All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S06E18.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[dramatic music]
[cannon blast]

- Tonight, one of the
most infamous pirates

to prowl America's Gulf
Coast, Jean Lafitte.

- He was literally called
the Terror of the Gulf.

[cannons exploding]

- There was not anything
that Lafitte wouldn't buy,

sell or steal.

Gold, cotton, tobacco,
and even people.

- But after amassing
a vast fortune,

Lafitte, along with
his stash goes missing.

- No one has ever found
all of his treasure.

Millions and millions could
still be out there today.

- Now we'll explore
the top theories

surrounding the whereabouts
of this massive hoard.

- Did Lafitte take
his treasure with him

or did he stash it on
the island for later?

- Legend has it, they panicked

and having no better place
to hide the treasure,

they took the
wagons on their ship

and just kind of
threw 'em overboard.

- When he left Galveston Island
aboard his ship, The Pride,

his treasure was right
there next to him.

Now the question remains,
where did The Pride end up?

- What became of
Lafitte's lost treasure

and where could it be?

[upbeat dramatic music]

Early 1800s, the Gulf of Mexico,

for merchants and sailors
on the open waters,

one name inspires more
fear than any other.

Jean Lafitte.

- Lafitte commands
a fleet of ships

that prowl the Gulf of Mexico
and prey on unarmed vessels.

[cannon booming]

They then sell what they steal
through a smuggling network

that's based in New Orleans.

[dramatic music]

- Jean Lafitte was the
final version of pirates.

So you have the
golden age pirates

who are working for themselves,

but he's effectively working
as a cartel or mob boss.

He has an operation
that's moving

millions of dollars
worth of merchandise.

- He really caught
the imagination

of the American people

because he was a
bit of a showman

and he was considered to be
something of a folk hero,

like a latter day Robinhood

to the people of
Southern Louisiana.

- The reality of Jean Lafitte
is darker, much darker.

Tobacco and cotton are
prized commodities,

but so is something
else, slaves.

Lafitte would steal
slaves off of slave ships

and then he would keep
them in storehouses

up and down the Gulf of Mexico
until he could sell them.

- At one point he was pulling in

about a million dollars a year,

so we're talking about
billions of dollars

in today's currency.

He was one of the wealthiest
men in the Caribbean

and it's a real mystery, not
only what happened to him,

but what happened to
all that treasure?

[tense music]

- [Laurence] The
uncertainty also surrounds

Jean Lafitte's early days.

- Some believe he was born
in France in the late 1700s.

Others report him as being

born around Port-au-Prince.

From a very young age,

him and his brother Pierre
become very good seamen.

They're taught how
to fight with swords,

how to shoot a pistol, how to
command a giant sailing ship.

And there's even legends
that at one point they joined

the French Navy to go and
fight in the Napoleonic Wars.

[tense music]

- Then in 1803, one of the
most consequential events

in American history takes place.

Napoleon's France sells
the Louisiana Territory

to the United States for
a sum of $15 million.

The United States gains
all of the territory

up and down the Mississippi
River and west to the Rockies.

- It doubles the size of
the United States overall

and gives some territory that
stretches from the East Coast

almost all the way
to the West Coast.

Strategically, New Orleans
is now in a position

where it's one of the
major trading hubs

of the United States.

- This really transformed the
people living there as well

or transformed their taste,

their desires in
certain kinds of ways.

They're rich or
wanted to seem rich,

and this is the
Lafitte's wheelhouse.

- [Laurence] Sensing
a big opportunity,

the Lafitte brothers relocate

and set up shop in New Orleans.

- Lafitte first emerges,

at least in official
records, around 1805.

He and his brother
Pierre own a warehouse

in the bustling port
city of New Orleans

where they're able to
distribute their goods

that they've acquired
from various means.

- So we're talking tobacco,
coffee, some indigo,

cotton to some extent, textiles.

He often had those luxury goods
to offer to the population

when they couldn't get them.

- [Laurence] Then in
1807, an act of Congress

starts Lafitte
down a darker path.

