Jean Lafitte — Pirate, Patriot, Smuggler

Jean Lafitte ran a smuggling network from Barataria Bay that supplied New Orleans with luxury goods and enslaved people. When the British offered him a bribe to betray America during the War of 1812, he refused. Instead, he supplied Andrew Jackson with flints, powder, and cannoneers. His pirates' gunnery expertise was decisive at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. President Madison pardoned him for his wartime service. Lafitte returned to piracy in the Gulf. Around 1823, he disappeared and was never seen again. New Orleans was the largest port in the Southern United States throughout the 19th century, built on trade that moved through channels legal and otherwise. The Battle of New Orleans was the last major engagement of the War of 1812, and it was fought by a coalition that included a privateer's cannoneers. Lafitte's fate remains one of the great American mysteries — a smuggler who chose a side, won a battle, took a pardon, and vanished.