Who was the most famous Jewish pirate?

Answer 1

The most famous Jewish pirate was Jean Lafitte, who was born around 1780 in France to a family of Sephardic Jews who had fled across the Pyrenees following the expulsion of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition. He moved to French Santo Domingo during the Napoleonic period. However, a slave rebellion forced him to flee to New Orleans. Eventually he became a pirate, but he always preferred to call himself a privateer, because it sounded more legal. he ran a fleet of ships in the Gulf of Mexico. Mainly they captured Spanish booty (including slaves), which they captured in order to resell in Louisiana.

In 1814, the British wanted his help in their upcoming attack on New Orleans. However, Lafitte passed the English plans to the Americans, and and he helped General Andrew Jackson beat them in the Battle of New Orleans (1815), the last battle of the War of 1812. A grateful Jackson, not yet President, saw to it that Lafitte and his family became American citizens. And there is a town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, as well as a Jean Lafitte National Historical Park in Southwestern Louisiana.