- Amidst the turmoil of
Napoleon's wars in Europe,

American trade vessels
are under attack

by both the British
and the French.

So the United States passes
the Embargo Act in 1807

that prohibits not
only the importation

of foreign goods into the US,

but also the
importation of slaves.

- Because it does not
outright outlaw slavery,

what it does is actually
incentivize people

who are dealing in the
illegal importation

and trade of slaves.

For someone such
as Jean Lafitte,

these acts actually only open

new business
opportunities for him.

- Someone had to fill the void.

Just because a supply goes away,

doesn't mean that
the demand goes away,

and Lafitte was right
at the heart of that.

- [Laurence] By 1809,
the Lafittes run

a blacksmith shop in
the French Quarter.

- But in reality,
this is a front

for their smuggling business.

They're bringing in stolen goods

and selling them to merchants
and other business people.

- He was smuggling and
trading enslaved Africans

using his networks,

the very same networks that
he was using for cotton,

indigo and all sorts
of other goods.

- [Laurence] To
escape the scrutiny

of American customs agents,

Lafitte moves his operation
from the blacksmith shop

in New Orleans

to nearby Barataria Bay.

- So Barataria Bay is south
and west of New Orleans,

and for Jean Lafitte,
it's the perfect place

to hide his criminal enterprise.

- Barataria is one of
the most confusing places

to go in America.

The canals, the swamps, the
slews, they all twist and turn,

and if you got put down there,

you were gonna be lost
before you even started.

But Lafitte and his men had
a mastery of these bayous

and the Baratarians, as
they called themselves,

run their illegal
goods all the way

from the mouth of the
Mississippi up into New Orleans.

- They now have a
base that they operate

as their own kingdom,

effectively outside
the power of the law.

In addition to that,
they can see any ships

that might be sailing
past Barataria

and strike targets at will.

- Lafitte decides if
he can stop the ships

from even reaching the
port of New Orleans,

then he can cut off
all of his competition

and become even richer
and more powerful.

[cannons exploding]

- [Laurence] The Lafittes
launch full-blown attacks

on other vessels, essentially
becoming pirates.

But to evade the law, Lafitte
figures out a loophole

by insisting he's a privateer.

- The line between pirate
and privateer is thin

and very, very blurry,

but essentially a
pirate is illegal

and is engaged in
attacking and thieving.

Privateers do similar things,

but they do so under the guise
of some sort of legality.

- The difference is this,

privateers sail under what's
known as a Letter of Marque,

which is something
granting sanction

to the stealing of goods
for nations at war.

- Lafitte claims to be
first a French privateer

and then a privateer operating
under the Letter of Marque

of a small independent
nation called Cartagena.

In reality, he's never taking
resources back to Cartagena.

- He was ultimately
working for himself,

but becoming a privateer gave
him some guise of legitimacy

in case he ever got
stopped by officials

that he couldn't outwit.

- Whatever Lafitte doesn't keep,

he smuggles into New
Orleans and sells,

by some estimates, as
much as a billion dollars

worth of goods in today's
currency flowed in

and out of his
base in Barataria.

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] For years, Lafitte
manages to elude capture.

Then in 1821 with the
US Navy in pursuit,

he torches his secret compound

and escapes into
the Gulf of Mexico.

- As far as we know, that was
the last official sighting

of him anywhere in
American waters.

But naturally,
rumors begin to grow

not only of his whereabouts,

but, of course, the whereabouts
of his enormous fortune.

- Lafitte made so much
money during his lifetime

that many would say it
was impossible for him

to have taken it all with him.

But if he took his
treasure, where is it?

- [Laurence] There's
one location

near and dear to Lafitte,

that tops the list of
potential hiding spots.

[dramatic music]

- Lafitte operates mainly
out of two islands,

Grand Isle and Grand-Terre.

These islands are
fully equipped.

They've got bases, warehouses,

places where you
could stash anything

including enormous
quantities of treasure.

[tense music]

- Lafitte lived on various

barrier islands in
Barataria Bay.

