Charles-Étienne Arthur Gayarré (January 9, 1805 – February 11, 1895) was an American historian,
attorney, slaveowner and politician born to a Spanish and
French Creole planter family in
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
. A Confederate sympathizer and a writer of plays, essays, and novels, Gayarré is chiefly remembered for his histories of Louisiana
[ Appleton's Cyclopedia vol.III p.619] and his exposé of US Army general
James Wilkinson as a Spanish spy.
Early and 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 Gayarre, arrived in the area with Spanish Governor
Antonio de Ulloa
Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Giralt, FRS, FRSA, KOS (12 January 1716 – 3 July 1795) was a Spanish naval officer, scientist, and administrator. At the age of nineteen, he joined the French Geodesic Mission to what is now the country o ...
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
A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by enslaved people, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of enslaved people have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freed ...
when Charles was a boy. After studying at the
College d'Orléans Gayarré began in 1826 legal studies in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
.
On January 28, 1856, Gayarré married Sarah Anne (Shadie) Sullivan (1820–1914) in
Lowndes County, Mississippi
Lowndes County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 59,779. Its county seat is Columbus. The county is named for U.S. Congressman and slave owner William Jo ...
. In the 1860 census, he owned about a dozen slaves.
Career
In 1825, Gayarré published a pamphlet criticizing changes that
Edward Livingston
Edward Livingston (May 28, 1764May 23, 1836) was an American jurist and statesman. He was an influential figure in the drafting of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825, a civil code based largely on the Napoleonic Code. Livingston represented both ...
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, 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 1833 he became presiding judge of the city court of New Orleans. In 1834 he was elected as a
Jackson Democrat
Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, And ...
to the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
. 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 was elected again as a
Democratic Party member of the state House of Representatives, and from 1845 to 1853 was appointed as
Secretary of State of Louisiana
The secretary of state of Louisiana (french: Secrétaire d'État de la Louisiane) is one of the elected constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Louisiana and serves as the head of the Louisiana Department of State. The position was created ...
.
In 1853 he failed to win election to the U.S. Congress as an Independent, but remained active in Louisiana politics as an ally of
John Slidell
John Slidell (1793July 9, 1871) was an American politician, lawyer, and businessman. A native of New York, Slidell moved to Louisiana as a young man and became a Representative and Senator. He was one of two Confederate diplomats captured by the ...
in the "Regular Democratic" movement.
Gayarré became a member of the Louisiana
Know Nothing Party from 1853-1855. 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, Gayarré exposed US Army general
James Wilkinson as having been "Agent 13", a highly paid spy in the service of the
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
from 1787 until his death in 1825.
Gayarre lost his fortune of $400,000 by supporting the
Confederacy during the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same 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 ...
. 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 3-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 politician who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state of Massachusetts and at the national and internati ...
) and a biography of
Philip II of Spain, but was never elected to any office. He became a reporter of decisions for the
Louisiana Supreme Court, but he lived chiefly by his pen. He had a long-standing association with the
Louisiana Historical Society, of which he was unpaid President from 1860 to 1888, thus working with former Confederate President
Jefferson Davis 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
Gayarre 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
''The Imaginative Conservative'' (''TIC'') is an online traditionalist conservative journal published in the United States, founded in 2010.
History
The co-founders of ''TIC'' were Bradley J. Birzer, the holder of the Russell Amos Kirk chair in ...
'', 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 politicians
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
19th-century American writers
Historians from Louisiana
Lawyers from New Orleans
American Roman Catholics