountains, and a plaque was dedicated to the Serrano people by the Lake Arrowhead Woman’s Club in 1938.

A sign dedicated to the Indian Rock camp by the Lake Arrowhead Woman’s Club.

Below is a video showcasing the photography of the Indian Rock camp where the Serranos used to grind acorns. Unfortunately, there is most certainly a dearth of printed or online information on the Serrano Indians, but perhaps someone will publish a book with more research and information in the near future to fill some of the gaps.

Tags: acorns, California history, The San Bernardino Mountains, the Serrano Indians 3 Comments »

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Was the Journal of Jean Laffite an Original, a Copy or a Forgery?

An Interview with Pam Keyes about Jean Laffite

Was Your Ancestor A United States Sea Fencible?

The Six Crew Members Who Deserted “La Bergere” in 1785

Gideon Granger, a Postmaster General with an Intelligence Gathering Mission

The New Orleans Bank Run of 1814

Theodosia Burr Alston’s Letters on Behalf of Burr in Exile

http://archive.org/stream/theodosiafirstge00pidg/theodosiafirstge00pidg_djvu.txt

Jean Laffite as a Father

The Courtship of Theodosia Bartow Prevost and Aaron Burr

The Serrano Indians And The Indian Rock Camp

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