The Memoirs of Jean Laffite

Jean Laffite was born in Santo Domingo and raised by a Spanish-Jewish grandmother who instilled in him a hatred for the Spanish Crown and those who served it. Later this hatred grew to include the British. Following in the footsteps of his eldest brother Alexandre, Jean and his brother Pierre became privateers for France under the command of their uncle Rene Beluchai. Laffite describes in detail the capture of a Spanish ship and its crew´s fate. After a period of seizing enemy vessels, the two brothers go to France to join Napoleon´s armies. Instead, they find themselves in enemy prisons, and upon release they return to the Caribbean where they resume depredations against Spanish and British ships. The slave uprising in Haiti sends the brothers to the safety of Louisiana, where they establish Barataria as a smuggling center into New Orleans and up river. Jean and Louisiana governor Clairborne become enemies who mutually post rewards on the other´s head. Only the arrival of the British, offering a pardon and a bribe to Laffite, breaks the impasse between the Baratarians and the Americans. Laffite´s aid to General Andrew Jackson is well known and is the basis of his place in American history. After the victory, Jean received a pardon but no indemnification for his financial losses during the war years. Fruitless trips to Washington confirmed to Laffite the necessity of resuming old habits, and he established a new privateer settlement in Spanish territory on Galveston Island. A hurricane´s destruction and a changing world---backed by the power of the U.S. Navy --- led to the second dissolution of the Laffite enterprise. Jean and the last of his men quit Galveston settlement as it flamed, lighted by their own hands. Freelance plundering became more and more dangerous until Jean and Pierre decided to call it quits and spread the rumor of their violent demise and burial on the Yucatan coast. The brothers split their swag, buried some, and went their separate ways. Jean, who had lost a young wife during the birth of their third child, found a young wife in Charleston, South Carolina. They began his second family in Philadelphia before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, to end their years. Jean Laffite maintained his anonymity but worked behind the scenes for causes he held dear. The former slaver became an abolitionist under the influence of his new wife, and after a visit to Europe in 1847, he even became a socialist supporter of the young Karl Marx. He saw himself as a benefactor of mankind, but even at the end of his memoirs he did not forget to proclaim Down with the British dragon!

Biographies & Memoirs

Laffite, Jean

Marshall, Gene

Historical

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Literature & Fiction

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Poetry

A war of words is still a war, the Duke warned as the young knight went off to do battle in the land of Cort. There the knight would join forces with the magician, Pandolphe, whose wizardry could beguile kings and confound the fearsome forces of the monstrous Legalese. Together, they would rescue the Lady Lawra from the inky mire of illusory allusion. Join them and meet the Bailiff and Stenographer, Peter and Paul, King Meenot and the evil sorcerer, Wordlock, who miscasts phrases and misspells to cause vagueness and uncertainty where none should exist. Can there be happiness ever after for young lawyers? That is why we have bed time stories. PRAISE FOR THE ADVENTURES OF FIRSTYR THE YOUNGER The law is neither art nor science. Most often it is caprice. Mr. Pontacolonis allegory and poem would be a worthy addition to any first-year law students reading list. Indeed, I would make it required reading. A little bit of humility can go a long way in the practice of law. Norman Pattis, Esq.

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A touching and nostalgic look at a childhoodin Toronto's Beach District... The world of young people growing up in Toronto in the 1950's and 60's was certainly different from the world we live in today. In this memoir, a companion to his book, Toronto Island Summers, lifelong Toronto resident Jim Sanderson takes readers through the adventures and discoveries of a boy growing up in Toronto's east end. Some of his experiences were simple: shinny hockey on the Glen Manor rink, a lunch of fish and chips on Queen Street, smelt fishing on the Nursewood pier. Other life lessons were more complex: the effects of World War Two and The Korean War on the families of neighbours and friends, the realization of a close friend that he was gay while still in grade school, trips to the United States to encounter racial unrest, and the turbulence of the Vietnam war. With photos that illustrate the unique nature of life in Toronto's east end in the 1950s and 60's, Life in Balmy Beach transports readers back to a simpler time, before the arrival of Personal Computers, the Internet, Cell-phones, and Social Media, when family, friends, and adventure reigned supreme.

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Sanderson, Jim

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Parenting & Relationships

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Self-Help

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Motivational

Lost in the Here: A True Story

On Easter Sunday, 2003, John Wilferth, a dynamic thirty-seven-year-old financial advisor, experienced a devastating status epilepticus seizure for over five hours. Two days later, he woke to find himself with a rare cognitive disorder—partial long-term memory loss combined with severe impairment of his short-term memory function. Not only had much of John’s past disappeared, the way in which he experienced the present had changed radically. What is it like when you cannot remember what happened an hour, or even five minutes ago? How do you work? How do you plan your life? How do you even go shopping, hold a conversation, or take a simple walk without getting lost? John’s seizure left him able to function intelligently in the moment, with his personality intact. But his inability to remember made it extremely difficult to perform countless ordinary tasks. His condition also profoundly challenged his sense of identity as it left him feeling stranded in the moment—lost in the here—with only weak and perpetually disappearing ties to the immediate past. Lost in the Here, by John’s wife Melinda, chronicles the Wilferths’ life for two years following the status seizure as they face a multitude of extraordinary trials. Readers first meet John and Melinda within a gripping account of the status episode. After learning important details about the couple’s prior life together, they accompany the Wilferths through many remarkable incidents, variously horrifying, uplifting, or humorous, as the family deals with the ramifications of John’s condition and he courageously attempts to re-enter mainstream society. In time, readers follow John to Germany, where he steps dangerously far out on one of medicine’s sharpest and most controversial cutting edges by undergoing stem-cell injections to treat both his epilepsy and his memory dysfunction. Afterward, they return home with him to witness increasingly telling occurrences that strongly suggest improvement in his memory function. These incidents culminate with John working through the night to perform an exceptional cognitive feat—composing an important letter embodying a complex legal argument—that requires both long- and short-term memory. The next morning, in a jubilant scene, John makes copies of the letter and staples them on doors and walls of the Wilferths’ home out of pride for his achievement and to insure that he does not forget what he accomplished the night before. Though this event marks the limit of John’s physiological recovery to date, he has recently developed new methods to compensate for his cognitive impairment, thereby achieving much greater autonomy. These methods and how they help him to achieve greater autonomy are explained in the final chapter, where his new-found independence is reflected by several heartening incidents in which he ventures out into the wider world on his own. The book ends triumphantly in a funny and wonderful occurrence that demonstrates how unstoppable John is and enables the reader to more fully understand how the Wilferths’ love, faith, and moxie will continue to sustain them.

Wilferth, Melinda Dame

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