On an unrecorded day between the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 and the year 1810, two brothers named Jean and Pierre Lafitte came to New Orleans and opened a blacksmith shop on the north side of St. Pierre Street, between Bourbon and Dauphine, where slaves were employed to do the pounding, while the proprietors looked for customers and made the collections.
Because of the changing circumstances of its previous existence, New Orleans was a remarkable town. It had been founded by a man who had observed that the site was convenient for carrying on a trade with Spanish America contrary to Spanish law. The smuggling trade received every encouragement until France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1702. After that, many citizens turned to the French and British colonies for illicit commerce; and when the people of the Atlantic coast had settled in the Ohio Valley, traffic was opened with them. Every man in old New Orleans was aware of the smuggling business, and many, including the town officials, were engaged in it.
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Naturally, smuggling continued after New Orleans became an American city, but it was not until after 1808 that the trade reached its flood tide. For in that year, the importation of slaves become unlawful. The price of a prime individual on the African coast, in those days, was not above 20 dollars; but if offered in the market in New Orleans, with a clear title, he was worth $1000. The world never saw a more tempting opportunity for smugglers than the slave trade.
New Orleans was a frontier town as well as a seaport. Vast stretches of virgin land lay behind it, and settlers with money were flocking in to plant cotton, sugar cane, and tobacco. The demand for slaves far outran the supply.
Now the smugglers carried on their trade using boats, which were driven through the many waterways around New Orleans, and every such boat needed blacksmith work at one time or another. It was natural for the smugglers to patronize the Lafitte shop once it was opened, for both brothers had been sailors and officers on privateers and knew well the work needed on boats of all kinds.
Very soon, the Lafittes learned that the smugglers obtained their slaves from slavers trading between Africa and the Spanish West Indies. The slaves usually landed on Grande Terre Island in Barataria Bay and were carried through the bayous to a market along the Mississippi River. It was very profitable traffic, but to the mind of Jean Lafitte, who was the better businessman of the two brothers, it was managed in ways that wasted far too much of the profits. The men engaged in the business were all men of small means; they worked independently and paid more than was necessary for the "goods" they dealt. Jean Lafitte saw that general recognition of a "community of interests" would promote general prosperity, and he organized what was practically a smugglers' trust.
The Trust and Its Methods
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