Andrew Jackson (40 page)

The Spanish were just as unhappy. “They fondly recur to the despotism of Cadiz and commandants, and look with anxious hope to the progress of European conquest. They hate our laws and customs; and the regularity, the necessary delays and the impartial distribution of justice to rich and poor in our courts, are to them proofs of our barbarity and meanness.”

Writing in the spring of 1814, Windship remarked that the French and Spanish were hanging on the news from Europe. Many hoped for an end to their American exile. “If Bonaparte has regained the empire,” Windship said, summarizing the views of the most ardent irredentists, “he will have the power, seconded by the wishes of his faithful provincials, to re-annex this country to France. If Bonaparte is dethroned, the Bourbons will consider the sale of Louisiana as invalid and will repossess the country.” Speaking in his own voice, Windship articulated a common concern among Americans in Louisiana. “If Bonaparte is conquered, and an attempt is made”—by the British—“to sever this state, I fear that . . . Louisiana will fall to the dominion of either France or England. Those who know the situation of this country, who see neither spirit in the people nor any means of resistance, fear this event.”

Windship had been in Louisiana only a short while. Yet the country had changed him. “Indolence is common with us all. . . . The mind with the body is weakened. We suffer a relaxation which, to you Northerners, would be a subject of astonishment. The cool of the morning admits of some exertion. At noon we yield to a burning sun”—Windship was writing now in June—“and the evening is spent in repairing the exhausted system or in the indulgence of ease and tranquility. The nerve of the soul is wasted, and the strong passions of glory and ambition are faintly visible only in the moments of intemperance.” Windship’s time at Harvard seemed ages ago. There would be nothing like Harvard here. “It will be a phenomenon indeed if this state ever produces a man of genius or learning.” Not only New England but the rest of America receded. Louisiana was a world unto itself. “The truth is, we are not Americans.”

Y
et among the non-Americans of Louisiana was one group that wanted to become American, if conditions were right. In a letter in which he railed against the ineffectiveness of the Louisiana government, Windship described the corruption to which this gave rise. “So weak is the Executive that the execution of the revenue laws is almost impossible. Smuggling is carried on to a great degree. . . . A force of 500 armed pirates are settled near the mouth of the Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico is tributary to them. It is said to be almost impracticable to disposses them. Too many of the merchants of New Orleans are interested in this trade. The Captain of the band is a French general. Governor Claiborne offered $500 for his head while he was in the city; the next day this buccaneer offered a reward of $1000 for the head of the governor, and his hand bill was distributed through the city.”

Windship’s “French general” was Jean Laffite, who had indeed placed a bounty on Claiborne’s head, although whether in jest or earnest no one could say for sure. Laffite’s sense of humor was as unpredictable as his nationality. He had been born in France or the West Indies, depending on who was asking. He was French or Spanish or Jewish. He was pleased to cultivate a reputation as a pirate, although his mastery of the nautical arts was suspect, and there were persons in New Orleans who said they had known him as a blacksmith with a shop at the corner of St. Philip and Bourbon streets.

Whatever his antecedents, in 1814 Laffite was best described as an entrepreneur, a businessman who specialized in the arbitrage of prices across borders. A principal item of his commerce was African slaves. Laffite purchased slaves in the West Indies, where they were cheap, and smuggled them into Louisiana, where they were expensive on account of the federal ban on slave imports. As with other black markets, that in black slaves corrupted otherwise law-abiding persons, who in turn corrupted government by causing it to avert its gaze from the illicit traffic. Purchasers got what they wanted: cheap slaves. Sellers got what
they
wanted: profits. No one got hurt except perhaps the slaves, who had no voice in the matter. If they
had
been asked, most probably would have said that conditions on the American Gulf Coast, grim as they were, were better than those of the Caribbean and South America, where the life expectancy of slaves was often measured in months, and not many of those.

