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The first known Greek to arrive in
Texas came with the pirate Jean Lafitte. In 1881 an old buccaneer, known
only as Captain Nicholas, told his strange story. At 17 he had joined Lafitte
at Savannah, Georgia. Later he was placed in charge of a trading schooner,
the Arabella, which he commanded until the pirate colony broke up
in 1820. |
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Captain Nicholas purchased a bride from
the Karankawa tribe, paying ten pounds of sugar and some rum. The bride,
Orta, was left behind with the other women and children when their pirate
husbands left Galveston. Most of those who stayed behind perished in the
storm of 1823. Nicholas could not find his wife and child when he returned
in 1842. During the next half century, he became a familiar figure in Galveston,
selling fish and oysters and hauling charcoal from the mainland. Captain
Nicholas died in 1890. |
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