The Revenant

The pirates’ luck ran flush. The Castellana was bound from Seville to New Orleans with a cargo of small arms. If they could remove the guns from the ship before it sank, they would turn an enormous profit. Lafitte would be pleased.

The settlement of Texas had begun in earnest by 1819, and Jean Lafitte’s pirate enclave on Galveston Island worked diligently to supply it. Towns sprouted from the Rio Grande to the Sabine, and all of them needed provisions. Lafitte’s particular method of obtaining his wares cut out the middleman. In fact, it cut up the middleman. With this competitive advantage over more conventional traders, Campeche thrived, becoming a magnet for all manner of smugglers, slavers, picaroons, and anyone else seeking a tolerant environment for illicit trade. The ambiguous status of Texas helped to shelter the Campeche pirates from intervention by outside powers. Mexico benefited from the attacks on Spanish ships, and Spain was too weak to challenge them. For a while, the United States was willing to look the other way. After all, Lafitte left American ships alone, and he was a hero of the Battle of New Orleans to boot.

Though not physically shackled, Hugh Glass found himself thoroughly imprisoned by Jean Lafitte’s criminal enterprise. Onboard ship, any form of mutiny would result in his death. His participation in various attacks on Spanish merchantmen left no doubt about the pirates’ perspective on dissent. Glass managed to avoid spilling blood by his own hand; his other actions he justified by the doctrine of necessity.

Nor did Glass’s time ashore in Campeche offer any reasonable opportunity for escape. Lafitte reigned supreme on the island. Across the bay on the Texas mainland, the dominant inhabitants were the Karankawa Indians, notorious for cannibalism. Beyond the territory of the Karankawa lay the Tonkawas, the Comanches, the Kiowas, and the Osage. None were hospitable to whites, though they were less inclined to eat them. The scattered pockets of civilization still included a large number of Spaniards, likely to hang as a pirate anyone who walked up from the coast. Mexican banditos and vigilante Texicans added final spice to the mainland mix.

Ultimately, there were limits on the civilized world’s willingness to tolerate a thriving pirate state. Most significantly, the United States decided to improve its relations with Spain. This diplomatic endeavor was made more difficult by the constant harassment of Spanish ships, often in U.S. territorial waters. In November 1820, President Madison sent Lieutenant Larry Kearney, the USS Enterprise, and a fleet of American warships to Campeche. Lieutenant Kearney presented Lafitte with a succinct choice: Leave the island or be blown to pieces.

Jean Lafitte may have been a swashbuckler, but he was also a pragmatist. He loaded his ships with as much plunder as could be carried, set Campeche ablaze, and sailed away with his buccaneer fleet, never again to be glimpsed by history.

Hugh Glass stood in the chaotic streets of Campeche that November night and made an abrupt decision about the course of his future. He had no intention of joining the fleeing band of pirates. Glass had come to view the sea, which he once embraced as synonymous with freedom, as no more than the confining parameters of small ships. He resolved to turn a new direction.

The crimson glow of fire cast Campeche’s last night in apocalyptic splendor. Men swarmed through the scattered buildings, grabbing for anything of value. Liquor, never in short supply on the island, flowed with particular abandon. Disputes over plunder found quick resolution through gunfire, filling the town with the staccato explosions of small arms. Wild rumors spread that the American fleet was about to shell the town. Men fought wildly to clamber aboard departing ships, whose crews used swords and pistols to fight off unwanted passengers.

As Glass wondered where to go, he ran headlong into a man named Alexander Greenstock. Like Glass, Greenstock was a prisoner, impressed into duty when his ship had been captured. Glass had served with him on a recent foray into the Gulf. “I know about a skiff on the South Shore,” said Greenstock. “I’m taking it to the mainland.” Among the contending poor options, the risks on the mainland seemed least bad. Glass and Greenstock picked their way through the town. Before them on a narrow road, three heavily armed men sat atop a horse-drawn cart, stacked precariously with barrels and crates. One man whipped the horse, while two others stood guard from the top of their loot. The cart hit a stone and a crate tumbled to the ground with a crash. The men ignored it, racing to catch their ship.

The top of the crate read “Kutztown, Pennsylvania.” Inside were newly crafted rifles from the gunsmith shop of Joseph Anstadt. Glass and Greenstock each grabbed a gun, incredulous at their luck. They scavenged through the few buildings that hadn’t been reduced to ashes, eventually finding ball, powder, and a few trinkets for trading.

It took them most of the night to row around the east end of the island and across Galveston Bay. The water caught the dancing light from the burning colony, making it appear as if the whole bay was ablaze. They could see clearly the hulking profiles of the American fleet and the fleeing ships of Lafitte. When they were a hundred yards from the mainland shore, a great explosion erupted from the island. Glass and Greenstock looked back to see mushrooming flames bellow forth from Maison Rouge, the residence and armory of Jean Lafitte. They rowed across the final few yards of the bay and jumped into the shallow surf. Glass waded ashore, leaving the sea behind him forever.

With no plan or destination, the two men picked their way slowly down the Texas coast. They set their course based more on that which they sought to avoid than on that which they sought to find. They worried constantly about the Karankawa. On the beach they felt exposed, but thick cane jungles and swampy bayous discouraged turning inland. They worried about Spanish troops and they worried about the American fleet.

After walking seven days, the tiny outpost of Nacogdoches appeared in the distance. News of the American raid on Campeche no doubt had spread. They guessed that the locals would view anyone approaching from Galveston as a runaway pirate, likely to be hanged on sight. Glass knew that Nacogdoches was the trailhead for the Spanish enclave of San Fernando de Bexar. They decided to avoid the village and cut inland. Away from the coast, they hoped, there would be less awareness of the events at Campeche.

Their hopes were misguided. They arrived at San Fernando de Bexar after six days and were promptly arrested by the Spanish. After a week in a stifling jail cell, the two men were brought before Major Juan Palacio del Valle Lersundi, the local magistrate.

Major Palacio gazed at them wearily. He was a disillusioned soldier, a would-be conquistador who instead found himself the administrator of a dusty backwater at the tail end of a war that he knew Spain would lose. As Major Palacio looked at the two men before him, he knew that the safest course would be to order them hanged. Wandering up from the coast with only their rifles and the clothes on their backs, he assumed they were pirates or spies, although both claimed to have been captured by Lafitte while traveling on Spanish ships.