Laffite and his business associates also arbitraged in the transition of Spanish America to independence. Much as the fledgling United States government had done in its revolution against Britain, the aspiring republics of Central and South America enlisted privateers—maritime mercenaries—to harass the commerce of imperial Spain. Laffite and his brothers—Alexander, who was known about Louisiana by his nom de guerre, Dominique, and Pierre—obtained privateer commissions from Cartagena (the parent of modern Colombia). Under the laws of Cartagena, the Laffites were entitled to all the Spanish commerce they could capture. Needless to say, Spanish law took a different view. Perhaps less obviously, so did American law, which prevented the Laffites from legally landing and selling their prizes in America. This hardly stopped them from the landing and selling, and in fact the booty from the sea nicely complemented—and sometimes included—the slaves they were already selling illegally.

The Laffites weren’t the only privateers in the Caribbean, nor were they the only importers of illegal slaves. But in smuggling, as in many other businesses, location can be critical to success, and no one had a better location than Laffite and company. The bayous, swamps, and islands south of New Orleans were ideal for smuggling. The waterways, besides defying the best efforts of mapmakers to reduce them to charts, were deep enough to admit the coastal craft the Laffites launched into the Caribbean but shallow enough to bar the big warships of the Spanish navy (or any other fleet) that might chase them home. The West Indies, including Cuba, the richest of the Spanish colonies and, partly for that reason, the most loyal (“the ever faithful isle,” it would be called), were not far to the south. New Orleans, the market for the goods seized from the Indies, was not far to the north. The Laffites and the community of seamen, soldiers, artisans, and accountants they gathered on the shores of Barataria Bay couldn’t well have asked for more. “The quantity of goods brought in by the banditti is immense,” remarked an American official who tracked Laffite’s activities, in early 1814. “I have no doubt but they have entered and secured far more than a million of dollars within this last six months.”

But into this entrepreneurial idyll sailed, one day in the late summer of 1814, an ominous vessel flying the ensign of the king of England. The British warship anchored outside the entrance to Barataria Bay and lowered a boat, which crossed the bar and approached the Laffites’ headquarters. The boat bore a British officer who carried greetings and messages from Colonel Edward Nichols, the commander of the same squadron that was worrying Andrew Jackson at Mobile at just this time. The longest message was addressed not to the Baratarians alone but to the residents of Louisiana at large. “Natives of Louisiana! On you the first call is made to assist in liberating from a faithless, imbecile government your paternal soil. Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, and British, whether settled or residing for a time in Louisiana: on you also I call to aid me in this just cause. The American usurpation in this country must be abolished, and the lawful owners of the soil put in possession.” Nichols said he headed a powerful fleet with accurate artillery and had at his disposal “a large body of Indians, well armed, disciplined, and commanded by British officers.” He mentioned the Indians, of course, to strike terror into the hearts of the Louisianians—but not too much terror. “Rest assured that these brave red men only burn with an ardent desire of satisfaction for the wrongs they have suffered from the Americans, to join you in liberating these southern provinces from their yoke, and drive them into those limits formerly prescribed by my sovereign. The Indians have pledged themselves in the most solemn manner not to injure in the slightest degree the persons or properties of any but enemies to their Spanish or English fathers. A flag over any door, whether Spanish, French, or British, will be a certain protection.”

Nichols wished this proclamation to reach all Louisianians. But he could hardly expect the state government to circulate it for him, which was why he delivered it to Jean Laffite, whose informal network was known to be incomparable. “You may be a useful assistant to me in forwarding them,” he said of the “honorable intentions” his message conveyed.

Nichols had a second message, for Laffite alone. He hoped they could become friends and allies. “I call on you, with your brave followers, to enter into the service of Great Britain, in which you shall have the rank of a captain; lands will be given to you all, in proportion to your respective ranks.” Laffite could keep the property he had gathered to Barataria; the British government asked no questions. But neither would it show mercy in the event Laffite declined this generous offer. The captain of the warship at the mouth of Barataria Bay had orders to destroy the smugglers’ camp and everything in it if they failed to cooperate. The choice was theirs: “war instantly destructive” or “the security of their property” and “the blessings of the British constitution.”

T
he British offer—and threat—placed Laffite in a delicate position. Although Nichols didn’t put it quite so, Laffite was being asked to bet on the outcome of the war. If he bet on the British and the British won, he’d be a captain in the British navy—an intriguing notion for one who scarcely knew a topgallant from a staysail—and his men would be landholders. If he bet on the British and the British lost, he could certainly expect retribution from the Americans. Laffite didn’t know Andrew Jackson by more than reputation at this point. But he’d heard about the Creek war and the Creek peace, and he had little cause to think Jackson would be kinder to him than to the Indians.

