HoltesThoughts: Texas, Cowboys and New Orleans Pirates

Texas, Cowboys and New Orleans Pirates

Pirates and Privateers, Texas and New Orleans

When we think of pirates we picture them with eye patches, bandanas and at sea. We often see them as having no connection to anything in our own times or outside the world's oceans. But there is a direct connection between:

Offshoots of Piracy

Pirates and colonialism,
Piracy and Organized Crime,
Piracy and the Slave Trade,
Piracy and Slavery,
Piracy and Modern Navies,
Piracy and Lawyers, Courts,
Piracy and Corporate Business

And on a more humorous note:

Between Piracy and Cowboys

This Post Talks about Pirates and Cowboys

The word buccaneer comes from people raising cattle and making leather. Stranded sailors sometimes made a living by raising cattle for leather and eating. This was such an important island industry to outlaw sailors (pirates) and semi-legal ones (privateers), that the French Term for a person who raises cattle for leather became a term synonymous with Pirate. Pirates and Brigands, Buccaneers and highway robbers all flow from a similar lifestyle. Whether one is talking about mobsters in Brooklyn, Sicily, Malta, or Buenos Aires or pirates, the lifestyle is similar. Robbery has an industry around it. Criminals form shadow governments, usually in tandem with corrupt government or against it. When the criminality is legal or semi legal it is called privateering, lobbying and given euphemisms for the activities; "pay to play", "campaign donations", "revolving door." Our Western Mafia is the "Brotherhood of the Coast." Most western fortunes come connected to piracy. That is just fact. Hagiographers gloss over the facts.

American Pirates and Settlers

British Colonies were often settled for, by and of pirates. Piracy was also a form of irregular warfare. Expelled Moors and Jews preyed on ships in the Mediterranean from (at least) the 1490's on, in order to make irregular warfare against the Catholic Kings who had expelled them from Spain. They brought an expertise about sailing the Atlantic to piracy that had previously been lacking. Moors and Turks dominated the Mediterranean, but once Spain expelled Muslim and Jewish citizens, the Turks also preyed on ships traveling the Atlantic. One of their important cargos, was slaves. Slaves worked on plantations in the Mediterranean. Escaped slaves sometimes went home, Sometimes to new colonies, and sometimes became pirates.

Thanks to Columbus, pirates like Christopher Columbus directed attention to the “New World” the goal was loot and Spanish Filibustering Conquistadors found it aplenty. The Pope divided the world between Spanish Mafioso and Portuguese Mafioso, but Dutch, English, French & other Mafioso Pirates soon leaped into the fray. Gradually the center of trade and privateering shifted to the Americas. Many Early colonies, were also pirate havens. Victims of Religious Wars also became colonists. The religious wars were always going on at sea, even when the land was nominally at peace. Of course pirates were at war with everyone, so they often practiced a kind of ecumenicism. Turkish pirate ships on the Mediterranean often were piloted by "renegades" from Europe. Often they took Muslim names. Gradually however, the center of the fighting for Europeans shifted to the New World. Pirates and privateers plied the Caribbean, Atlantic, and American Coasts, including the Gulf of Mexico.

Brigands and Irregular Warfare

While a pirate is a thief who sails the seas. The term Brigand means a person (or Gang) that lives by plunder. That term applies to people who rob people in forests, hills and highways, but it also applies to pirates. Rebels were also called Brigands. Escaped slaves were called a lot of things, but when they were caught they were usually hanged as Brigands if not sold back into slavery. They could be charged with stealing themselves. Rebels, when the rebellion succeeded became nobility. When it failed their bands became Mafioso, Cosa Nostra, KKK. I use pirate in its generic sense because the terms are related and to make a point. Piracy didn't end when the last of 19th century pirates was hung. It morphed into other things. Pirates are always outlaws -- unless they have a permit to steal. Then they are called privateers. Semi legal pirates are criminals too. They rely on corrupt law.

Piracy and Business

Anyone familiar with movies like "The Godfather", "The Irishman", or similar, knows that criminality is a business. They don't always recognize that business is often criminal. This is because business is an activity, but businesses are institutions or gangs, governing the business of a gang of people. They are perfectly legal. When Corleone knocks off someone, but first tells him:

“it's not personal, it's just business.”

Businessmen worldwide can relate. They regularly “terminate” people for a plethora of reasons. Sometimes that termination leads to suicide or decline, but it is “just business” nevertheless because our laws and customs erase any responsibility for legitimate business to treat employees as family. In that sense they are worse than pirates. Privateers and other businessmen, employ people, but they are never family. They never have much say in the business. They can be terminated at will. Whole communities are terminated at will on a whim, because the business isn't making enough money, or it is cheaper to move it to China. All this only seems moral (or normal) because it has been legalized by corrupt law. This is privateering. Actual mobsters and pirates tended to enforce a rough democracy. It is a matter of power.