He warehoused his goods there.

He held auctions there to sell
off black market contraband,

generating more loot.

- These auctions only
add to Lafitte's wealth,

but he has to stash
that loot somewhere.

It's not like a pirate is gonna
take his loot to the bank.

- There are rumors of a large
cache of gold and silver,

near the home that Jean
Lafitte built on Grand-Terre

and lavishly furnished
and decorated.

- There's a story that
at one point a fisherman

was down in Barataria

and he found a small chest
full of gold earrings,

Spanish coins, and a silver
imprint of the Virgin Mary.

- It is also believed that a
good number of Lafitte's men

made their homes in Barataria

and even raised families there.

- [Laurence] Many
Grand Isle families

are descendants of those men,

and whispers of
potential burial sites

are passed down through
the generations.

- This area is well known

for its several 100-
year-old oak trees,

massive trunks, major landmarks

that would be easily
identifiable from the water.

There are persistent
stories that Jean Lafitte

hid his treasure in the waters,

and that he used certain
large trees as landmarks

to tell him where
that treasure was.

- Traces of Lafitte's
smuggling operation

have been found on Grand-Terre.

Descendants claim to have
discovered things like coins,

broken pottery and shell heaps,

but nothing amounting to a
massive treasure has been found.

- People have really
focused on Barataria,

hoping that Jean Lafitte
left treasure there,

but the Barataria
Bay area is made

part of sort of the National
Park system in 1966,

and so you can't
just go in there

and start looking for treasure
wherever you want anymore.

- Some treasure hunters
suggest there is no silver,

there is no gold hidden
in these islands,

and it's because he never

hid his treasure there
in the first place.

- [Laurence] By 1814, despite
being a wanted pirate,

Jean Lafitte is revered by
many New Orleans residents.

- The people who settled
this area of Louisiana

were not necessarily loyal
to the American government.

Local law enforcement
in Louisiana

simply let Jean Lafitte be,
and most people didn't care

that he was engaged
in illegal activity.

- When Lafitte is charged
with piracy in 1814,

he knows that he
could at any moment

have to flee his
base in Grand-Terre.

He needs to get as far away
from Barataria Bay as possible,

somewhere where the
law can't find him

and somewhere presumably,
he could stash his treasure.

- [Laurence] This opens up an
endless list of possibilities.

[suspenseful music]

- For the first few years
following the Embargo Act,

customs officials pretty
much turn a blind eye

to most illegal
smuggling activity.

However, over time,
this smuggling activity

becomes so rampant
and so profitable

that it begins cutting
into their tax revenue.

- So while the locals may
have been turning a blind eye

to Lafitte's illegal operations,

the American government
certainly wasn't,

and Lafitte drew the ire of
one very prominent governor

of Louisiana named
William Claiborne.

Claiborne sets off on a mission

to end Lafitte's pirating
operations once and for all.

Lafitte has become
public enemy number one.

- Claiborne took it upon
himself to post wanted posters

for the outlaw Lafitte
offering a bounty of $500.

Lafitte was thoroughly undaunted

and not only did
he evade arrest,

but he himself had
posters printed

and those posters said, "Wanted
Governor William Claiborne,"

and offered a reward of $5,000.

- Governor Claiborne's
not amused.

He's coming in and trying
to impose some order.

He's trying to have the
people of New Orleans

respect the US government,

and so it's a direct affront
to Governor Claiborne's power.

- [Laurence] Their conflict
reaches a boiling point

on September 16th, 1814,
when the navy sends

the USS Carolina

to lead an all-out assault

on Lafitte's base in Barataria.

[cannon booming]

- Now this is a massive show
of force by the US Navy.

Lafitte is surrounded by the
USS Carolina and six gunboats.

- The USS Carolina
enters Barataria Bay

and absolutely batters
Lafitte's pirate camp

with heavy artillery fire.

- It seems that Lafitte's
caught off guard by this.

He ends up losing 80
men in the process,

and he loses a number of
sailing vessels as well.

