Jean Lafitte

Jean Laffite took over Galveston in September 1817, after earlier filibusters had used the island. The Handbook of Texas credits his brother Pierre with the intrigues and Jean with the privateering. In January 1818 the brothers plotted to betray Lallemand's French refugees to Spain, and the plot failed. An American envoy, George Graham, suggested that Laffite seize coastal points and hand them to the United States after faked attacks, a scheme that went nowhere. The Handbook says he abandoned Galveston in May 1820 for Isla Mujeres, a year before the plaque's 1821. Authorities spell the name Laffite.

What the plaque says

Jean Lafitte Notorious pirate. Settled here in 1817 with his buccaneers and ships; under Mexican flag, continued his forays against Spanish shipping in the Gulf. On this site, he built his home, Maison Rouge (Red House), which was part of his fort; and upper story was pierced for cannon. It was luxuriously furnished with booty from captured ships. Leaving Galveston in 1821, upon demand of the United States, he burned his home, fort and whole village; then sailed to Yucatan. In 1870, present structure was built over old cellars and foundations of Maison Rouge. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 0.5 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 0.5 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.
• The Strand — 0.6 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.9 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.

More markers nearby

• Near Campsites of Louis-Michel Aury and Francisco Xavier Mina — steps away
• Homesite of Dr. William Keiller — steps away
• Dominican Sisters Congregation of the Sacred Heart — 0.2 mi
• Galveston Immigration Stations — 0.2 mi