Anyway both pirates and privateers engage in private warfare. Privateering is private warfare, by definition. Privateers and pirates operating abroad would be on a "filibustering" expedition. Henry Morgan attacked Panama. The Brits traded with the whole world. Once we finished fighting the British after 1812, we traded with them all over the world and when Brit or American businessmen needed help, we would send private armies under pirates like the Walkers. Pirates also operated on our borders with Canada and Mexico. New Orleans was developed by colonists from all over the USA, and also was a pirate haven until after the Civil War.

And now the Americans.

Piracy is piracy no matter how legal their Kings and parliaments declare their behavior.

The major powers setup forts along the Gulf coast. Pirates set up havens in the American South along the Gulf coasts. Wide winding rivers and deep bays, allowed pirates to build settlements on Islands and operate against enemies at a distance. Pirates found the area between New Orleans and Mexico fertile ground for piracy, laundering their cargos and preying on cargo. When Mexico sought its independence New Orleans pirates would exploit connections to get letters of Marquee from both Spain and Mexico. They then could prey on shipping to all parties.

Our Cowboys

Pirates also found it lucrative to supply all sides. They smuggled weapons, gunpowder, to all sides. Served as mercenaries on both sides. And some of them settled on the land to raise cattle. These people taught other settlers and spread their techniques for cattle herding.

Our cowboys learned their trade from both Spanish Vaqueros and French Buccaneers. There weren't many Cowboys in Britain. But there was a tradition of buccaneering in the Caribbean. Moreover, the Spanish had brought with them cattle. When chaos ensued, many of those cattle ranged free alongside the native Bison. Ranching is lucrative. Many settlers and former pirates became cowboys.

Cowboys, Pirates and the Texas Revolution

It should be no surprise that the State of Texas was founded by pirates, or that our cowboy tradition is an outgrowth of our pirate tradition as much as a syncretism of Spanish, British and Native animal husbandry practices.

The Texas Revolution and the Tornel Decree

American settlers were land hungry. Many of the early settlers came as "filibusters", pirates waging private warfare to acquire land. People like the Walkers, Andrew Jackson, and others engaged in private warfare. Andrew Jackson illegally invaded Florida. He created an international incident. The USA had to diplomatically buy Florida to paper over this invasion. Jackson became a hero, but we almost had a ruinous war. But the people around Jackson didn't stop there.

Pirates versus Mexico

Jackson used pirate volunteers to defend New Orleans. Later he hanged some of those pirates. By then they were setting their sites on Texas. Settlers from the USA moved to texas, initially to supply the Mexicans, but more and more came, along with slave owners and their slaves, and that frightened the Spanish and the Mexican government that took over from the Spanish. Tejas had a lot of Spanish speaking Tejanos. They had feuds with Central Authority, because it was oppressive. The settlers made common cause with the Tejanos, however, because they wanted another slave state to join with the south and balance the "north" and south power so they could keep their slavery. Slaver Southerners saw a God Given right to bring their slaves with them where-ever they lived.

The Tornel Decree

Santa Anna and his legislature, knew that the Tejanos wanted independence. They'd made no secret about it, nor that they wanted to join Tejas the United States. The Texas immigrants were also illegal immigrants. They were secessionists from Mexico and weren't interested in living as Mexican Citizens. So they passed teh Tornel decree to warn the Texans that rebellion would be treated harshly:

“All foreigners who may land in any port of the republic or who enter it armed and for the purpose of attacking our territory shall be treated and punished as pirates, since they are not subjects of any nation at war with the republic nor do they militate under any recognized flag.” [Talk Wiki]

They knew the immigrating Texans were pirates.

Stealing Property is Piracy

but pirates are anyone who uses property without the permission of its rightful owners. Nowadays, when someone uses music or words, without the permission of the pirate company that asserts ownership of those words, it is called piracy. That broader definition is the one that Santa Anna was using. Of course the Mexicans would kill Tejanos who rebelled as well. But they had a special fury for Anglos.

American "filibusters", like the Walkers, Texans, Jacksons, etc.... were always pirates from the Point of view of the people we were attacking. Of course from the point of view of investors, backers and Southern admirers, the pirates who moved to Texas were heroes. Santa Anna, himself can be seen as a kind of pirate, since his lawless government was too busy enriching itself at the expense of Mexicans, to do a competent job of governing or respecting the needs and desires of people outside his center of power around Mexico City. Hence, his enemies turned from mere smuggling, verbal resistance, to open warfare. And Tejanos wanted independence from Mexico, partly because some of them thought they could get a better deal from the new country, the USA. But to the Mexicans they were brigands, rebels and pirates. Privateers get to hang pirates and that is what Santa Anna Sent out to do.

Hence The Alamo

The guys who died at the Alamo are heros from our point of view. From the point of view of the Mexicans, they were pirates. Some of them actually were pirates at one time or another. Jim Bowie being one example. His bio talks about his day supporting pirates. Other biographical info indicates he was a pirate.

HoltesThoughts

Wednesday, January 8, 2020