Jean Laffite: Piracy and the limits of state power in New Orleans, 1814-1815

Abstract

The pirate, privateer and smuggler Jean Laffite dominated the mercantile life of New Orleans from 1809 to 1815 by exploiting the limited reach of a weak US government in its attempts to control over the frontier of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Laffite’s status as a cultural anti-hero to the majority-French population, who disdained the American government and the war it initiated in 1812, saw much public support for his efforts to evade law enforcement. Such support, however, waned in the face of an overwhelming threat from British invaders in the autumn of 1814. Adept at survival, Laffite reinvented himself as a loyal patriot by contributing vital materiel to the shaky military defence of the city. In doing so, he ensured his freedom and became a hero of the Battle of New Orleans, a myth that endures to this day. His story demonstrates the limits of state power against piratical practices in the nineteenth century, particularly when they occurred on a distant shore, among a population who protected their cherished rogues.