Charles-Étienne Arthur Gayarré (January 9, 1805 – February 11, 1895) was an American historian,
attorney, and politician born to a Spanish and
French Creole planter family in
New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
,
Louisiana
Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...
.
Gayarré composed plays, essays, and novels. He also wrote histories of Louisiana and penned an exposé of U.S. Army general
James Wilkinson
James Wilkinson (March 24, 1757 – December 28, 1825) was an American army officer and politician who was associated with multiple scandals and controversies during his life, including the Burr conspiracy.
He served in the Continental Army du ...
, whom he outed as a Spanish spy in 1854.
[ Appleton's Cyclopedia vol.III p.619]
Family life
The grandson of
Étienne de Boré, New Orlean's first mayor who introduced cultivation of indigo and sugarcane to the area, Charles Gayarré was born at the Boré plantation, which was then outside the city limits of New Orleans. (It has long been incorporated into the city as
Audubon Park.) His paternal grandfather, Don Esteban de Gayarré, arrived in the area with Spanish Governor
Antonio de Ulloa after France ceded it to Spain, and had been comptroller of the province of Louisiana. His other maternal grandfather was the former colonial treasurer under the French and master of
Destrehan Plantation, which was involved in a suppressed
slave revolt when Charles was a boy. After studying at the
College d'Orléans Gayarré began in 1826 legal studies in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
.
On January 28, 1856, Gayarré married Sarah Anne (Shadie) Sullivan (1820–1914) in
Lowndes County, Mississippi. In the 1860 census, he owned about a dozen slaves. His only child was the son of Delphine Le Maitre, a slave in his household when Gayarré was twenty-one years old. The child was also named Charles Gayarré and was baptized in the
St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.
Career
In 1825, Gayarré published a pamphlet criticizing changes that
Edward Livingston proposed in the Louisiana Criminal Code, particularly with respect to capital punishment (the fate of nearly 100 recaptured slaves during the
1811 German Coast revolt when he was a child).
He then traveled to Philadelphia for his legal studies, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania
bar in 1829.
In 1830, upon returning to New Orleans, Gayarré was elected a member of the
Louisiana House of Representatives
The Louisiana House of Representatives (; ) is the lower house in the Louisiana State Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. This chamber is composed of 105 representatives, each of whom represents approximately 4 ...
, and the leadership asked him to draft an address complimenting the French legislators during the
Revolution of 1830. In 1831, after admission to the Louisiana bar, Gayarré became his state's Deputy
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
. In 1833, he became presiding judge of the city court of New Orleans. In 1834, he was elected as a
Jackson Democrat to the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
. However, he resigned, citing health reasons, before taking his seat. For the next eight years, Gayarré traveled in Europe and collected historical material from France and Spain.
Some of the historical documents that he used were written by his ancestor, Esteban de Gayarré.
In 1844–1845 and in 1856–1857, he again served as a
Democratic Party member of the state House of Representatives, and, from 1845 to 1853, was the appointed
Secretary of State of Louisiana.
In 1853, he failed to win election to the U.S. Congress as an Independent, but he remained active in Louisiana politics as an ally of
John Slidell in the "Regular Democratic" movement.
Gayarré became a member of the Louisiana
Know Nothing
The American Party, known as the Native American Party before 1855 and colloquially referred to as the Know Nothings, or the Know Nothing Party, was an Old Stock Americans, Old Stock Nativism in United States politics, nativist political movem ...
Party from 1853 to 1855. He joined the party despite him being Catholic, and left the party because they were anti-Catholic.
In 1854, following extensive research of the
Spanish government archives in
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
, Gayarré exposed U.S. Army general
James Wilkinson
James Wilkinson (March 24, 1757 – December 28, 1825) was an American army officer and politician who was associated with multiple scandals and controversies during his life, including the Burr conspiracy.
He served in the Continental Army du ...
as having been "Agent 13", a highly paid spy in the service of the
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy (political entity), Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered ...
from 1787 until his death in 1825.
