Gayarré, Charles, 1805-1895

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 New Orleans, Louisiana. A Confederate sympathizer and a writer of plays, essays, and novels, Gayarré is chiefly remembered for his histories of Louisiana and his exposé of US Army general James Wilkinson as a Spanish spy.

Born on his grandfather's plantation just outside the city limits of New Orleans (now Audobon Park), Gayarré inherited slaves from this grandfather and remained a slaveholder until emancipation; he believed in the inferiority of African Americans all his life. He was educated at the College d'Orléans and admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1828 and the Louisiana bar in 1829. Gayarré’s first publication, Discours adressé à Législature, en réfutation du rapport de M. Livingston sur l’abolition de la peine de mort (Address to the Legislature in Refutation of the Report of Mr. [Edward] Livingston on the Abolition of the Death Penalty), was issued in pamphlet form by New Orleans printer Benjamin Levy in 1826, and launched Gayarré’s literary career. Essai historique sur la Louisiane, published in 1830, was Gayarré’s first attempt to write Louisiana history; he followed this with Histoire de la Louisiane in 1846–47 and Romance of the History of Louisiana (1848). His publications established him as part of the literary fabric of Louisiana, yet there was a strong political undertone to his writings.

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