[cannons exploding]

- Lafitte's men
abandon their ships.

The US Navy burns
several of them,

and they're able
to capture $500,000

of Lafitte's stolen goods,

which would be somewhere
in the neighborhood

of $10 million worth
of goods today.

However, what they don't
capture is Lafitte himself.

He's able to elude arrest
by fleeing into the swamp.

[suspenseful music]

- It is said that Jean
Lafitte sneaked away

and found a special
hiding place,

tiny little place
called Orange Island,

which is 130 miles northwest

of his primary base
in Barataria Bay.

[dramatic music]

Now Orange Island is right
on the shores of Lake Peigneur.

It would have been a
safe and easy place to go

because it is reportedly owned

by Jean Lafitte's
brother-in-law.

- The US Navy did recapture a
tremendous amount of wealth,

but there's absolutely no
way Lafitte allowed them

to capture all of it.

Anywhere that Lafitte
is rumored to have been,

there's rumors that that's
where he stored his treasure,

including that he brought
his treasure with him

to Orange Island and that's
where it still is today.

[tense music]

- The theory goes that he
was able to make his way

to this new location
in the Louisiana Delta.

It was a good place for him
to recover from the defeat.

- It does make sense
as a possible location

where Lafitte might
have taken refuge.

However, as far as
actual excavations go,

nothing really that
can be tied to Lafitte

has ever been found,

until there was a particular
instance back in 1921

when some construction workers
found some mysterious pots

that had been bricked
up and sealed with lead.

And when they broke them open,

they did find that there
were gold and silver coins

that were associated
with Spain and Mexico.

- The news of this
discovery hits the papers

and people go into a frenzy.

All the treasure
hunters in the area

descend upon Orange Island.

They start digging up
anything and everything,

and the newspapers report

that they found other
coins in the area,

both English and French.

- So that could have
possibly come from

Lafitte's treasure trove.

However, there's
nothing definitive.

A more likely candidate
seems to lie further west.

- [Laurence] By the end
of 1814, Jean Lafitte

and his brother Pierre are
no longer working together,

and Jean is a wanted
man, accused of piracy

and run out of Barataria
Bay by the US Navy.

But his fate is about to turn.

[dramatic music]
[guns firing]

- A war breaks out between
the United States and Britain.

The Americans and the
British were doing battle

over a course of
about two years,

between 1812 and 1814.

- The British wanted
to take New Orleans

so they could control the
North American interior,

and in order to take
control of New Orleans,

they knew they were
gonna need some help.

- The British approached Lafitte

and offered him the
equivalent today

of what would be about
$2 million in funding

in order for him
to side with them

and attack New Orleans
from that back entryway

that he was using
to smuggle goods.

- Lafitte is no patriot.

He's looking out for number one,

and he sees a
unique opportunity.

And so he tells the
British he needs two weeks

to think over their offer,

but secretly Lafitte has other
plans with the other side.

- He now can use this
leverage from the British

as a get out of jail free
card with the United States

in order to allow
them to live free

after the war is concluded.

- [Laurence] Future
US President,

General Andrew Jackson
is wary of Lafitte,

but he's also desperate
to gain the upper hand.

- The British Navy
rules the seas.

General Jackson is facing
absolutely impossible odds

against the sheer size
of the British force.

Jean Lafitte goes
to General Jackson.

He says, "I can give you my
men, I can give you my boats,

I can give you my cannon.

I can give you the knowledge
of these waterways."

And General Jackson sort
of has to make a deal

with the pirate Jean Lafitte.

- In exchange for
the Baratarians

joining Andrew Jackson's army,

Andrew Jackson agrees to
pardon all of the Baratarians,

including Lafitte if
they survive the battle.

[guns firing]

- Lafitte and the
pirates of Barataria

bring a lot to the table.

They are incredibly

skilled with artillery

and they have maps,
they have charts,

they have local intelligence.

They're more like a
seasoned military force.

[cannons exploding]

- [Laurence] On
January 8th, 1815,

Great Britain launches its
invasion of New Orleans

with 8,000 soldiers
and dozens of ships.

