Jean Lafitte

Jean Lafitte was a French privateer and smuggler who led a base of operations at Barataria Bay, Louisiana, and later Galveston Island, Texas, running privateers against Spanish shipping and smuggling goods (including enslaved people) into New Orleans. He and his associates aided American forces under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 in exchange for pardons. He later resumed privateering from Galveston until forced out by the U.S. Navy around 1821.