By STEVE HATHCOCK
Special to the PRESS
Moments in Time is a collection of recovered newspaper briefs and other publications, compiled by local historian, Steve Hathcock, offering a look back at the history of the Rio Grande Valley.
Steve Hathcock is a local historian and a regular columnist for the Port Isabel South Padre Press. He has spent many years collecting and sharing the history of the Rio Grande Valley, as well as treasure hunting and formerly owning an Island-based bookstore.
Did Pirate Lafitte Bury Treasure Here?
BISHOP, TEXAS—The legend that the ill-gotten treasure of Jean Lafitte, the notorious buccaneer of the early part of last century, is buried upon Padre Island has been revived.
This is due to the finding of 25 long-buried human skeletons in a sand pit on the bank of the Laguna Madre, about fifteen miles east of here. Since then, well-preserved pieces of ship timbers have been uncovered near the gruesome spot.
The skeletons were discovered by Thomas Steele and O. S. Atwood of Corpus Christi. If this group of ill-fated men were members of the crew of Lafitte’s treasure ship the discovery of their skeletons bears out the tale that has been handed down by the descendants of the native Mexican population of the Gulf coast region that the pirate chief did not go to Yucatan when he left Galveston Island, but that he sought safety from his avengers by locating upon Padre Island at a point just opposite where the skeletons were found. According to this tradition he brought his sailing vessel into the Laguna Madre through the pass just below Point Isabel and during a storm it was beached near the camp of Lafitte.
Before the ship broke up the fortune that the pirate had gained during the years he had preyed upon Spanish treasure ships, as they plied to and from Mexico, was taken off and buried in the sand.
The fact that historical evidence pretty well establishes the belief that Lafitte finally did reach Yucatan and that he died there does not, it is asserted, disprove the legend that it was upon Padre Island or the mainland that he buried the fortune that he had gained during the long period in which he committed deeds of piracy.
(The Idaho Springs Siftings-News Fri, Oct 08, 1920)
Editor’s Note: In 1817, after the U.S. military forced him to abandon his Louisiana base, Jean Lafitte relocated to Galveston Island, Texas, where he seized control from a rival privateer, Louis-Michel Aury a rival privateer, and established the pirate colony of Campeche.
Operating under Mexican letters of marque during Mexico’s war for independence, Lafitte turned the island into a thriving community that boasted 1,000 residents whose sole trade was focused on privateering Spanish ships, smuggling, and the illegal slave trade. He ruled from his fortified headquarters, Maison Rouge, surviving a devastating 1818 hurricane.
By 1820–1821, growing tensions with the United States over attacks on American vessels led to a U.S. Navy ultimatum. In May 1821, Lafitte burned Campeche to the ground and sailed away on his flagship, the Pride, ending his three-year reign on the island. To this day, historians cannot agree on when and where Lafitte met his demise, but in the late 1950s, a person came forth claiming he possessed the “Journal of Jean Laffite”
The journal became highly controversial. While local legends often feature discovered diaries, historians widely consider this journal to be a modern fictionalization, and not an authentic personal diary of Jean Laffite. The supposed journal was published in the 1950s by a man claiming to be a descendant. However, experts and historians who have examined the surviving copies of these journals and notebooks (such as those archived in the Rosenberg Library or the Sam Houston Regional Library) largely doubt the authenticity, but the claim is widely circulated as being true.