- Lafitte's men help Jackson
form a defensive line

that extends all the
way from the river

to the nearby swampland.

- The British army
becomes an easy target

for Lafitte's cannons.

Thanks to his very
skilled cannoniers,

he and his men are
able to help defeat

one of the greatest armies
to ever walk the earth.

[cannon booming]

- The British continued to
fight for another 10 days

just at the mouth of
the Mississippi River,

but then they couldn't
hold their ground

and had a final retreat
from the region altogether,

and it marked a definitive
American victory.

- [Laurence] The win not
only puts Andrew Jackson

on the path to the presidency,

but casts Lafitte in
an entirely new light.

- It's a transformative
event for him.

Prior to the battle of New
Orleans, he's a bandit.

In fact, he's the worst of
the bandits, he's a pirate.

- When the smoke clears.

Jean Lafitte, Pirate, is
now an American hero.

Andrew Jackson
publicly credits him

with saving the
city of New Orleans,

and none other than President
James Madison himself

pardons Lafitte for his crimes.

- For a short time,
Lafitte returns

to the city of New Orleans

and it really looks like
he has changed his ways

and is a reformed man.

But it takes less than
a year for the rumors

to begin to circulate
that he has returned

to his life of piracy, and
in order to avoid arrest,

he ultimately flees the city.

- [Laurence] This time, Lafitte
operates out of the bayous

around Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Many people speculate
that it's here

where he stashed a good
chunk of his treasure

in an aptly named location.

[dramatic music]

- Contraband Bayou.

This was Lafitte's backyard.

Almost one quarter of
the state is underwater,

so this part of
Louisiana is really

an endless water landscape.

He knew this area of
Louisiana better than anyone.

- There are people
living in that area

who have for generations
passed down legends

of Lafitte and his treasure.

Silks and jewels, silver
bars and Spanish gold coins.

- There is lore that
suggest that Jean Lafitte

actually seized a
Spanish treasure ship.

He took the gold and the
treasure from this vessel,

but not before being followed
by a United States warship.

Lafitte knew that that US
warship could not access

the smaller waterways, so he
slipped into Contraband Bayou

to elude capture.

[suspenseful music]

- According to legend,
once the danger has passed,

Lafitte makes his way to an
island in Contraband Bayou,

now known as Money Hill,

where he stashes the loot
from the Spanish ship.

- The allure of this
story is so strong

that treasure hunters
dug all around Money Hill

really up until the 1940s,
but nothing was ever found.

- In addition to that
one little island,

treasure hunters dig
all over Lake Charles,

the Calcasieu River,
Contraband Bayou

never turning up any of
Lafitte's lost millions.

Now, some would say
that it is still there,

it's just much harder to get to.

- In the modern
era, Lake Charles

has been turned into a sort of
resort town and a golf course,

so it's possible that
people are playing golf

on top of Lafitte's
hidden treasure.

- Given how many
efforts have been made

to find the treasure
in this region,

and come up empty handed, we
have to admit the possibility

that maybe Lafitte may
have taken it with him

when he had to leave
the United States.

- 200 years after Jean
Lafitte is last seen,

rumors of his buried
treasure still swirl.

And while most
searches focus on areas

in and around New Orleans,

some believe his riches lie,
one state over in Texas.

- Soon after the
Battle of New Orleans,

Lafitte heads west
to Galveston Island,

which is itself a 30-
mile thin strip of sand,

and is infamous
for the thousands

of venomous cottonmouth
snakes that inhabit the island.

- Galveston Island is
this extraordinarily

dark and gloomy place,

and Lafitte took every
advantage of its isolation,

of its supposed inhabitability

to set up what would become
a flourishing pirate colony.

- Most importantly, it's
beyond the authority

of the United States of America.

At this point, Spain controls
all of Texas and Mexico.

- Spanish Texas, at the time,
is conflicted territory.

You have the Mexican
revolutionaries

fighting their war
of independence,

which puts them at
odds with Spain.

