Barataria Destroyed

The following data is extracted from The Creoles of Louisiana.

Weighing all the facts, it is small wonder that the Delta Creoles coquetted with the Baratarians. To say no more of Spanish American or French West Indian tincture, there was the Embargo. There were the warships of Europe skimming ever to and fro in the entrances and exits of the Gulf. Rarely in days of French or Spanish rule had this purely agricultural country and non-manufacturing town been so removed to the world's end as just at this time. The Mississippi, northward, was free; but its perils had hardly lessened since the days of Spanish rule. Then it was said, in a curious old Western advertisement of 1797, whose English is worthy of notice
“No danger need be apprehended from the enemy, as every person whatever will be under cover, made proof against rifle or musket balls, and convenient port-holes for firing out of. Each of the boats are armed with six pieces, carry a pound ball, also a number of muskets, and amply supplied with plenty of ammunition, strongly manned with choice hands, and masters of approved knowledge."

Scarcely any journey, now, outside of Asia, Africa, and the Polar seas, is more arduous than was then the trip from St. Louis to New Orleans. Vagabond Indians, white marauders, Spanish-armed extortion and arrest, and the natural perils of the stream, made the river little, if any, less dangerous than the Gulf. Culbert and Maglibray were the baser Lafittes of the Mississippi, and Cottonwood Creek their Barataria.

And the labors and privations were greater than the dangers. The conveyances were keelboats, barges, and flat-boats. The flat-boats, at New Orleans, were broken up for their lumber, their slimy gunwales forming along the open gutter's edge in many of the streets a narrow and treacherous substitute for a pavement. The keelboats and barges returned up-stream, propelled now by sweeps and now by warping or by cordelle (hand tow-ropes), consuming "three or four months of the most painful toil that can be imagined." Exposure and bad diet "ordinarily destroyed one-third of the crew."

But on the 10th of January, 1812, there had pushed in to the landing at New Orleans a sky-blue thing with a long bowsprit, "built after the fashion of a ship, with portholes in the side," and her cabin in the hold. She was the precursor of the city's future greatness, the Orleans, from Pittsburg, the first steam vessel on the Mississippi.

Here was a second freedom of the great river mightier than that wrested from Spain. Commercial grandeur seemed just at hand. All Spanish America was asserting its independence; Whitney's genius was making cotton the world's greatest staple; immigrants were swarming into the West; the Mississippi valley would be the provision-house of Europe, the importer of untold millions of manufactures; New Orleans would keep the only gate. Instead of this, in June, 1812, Congress declared war against Great Britain. Barataria seemed indispensable, and New Orleans was infested with dangers.

In 1813, Wilkinson, still commanding in the West, marched to Mobile River; in April he drove the Spaniards out of Fort Charlotte and raised a small fortification, Fort Bowyer, to command the entrance of Mobile Bay. Thus the Spanish, neighbors only less objectionable than the British, were crowded back to Pensacola. But, this done, Wilkinson was ordered to the Canadian frontier, and even took part of his few regulars with him.

The English were already in the Gulf; the Indians were growing offensive; in July seven hundred crossed the Perdido into Mississippi; in September they massacred three hundred and fifty whites at Fort Minims, and opened the Creek war. Within New Orleans bands of drunken Choctaws roamed the streets. The Baratarians were seen daily in the public resorts. Incendiary fires became alarmingly common, and the batture troubles again sprang up. Naturally, at such a junction, Lafitte and his men reached the summit of power.

In February, 1814, four hundred country militia reported at Magazine Barracks, opposite New Orleans. The Governor tried to force out the city militia. He got only clamorous denunciation and refusal to obey. The country muster offered their aid to enforce the order. The city companies heard of it, and only Claiborne's discreetness averted the mortifying disaster of a battle without an enemy. The country militia, already deserting, was disbanded. Even the legislature withheld its support, and Claiborne was everywhere denounced as a traitor. He had to report to the President his complete failure. Still, he insisted apologetically, the people were emphatically ready to "turn out in case of actual invasion." Only so patient a man could understand that the Creoles were conscientious in their lethargy. Fortunately the invasion did not cone until the Creek war had brought to view the genius of Andrew Jackson.

In April, Government raised the embargo. But the relief was tardy; the banks suspended. Word came that Paris had fallen. Napoleon had abdicated. England would throw new vigor into the war with America, and could spare troops for the conquest of Louisiana.

In August the Creeks made peace. Some British officers landed at Apalachicola, Florida, bringing artillery. Some disaffected Creeks joined there and were by them armed and drilled. But now, at length, the Government took steps to defend the Southwest.

General Jackson was given the undertaking. He wrote to Claiborne to hold his militia ready to march-an order very easy to give. In September he repaired to Mobile, which was already threatened. The British Colonel, Nicholls had landed at Pensacola with some companies of infantry, from two sloops-of-war. The officers from Apalachicola and a considerable body of Indians had joined him, without objection from the Spaniards.

Source: The Creoles of Louisiana

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