Laffite had another reason to lean toward the British. Of late the government of Louisiana had shown an intention to crack down on Barataria. Laffite couldn’t tell quite why this was so, but he had to guess that it reflected a desire on the part of his commercial rivals in New Orleans to seize some of his market share. The bounty on his head—the five-hundred-dollar reward John Windship described—was an opening shot in the campaign. Laffite didn’t know how serious Governor Claiborne and the legislature were. The bounty he responded with for Claiborne’s head was, in part, an attempt to gauge their seriousness. But at best the campaign would be troublesome and certainly bad for business.

Laffite asked the British for two weeks to think the matter over. They agreed, even while sweetening their offer by thirty thousand dollars, payable in cash to Laffite personally at a location of his choice. This wasn’t a huge amount for one who drank the finest bootleg wine from the best stolen goblets. But hard currency was a problem even for pirates.

Laffite employed the two weeks to explore his options on the other side. To Governor Claiborne he intimated a desire to serve Louisiana and the United States. “I offer to you to restore to this State several citizens”—several hundred, he meant, but he preferred not to enumerate—“who perhaps in your eyes have lost that sacred title. I offer them, however, such as you could wish to find them, ready to exert their utmost efforts in defense of the country. This point of Louisiana which I occupy is of great importance in the present crisis. I tender my services to defend it. And the only reward I ask is that a stop be put to the proscription against me and my adherents, by an act of oblivion for all that has been done hitherto.” The governor would agree that amnesty was apt, if he could see into Laffite’s heart. “I am the stray sheep wishing to return to the sheepfold. If you were thoroughly acquainted with the nature of my offenses I should appear to you much less guilty, and still worthy to discharge the duties of a good citizen.” The applicant was simply an honest privateer trying to make a living. “I have never sailed under any flag but that of the republic of Carthagena, and my vessels are perfectly regular in that respect. If I could have brought my lawful prizes into the ports of this State I should not have employed the illicit means that have caused me to be proscribed.”

Claiborne was inclined to accept Laffite’s offer and grant the amnesty he asked. But the Louisiana legislature, which included some of those most interested in scuttling the Baratarians’ business, refused. Moreover, the government in Washington, worried that Laffite was going to draw the United States into war with Spain, and anyway annoyed at Laffite’s cavalier attitude toward federal import and revenue laws, had determined to disperse the ruffians. The American naval commander at New Orleans, Daniel Patterson, received orders to move against Barataria. With the Louisiana legislature urging Patterson on, Claiborne declined to hold him back.

By the time Laffite learned that the American navy was coming, his two weeks with the British had expired, which meant that they’d be descending on Barataria, too. He decided that discretion was the better part of survival, took what could be moved from Barataria, and sailed away west. Patterson seized the leftovers, arrested some stragglers, and declared victory. The British weren’t sure whether they were better off without Laffite than they would have been with him. Claiborne, who had taken the precaution of forwarding to Andrew Jackson a copy of Laffite’s offer to defend New Orleans, hoped the general had more sense than the American navy and the Louisiana legislature.

J
ackson had been to the Mississippi at Natchez and to the Gulf at Pensacola, but before the autumn of 1814 he had never approached the place where the river meets the Gulf. This connection, of course, was New Orleans’s raison d’être, and it was the key to British strategy in the closing stages of the war. The negotiators chattered in Ghent. They might even reach an agreement. But no treaty would be final till approved by the respective governments, and the British government wouldn’t approve any treaty till it learned the outcome of its final offensive. The aim of the offensive was simple: to sever Louisiana—the whole territory, not merely the state—from the rest of the United States. Britain had never accepted the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States (or from Spain to France, for that matter). It preferred and intended to keep the Americans bottled up east of the Mississippi. The United States had grown alarmingly since 1783. Better for Britain that it be cut down to size. And so, even as the British quietly applauded the secessionists of New England, they prepared to peel the western half of American territory away from the East.