Lafitte can now play both
sides in this situation

to allow him to conduct his
privateering operations.

- Lafitte really had a knack

for creating something
out of nothing,

and he created a colony,
which he called Campeche,

right there on the island.

Over 200 structures were
built by Lafitte and his men.

Thousands of crewman lived there

and they commandeered
at least 20 vessels.

- This was probably
one of the largest

private fleets in history,

and that doesn't
happen without money.

You need enormous wealth.

- Campeche is a huge colony

and it is funded entirely

by Lafitte's pirate operation,

which makes him
essentially a king.

And everyone who lives there

has to pledge their
loyalty to him

and must help him raid ships

in order to increase his wealth.

[dramatic music]

- For whatever reason, Lafitte
wanted to give the appearance

of legitimacy to his operations,

and in exchange for
people's loyalty,

he would offer them
Letters of Marque.

In the minds of everyone
working for him,

this was a real
privateering venture,

but these were fraudulent
Letters of Marque

and everyone was actually
operating in reality as pirates.

- [Laurence] Legend has it

that the newly-minted
Pirate King Lafitte,

scores his most lucrative
robbery in 1816.

- It's alleged that
Lafitte captures

a Spanish treasure ship
called the Santa Rosa

that has $2 million
worth of silver on board,

and the only way to
escape is to navigate

a pretty treacherous
route up the Sabine River.

[tense music]

- The Sabine River
is a river that runs

right along the border
between Texas and Louisiana,

stayed on the Spanish side,

so still out of the
authority of the US

and with the help of
traitors in the interior

was able to move the
treasure up the river.

But apparently his men
got spooked by a band

of indigenous people

or potentially by a US
vessel that was in the area.

Legend has it, they panicked

and having no better place
to hide the treasure.

They took the
wagons on their ship

and just kind of
threw 'em overboard

and let the treasure settle
at the bottom of the river.

[suspenseful music]

- Locals hear this legend and
pass it on for generations.

And while the legend lives on,

no one ever dredges up any
treasure from the river.

That is until 1895,

when a local fisherman pulls
up silver in his fishing net.

- This is in the
middle of nowhere,

and so everyone
immediately recalls

the stories of
Lafitte's treasure.

- Once the story
hits the newspapers,

treasure hunters descend on
not only the Sabine River,

but also nearby Hendricks Lake

where some think

the treasure may have washed up.

- There at Hendricks Lake
treasure hunters have tried

a variety of different
methods of trying to see

what might be buried there.

One of the earliest
attempts was by a man

who had the grand vision of
trying to drain the lake.

- This man not only has an
entire operation of pumps,

drills, and conveyor belts
to help him reach the bottom,

he also has a nasty temper.

And so when one of the locals

begins criticizing his efforts,

he loses it and murders him

[gun firing]

right there on the bank
of the river and is arrested.

But fortunately,
subsequent treasure hunters

have been much more levelheaded.

- [Laurence] Still
everyone comes up empty,

but that doesn't stop
hopeful fortune hunters

from continuing to look.

- Although the legends
surrounding the Sabine River

and Lake Hendricks have driven

a lot of treasure hunting
activity over the years,

perhaps the most sustained

and legitimate
excavation attempts

have come from the
documentary filmmaker,

Christian B. Roper.

- Roper came in and used even
more sophisticated equipment,

including some deep sea sonar

to investigate this
area of Hendricks Lake

- Using aerial flights

to determine the most
likely smuggling route

through the lakes, Roper is
able to narrow his search

and he begins diving.

- This is the most exhaustive
search of the lake yet,

and it is still ongoing

and with every dive Roper
gets closer and closer

to where he believes
the treasure lies.

- Incredibly, he has
found a portion of a wagon

that could have
been used to haul

some of Lafitte's treasure,

but the treasure itself
has yet to be found.

- A lot of historians think that

if there's anything to be found,

then it's gonna be
something closer to home

and closer to Lafitte's heart,

quite possibly the location

where he spent
his happiest days.

