Jean Lafitte’s treasure

The pirate and smuggler Jean Lafitte ran the Barataria coast south of New Orleans in the early 1800s, and helped Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 in trade for a pardon. Then he vanished, and the story that he buried his plunder in the bayous and along the Gulf beaches has never died: treasure has been hunted from Grand Isle to Lake Borgne for two centuries. His smuggling grounds are real history; the buried gold is the legend that will not sink.