Jean and Pierre Laffite's lives were intertwined with the most colorful period in New Orleans' history, the era from just after the Louisiana Purchase through the War of 1812. Labeled as corsairs and buccaneers for methods that bordered on piracy, the brothers ran a privateering cooperative that provided contraband goods to a hungry market and made life hell for Spanish merchants on the Gulf. Later they became important members of a syndicate in New Orleans that included lawyers, bankers, merchants, and corrupt U.S. officials. But this allegiance didn't stop them from becoming paid Spanish spies, handing over information about the syndicate's plans and selling out their own associates. In 1820 the Laffites disappeared into the fog of history from which they had emerged, but not before becoming folk heroes in French Louisiana and making their names synonymous with piracy and intrigue on the Gulf.-Dust jacket.
Book Details
Format
Paperback
ISBN-10
0156032597
ISBN-13
9780156032599
Publication Date
May 2006
Item Weight
1.50 pounds
Length
0.98 inch
Width
7.91 inch
Height
5.31 inch
First Sentence
PERHAPS IT IS FITTING for men whose lives so lent themselves to adventure and melodrama that their name traced its origins to a word meaning something like "the song."
William Charles "Jack" Davis (born 1946) is an American historian who was a professor of history at Virginia Tech and the former director of programs at that school's Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. Specializing in the American Civil War, Davis has written more than 40 books on that subject and other aspects of early southern U.S. history, such as the Texas Revolution.