- [Laurence] By 1819,

Jean Lafitte's pirate commune
on Galveston Island, Texas

is a bustling operation.

- Lafitte founds his
pirate colony of Campeche.

This was more than just a
little pirate shanty town,

this was an actual colony,

and this becomes a
hotbed for pirating,

smuggling and privateering.

- At the height
of its operations,

Campeche is bringing in
millions of dollars a year

in resources and
money for Lafitte,

and he has at least
1,000 privateers

at any given time
operating from his base.

- It has between 100 and
200 permanent structures,

but the most stately
of all of them

is Lafitte's own
residence, Maison Rouge.

- Lafitte brings everything
that he holds dear,

including his common-law
wife, Catiche Villard,

and their children
to Maison Rouge.

- [Laurence] It's
believed he also brings

something else important here.

[dramatic music]

- He has a cannon on the
roof, 36-pound cannons

poking out of the windows

and 40-pound cannons
encircling the home.

It's basically pirate Fort Knox.

- It was here at Maison Rouge

that Lafitte spent his happiest

and seemingly safest
days as a pirate.

For Lafitte, a man who
has made his entire career

smuggling prized luxury
goods to the citizens

all along the Gulf Coast,

Maison Rouge was the place
where he finally settled down

and enjoyed some of
those finer things.

Rumors have it that
he stocked his mansion

with the finest
brandies, finest wines,

most expensive Chinas

and everything that you
could imagine desiring

from the European marketplace.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] But this cushy
period of Lafitte's life

comes to an abrupt end in 1821.

- Lafitte's domestic bliss was
once again to be short-lived

because he really
couldn't stop pirating.

So, he made the
decision to attack

an American merchant ship.

[cannons exploding]

This was something
that of course

could not be tolerated
by the United States.

- The US government
has finally had enough.

It doesn't matter that
Lafitte is living outside

of US jurisdictions there
in Galveston Island.

What matters is that
he has now become

this irredeemable
thorn in their side.

The USS Enterprise arrives
there in Galveston Bay

and tells Lafitte
that he can go quietly

or he can go out in a bang.

[tense music]

- Lafitte realizes that if he
makes a stand, he's gonna die.

So he strikes a deal
with the US Navy

to leave Campeche
without a fight.

Lafitte orders an
evacuation of the island,

sets his colony on
fire and sails away.

So the question arises, did
Lafitte take his treasure

with him or did he stash
it on the island for later?

Some believe that it's
stashed in the ground

underneath the foundation
of Maison Rouge.

- His home of Maison Rouge
was burned to its foundation.

So today what one sees is
only a remnant, an echo really,

of Lafitte's time
on Galveston Island.

- Although a pirate mansion
seems like an intriguing place

to look for treasure,
it hasn't really spurred

the same kind of
gold hunting frenzies

that other locations have.

In fact, as far as we know,
only a handful of attempts

have been made to
locate anything of value

at Maison Rouge.

- Supposedly in the 1940s,

two men were hired to clean up
the property of Maison Rouge.

They did the job for a few
days and then disappeared.

One of them resurfaces
years later in East Texas,

he's now the owner
of a big farm.

The other is killed
in World War II

and leaves behind for
his family an estate

worth more than $60,000.

Now, that's an enormous
sum of money in the 1940s.

One can only speculate

that they maybe found a
bit of pirate treasure.

- In 1984, there was an
archaeological investigation

conducted by the
University of Houston

around the site of Maison Rouge,

but all they found there were
liquor bottles from the 1880s

and no signs of any
of Lafitte's treasure.

- [Laurence] This opens
up another possibility.

Maybe he took it with him.

- We have to
consider that Lafitte

was not gonna leave his
treasure along with his colony,

and that he actually did manage
to load it all onto his ship

and to sail off
into the distance.

- [Laurence] When Jean
Lafitte is forced to leave

his Galveston base in 1821,

it's believed that he fled
aboard his flagship, The Pride,

with his family and a cargo
hold full of treasure.

- There's very little
historic record

of what happens to Lafitte after
he leaves Galveston Island.

