In The Flow of Time – December 20, 2024
Those damn characters! Sometimes it is awesome how they take over.
There were pirates in New Orleans in the early 1800s. Odds are really good you’ve heard of Jean Lafitte (spellings vary). Lafitte ran a significant operation from an island in the Gulf at Barataria Bay. There were hundreds of Baratarians and several ships used as privateers to capture whatever good stuff happened to be around. They smuggled it through the bayous to one or more warehouses in New Orleans for sale to the public. Essentially, it was a wholesale and retail operation that stole its products. Excellent profit margin. Everyone knew about it. The governor hated them, the people loved them: good stuff, good prices.
There were three significant figures at the top of several hundred people in the operation. Jean Lafitte, his brother Pierre, and Barthélemy Lafon. The Lafittes are mentioned in the novel, but Lafon is a character. He was a Renaissance man: engineer, architect, surveyor, cartographer, land speculator, politician, soldier, urban planner, and of course, a pirate. I use his maps, among others, to craft the story. My kind of guy, and much less well known than the Lafittes, so a good person for the story.
There’s a more important reason he showed up. This is all historical fact.
A relative of mine, Zénon Trudeau, owned (among dozens of slaves) a woman named Charlotte. He sold Charlotte but kept her daughter Robinette. Charlotte’s last owner was a woman named Julie Brion. She was a free woman of color and a very successful business woman. When she died, she freed Charlotte, who became Charlotte Brion.
Julie Brion’s daughter Modeste was Lafon’s life partner. He’s white, she’s biracial, they cannot get married. They aren’t even technically supposed to live together, but they do. When Mom dies, they get the house at the corner of St. Louis and Burgundy and live there with their kids. (When’s he’s not off being a pirate.)
Julie also owned the house out back on Burgundy street. Marie Laveaux’s father Charles bought that house from the estate and a couple of months later, when Charlotte was emancipated, sold it to Charlotte. (I figure, all of this must have been Julie’s plan to set Charlotte up. Had to be. And Charles is part of it.)
Charles, Marie’s father, is the biracial son of Zénon’s brother Don Carlos. So he’s Zénon’s nephew. No one is going to admit that, not in a good white family, but it’s true, and even if not said out loud, everyone knows.
In the fullness of time, Charlotte was able to buy her daughter Robinette and emancipate her. All of this happens in the house they bought from Charles Laveaux, friend of Julie Brion, and next door to Lafon and Modeste.
Zenon dies. His widow Eulalie buys the Burgundy street house from Charlotte, her former slave. That’s intriguing. Why would that happen? (I’ve crafted a fiction that makes all this logically plausible, but first…)
For real, these people all know each other: Lafon, Charlotte, and Charles Laveaux. Lafon is infamous, Charlotte was a slave to Zénon, bought her house from Charles, and he is Zénon’s nephew.
Some more “normal” history. In the fall of 1814 Americans raided the pirate stronghold. Jean escaped. Pierre and Lafon are the prized prisoners. They are in prison when Jackson shows up to defend the city. Jean cuts a deal. You can have my men and my artillery if you free my people. Jackson agrees. Lafon gets out, fights in the battle, the Americans win in large part because of pirate artillery. Pirates save the day. President Madison pardoned the three men: the Lafitte brothers and Lafon.
In 1815 Zénon’s son René, executor of his father’s estate, has Robinette arrested as a runaway slave. She’s not, but he’s got the law on his side. That’s another story.
OK, FICTION
I’m writing the arrest chapter. René has a warrant, he leads the cops to the house on Burgundy street, they walk in and seize Robinette (6 months pregnant for real) and her three children (11, 4, 2). Children have the same legal status as the mother, if she’s a slave, they’re slaves. This is a NOISY process at supper time. Off they go to jail. And the author says to himself….
Where is Lafon? He lives next door. There’s a huge ruckus. Charlotte is practically FAMILY. He’s not gonna pick a fight with five cops and a guy with a sword, but hell he’d be out there. And as I’m imaging this scene, Lafon is standing in front of his house having a less-than-friendly conversation with the asshole who’s arresting Robinette and her kids. I had no idea this was going to happen. It comes from writing the story, from an earlier party where Lafon comes over to say hi and help, from the people becoming real.
So I have to put that in the story. He becomes a more important character. I need to go back to the Battle chapter and slip him in there. Downstream, Robinette and her children escape to Mexico, where there is no slavery. I plotted how that was going to happen, and I have now tossed it. Because…
OK, HISTORY
Lafon is a smuggler! I was blind but now I see. I was focused on maps and buildings. He’s busy smuggling. In 1818, when this happens, the Lafitte’s had moved the enterprise to Galveston island, which was Mexico. Which is where I want (fiction) Robinette to escape to. For real, Lafon was still into piracy up to his eyeballs. Who better to move Robinette to safety.
So a significant plot event got swapped around. The whole process of Robinette escaping just got a LOT more plausible and simpler, and the narrative tighter, because an existing minor character just became important. All because I’m writing a scene where the cops go walking by.
Without me EVER thinking about this before, Barthélemy Lafon does what he wants, what he would do, walks out his front door and says, What the hell is going on here? And turns himself into a significant character.
Fucking Pirates. 🙂