Gayarré lost his fortune of $400,000 by supporting the
Confederacy during the
Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
. In 1863 Gayarré proposed that slaves be emancipated and armed, provided that France and England recognized the Confederacy (no foreign country recognized it).
After the war, Gayarré published his three-volume History of Louisiana (with an introduction by
George Bancroft
George Bancroft (October 3, 1800 – January 17, 1891) was an American historian, statesman and Democratic Party (United States), Democratic politician who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state of Massachusetts ...
) and a biography of
Philip II of Spain
Philip II (21 May 152713 September 1598), sometimes known in Spain as Philip the Prudent (), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from 1580, and King of Naples and List of Sicilian monarchs, Sicily from 1554 until his death in 1598. He ...
, but was never elected to any office. He became a reporter of decisions for the
Louisiana Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Louisiana (; ) is the supreme court, highest court and court of last resort in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The modern Supreme Court, composed of seven justices, meets in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
The Supreme ...
, but he lived chiefly by his pen. He had a long-standing association with the
Louisiana Historical Society, of which he was the unpaid President from 1860 to 1888,
thus working with former Confederate President
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the only President of the Confederate States of America, president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the Unite ...
after his release from federal custody.
Gayarré wrote ''Histoire de la Louisiane'' (1847); ''Romance of the History of Louisiana'' (1848); ''Louisiana: its Colonial History and Romance'' (1851), reprinted in ''A History of Louisiana''; ''History of Louisiana: the Spanish Domination'' (1854); ''Philip II of Spain'' (1866); and ''A History of Louisiana'' (4 volumes, 1866), the last collecting and adding to his earlier works in this field. The whole covered the history of Louisiana from its earliest discovery by Europeans to 1861. He wrote also several dramas and
romances, including ''
Fernando de Lemos'' (1872).
Death and legacy
Gayarré died in New Orleans on February 11, 1895, survived by his widow, and is buried at St. Louis Cemetery in New Orleans.
Works
In French:
*''Histoire de la Louisiane'' (1846)
In English:
*History
**''Romance of the History of Louisiana'' (1848)
**''Louisiana: its Colonial History and Romance'' (1851)
**''Louisiana: its History as a French Colony'' (1852)
**''History of the Spanish Domination in Louisiana from 1769 to December 1803'' (185)
**''The History of Louisiana'', reprinting the prior volumes and additional material to 1861 as a final comprehensive edition in 186
(online here)**''Philip II of Spain'' (1866)
*Novels
**''Fernando de Lemos, Truth and Fiction'' (1872)
**''Aubert Dubayet'' (1882)
*Plays
**''The School for Politics: A Dramatic Novel'' (1854)
**''Dr. Bluff'', a comedy in two acts
References
Further reading
* Klugewicz, Stephen M
"'Unfit for the Age': Charles Gayarré, the Conservative as Satirist" ''
The Imaginative Conservative'', 2013.
* Lang, Herbert H. "Charles Gayarre and the Philosophy of Progress," ''Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association,'' Vol. 3, No. 3, Summer, 1962.
* Phillips, Faye. "To 'Build upon the Foundation': Charles Gayarré's Vision for the Louisiana State Library," ''Libraries & the Cultural Record,'' Volume 43, Number 1, 2008.
* Phillips, Faye. "Writing Louisiana Colonial History in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Charles Gayarré, Benjamin Franklin French, and the Louisiana Historical Society," ''Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association,'' Vol. 49, No. 2, Spring, 2008.
External links
*
*
Charles Gayarré Collectiona
The Historic New Orleans Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gayarre, Charles
1805 births
1895 deaths
19th-century American dramatists and playwrights
19th-century American historians
19th-century American novelists
19th-century American male writers
American male dramatists and playwrights
American male novelists
Hispanic and Latino American members of the United States Congress
Louisiana Creole people of Spanish descent
Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives
People of Louisiana in the American Civil War
Secretaries of state of Louisiana
Writers from New Orleans
Novelists from Louisiana
American male non-fiction writers
American writers in French
Hispanic and Latino American slave owners
American slave owners
Historians from Louisiana
Lawyers from New Orleans
American Roman Catholics
19th-century members of the Louisiana State Legislature