- There's some prevailing
theories, however,

that suggest different
outcomes for him.

One is that he ended
up in the Yucatan

and continued his
pirate operations there

in the Gulf of Mexico
for many more years.

Another theory is that he
went down with The Pride,

probably in a hurricane,
as one legend says.

- There is some
historical evidence

that he made his way
to Gran Colombia

and there obtained
for the first time

a truly legitimate
Letter of Marque

to then go pursue Spanish ships,

until he picked a fight with
a warship and died at sea.

- Some people say that he
rescued Napoleon from Elba

and they both make their way
back to Louisiana together.

However, there are other
people that believe

he may have faked his own death.

- The most interesting theory

is that he simply
changed his name,

gave himself a new identity,

and moved to North Carolina

under the name of
Lorenzo Ferrer.

And no one ever heard
from Jean Lafitte again.

- No one knows for sure
what happened to Lafitte

or his treasure.

It may have been that
he didn't get very far

and that his life of
piracy caught up to him.

- [Laurence] But there's
one more possible theory

that interests modern
treasure hunters.

- One legend says that
after his encounter

with the US Navy at
Galveston Island,

Lafitte sailed his ship,
The Pride, into Trinity Bay.

- He sailed into Trinity River

there because the Gulf

access was blocked

by the United States government.

Then Lafitte sank The Pride
to the bottom of Lake Miller

with all of his treasure aboard,

most likely with the
intention of returning

to claim his treasure.

[dramatic music]

- This theory that
Lafitte sailed The Pride

up the Trinity River has
attracted a lot of attention.

So according to local legends
down there in Galveston Island,

in the 1850s a
cotton gin operator

claimed that his
logs had gotten stuck

on some kind of wreckage
there in the lake.

- This supposed
underwater shipwreck

is where Lafitte is said
to have sank The Pride.

And the cotton gin operator

claims that he even
walked on the ship's deck.

But this remains
just a family story,

because there's no way to
bring this ship to the surface.

- [Laurence] Then in 1949,

two businessmen
mount an expedition

to explore Lake Miller.

- They discover what
what they believe

is the hull of an old ship

somewhere beneath 16
feet of mud and moss

at the bottom of this lake.

- And they go to the
Corpus Christi newspaper

with that information.

There is a frenzy
of treasure hunting

excitement around this.

In response, the
State Land Commission

ends up shutting off permits
to search Trinity Bay

for the remains
of Lafitte's ship.

- So the operation gets called
off about two weeks later

because too many
people are coming out

looking for lost
pirate treasure,

and no other search
has been mounted since.

- This is a theory that has
not been debunked necessarily,

but The Pride was
his flagship vessel.

It was a pretty
substantive ship,

so there's some
doubt as to whether

he really would've
been able to navigate

the tiny lake pass in order
to get to Lake Miller.

One thing we can say is
that Lafitte really began

and remained a man
of great mystery.

And this element of
mystery of his origins

and of his final destiny

is part of what makes his
legend so long lasting.

- To this day, if you
go to Galveston Island

or you drive through
Southern Louisiana,

you're gonna see Lafitte's name
on anything and everything.

Trinkets at the gas station,
souvenir shops, golf courses.

From Texas to Louisiana,

the legend of
Lafitte's lost treasure

is certainly alive and well.

- Jean Lafitte in a
lot of ways represents

what people perceive as freedom,

but it also masks who Lafitte
actually was as a person.

In reality, his
actions as a pirate

and as a human trafficker,
would've limited the freedoms

of thousands of people

in the areas that they
were operating in.

- So we have these two very
diverse aspects of Lafitte.

You have someone who is an
anti-hero, he's a criminal,

but so much lore surrounds
him because he was rich,

and we don't know what
became of his treasure.

His story is unfinished.

[dramatic music]

- Jean Lafitte leaves
behind a legacy of tales

and a wealth of treasure

that may still be
out there somewhere

to be found by those
willing to brave the swamps

and bayous he knew so well.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."

[dramatic music]