Region
Gulf of Mexico
2 pirates in the codex documented as operating here.
The Gulf of Mexico became a major pirate theatre in the early nineteenth century, when the Spanish American Independence wars produced a flood of privateer commissions issued by Cartagena, Mexico, and other revolutionary governments against Spanish merchant shipping. Operations such as the Lafitte enterprise at Barataria and Galveston worked the boundary between privateering and outright piracy, moving prize cargoes — including illegally trafficked African captives, after the 1808 federal slave-import ban — through New Orleans and other Gulf ports until they were suppressed by the United States Navy in the early 1820s.
Pirates of this region
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Jean Lafitte
c. 1780 – c. 1823French-Creole privateer and smuggler whose Barataria Bay operation south of New Orleans dominated the Gulf of Mexico contraband trade in the 1810s; later commander of a privateer base on Galveston Island.
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Pierre Lafitte
c. 1770 – November 1821Elder brother and business partner of Jean Lafitte; the New Orleans–side operator of the Barataria and Galveston privateering enterprise, responsible for moving prize cargoes into the city's wholesale market and managing relations with Louisiana authorities.
