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More work is to be done. I wrote in one of my earlier postings about Blanque that he was a man of mystery. As is often the case, we now have more mystery than before.
There is nothing in the new evidence to connect Blanque to the Pirate House in Waveland, but he apparently had a source of slaves which he did not feel compelled - or legally able - to report, as he did in the case of the sales involving Laporte and his ships the Franklin and the Lanna. In those two he must have operated as a broker, and the sales were formally recorded.
A consideration that might be part of an explanation is that under the Constitution of the United States, importation after 1808 was no longer legal. That the Villere and Villiers sales were in 1806 and 1807 is no less than curious.
It is the unknown source of all the others that is the real question. If in fact Blanque had a connection with the Pirate House and was able to bring in his Black Ivory under cover of the little natural inlet shown on old maps and still existing today, he would not have had a problem getting them to the New Orleans slave market.
In an unrelated article, one about Simon Favre called “Lawrence County Archives,” there is evidence that in the same period slaves were valued at about twice the amount in New Orleans as they were in Hancock County. After transport of the so-called “cargo” across the Atlantic from West Africa and then to the Gulf Coast, a short trip through the Rigolets to Lake Pontchartrain and then to Bayou St. John would have been an easy sail.
Perhaps one day some hard evidence will surface.
rbg