WEBVTT - Ep. 340: One-Day Trappers' War - Why Corrupt Leaders? 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.440 The stretch that the fought. The battle was taken is 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.600 by a mile. So the boat was going and they 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.760 was with the machine gun and the people from Delhiphot 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.040 were shooting over the level, you know, just shooting the 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.400 shot gun, the rifles whatever they had. Yeah, a lot 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.240 of them with bird shot, lot on wood buckshot would 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:28.280 kill the machine gun man. I don't know. I guess 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.680 just just shot them up with the way I understand. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.400 The mortar was all shot up the boat. The cabin 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.960 on the boat was all shot up with bullet holes. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:39.479 I guess that's what I could see, you know. 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.680 On this episode, we're getting into the nitty gritty details 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.960 of the November nineteen twenty six one day. It is 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.960 Laanio's Trappers War in South Louisiana over muskrat trapping rights. 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.160 We'll hear from two men whose fathers were involved in 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.280 the war. But a bigger question to me is why 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.960 is this region of the country known for producing corrupt leaders? 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.600 And is that even a fair question? This is a 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:15.000 look into human nature when it's corrupted by power and muskrats. 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.080 I really doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.840 And for anyone new to the bear Grease Feed. We 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:27.000 have multiple podcasts on this feed, bear Grease, The Render, 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:34.320 Brent's Country Life and Lake Pickles Backwoods University. The complexity 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.560 can be daunting, but the good times just keep rolling. 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:50.520 I hope you enjoyed this episode. My name is klay 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.040 Nukem and this is the bear Grease Podcast where we'll 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.720 explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.840 places and where will tell the story of Americans who 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.120 lived their lives close to the land. Presented by f 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:12.280 HF gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.200 as designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.720 We established in the last episode the culture of the 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.320 Islamios trappers camps on Delacroix Island in Louisiana in the 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:37.560 nineteen twenties and how muskrat soared in value, making formerly 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:45.400 almost worthless swampland extremely valuable. This is Placamine Parish's Paul Legard. 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.240 In those days, there wasn't no you owned this piece 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:50.960 of land, and now the guy I owned up. It 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.919 was all opened priory. It was just like Wild West. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.240 And when you know when a story at the beginning 0:02:58.240 --> 0:02:59.920 of the season, you went out Dan, you picked out 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.079 spot and you put your trap on out and people 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:08.079 honored each other's areas. You know. You said. That went 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:12.280 on for a few years, and the politicians got involved 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.119 with it, but what they wanted to do was take 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:21.560 a percentage away from each trapper, and they wouldn't go 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.840 for it. People have been trapping at Landfa at that 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.520 time almost one hundred and fifty years, you know, and 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.760 now they had camps. People used to build camps in 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.880 the priory for they could. The whole family went out 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:44.560 there and uh in some cases, and they spent the winter, 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.200 you know, trapping, and the women were cooking to take 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:49.760 care of as far as the men we're in up 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:55.520 properly working well. They pushed them on those camps and 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:02.160 they brought in trappers from West Louisiana are Texas. They 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.960 brought in own trappers and put them into camps. 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.480 What Paul is calling the prairie is what I understand 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.640 to be Swampland the people who had trapped here for 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.800 one hundred and fifty years were getting pushed out by 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:19.240 the politicians bringing in trappers from the outside. They'd been 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.880 double crossed by one of their own, a man named 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:27.800 Leander Perez, who had become the chairman of the Trappers Association. 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.839 He was also a judge in Plaquemine Parish. But when 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.280 he saw an opportunity to make a bunch of money, 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.360 he pushed out his own people and brought in new 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.839 trappers that played by his rules, paid more money for 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:45.080 the trapping leases, and sold the furs to him. The 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.720 Islanos were not gonna take this from Perez. Here's what 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.839 they did to the new trappers that were now in 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:54.000 their old camps. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.800 My grandfather told them that those camps were not but 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.880 more or less a platform. They build a big platform 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.880 and they put a top paper shack around it, and 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.360 he said they they're waiting a gang of fellas, not 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.960 one guy, but a bunch of fellaws. Would wait until 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.160 say ten o'clock in the morning, when all the men 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.600 were out in the in the prairie trapping, and they 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:24.840 go and they take tell them, women, take all your 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:26.960 stuff and make it. They told us they didn't try 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.839 to hurt those people because they were working people, just 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.680 like they were. They make them take everything out the camp, 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.200 their supplies, their beds there, whatever they had, and they 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.760 you know, they had fifteen twenty guys. They picked that camp. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.719 I'm trying to buy the whole camp. We're going to 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.960 buy you. So when that happened, they brought into Texas 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.240 Rangers to protect them, and uh, that's when the real 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:52.120 trouble started. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.719 The real trouble started as Perez hired mercenaries to kill 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.960 and intimidate the eslonos. I'm trying to make sense of 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.039 how trapping muskrats could bring a community to bloodshed. We're 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.320 not talking about gold or black dirt, farmland or oil, 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.719 but a rat. We've been backed into a corner here, folks, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.280 We've got to talk just a little bit about muskrats. 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:21.159 My name is Martin Cooker. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.719 I work for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fishers in 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.600 Parks and I currently serve as the Nuisance Species program 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.960 Bologist and also the Furbearer Program Bologist. 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.279 This guy is a muskrat expert. 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.560 A rare breed, but the muskrat is in the rodent family, 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.000 native to the US and Canada. In the US, it 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.039 has at least fourteen different subspecies Virginia, Rocky Mountain, the 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.599 Oregon Coast, Nevada, the Great Plains, So there are subspecies 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.760 really depending on location, they're going to be about nine 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.719 fourteen inches long with a with a tail anywhere from 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.880 seven to twelve inches, so you're talking about twenty four 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.679 twenty six inches head to the end of the tail. 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:03.960 They're going to weigh. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.840 Anywhere from like a pounds and a half to four 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.200 and a half pounds. Muskrats weren't really seeing that much 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.920 in Louisiana until like the late eighteen hundreds, especially like 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.440 in the coastal parishes. One of the things that they 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.400 put forth is that the decline in alligators due to 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.640 hunting and with the burning of the marshes to locate 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:29.160 the alligators, and also with the reduction in minx, all 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:33.200 were linked to the muskrat increase. Now, after that the 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.280 predators were gone away, the habitat's gone up, and then 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.480 the mush rats appeared in the millions. It was just 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.520 like a population explosion. It was an article in the 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.200 nineteen oh two in the New York Times. The headline 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.800 was the muskrat is the principal fur producer in America. 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:53.960 There was a quote from the I think the Fort 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.920 Worth Star in nineteen oh eight in this stated that 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.360 Louisiana has the largest fur trade in the world, all right, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.040 And that now that is verifiable if you go back 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.840 and look at the records in Louisiana was the fur 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.840 trapping capital of the US fourth it was more first 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:11.240 coming from Louisiana anywhere else. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.920 The muskrat trade peaked around nineteen twenty five, when they 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.640 were worth a dollar thirty each and a good trapper 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.640 could catch as many as one hundred and fifty day, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.680 yielding thousands of dollars during the seventy five day season, 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.040 and several millions of dollars worth of muskrat firs were 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.720 flowing through Placamine Parish alone. I could see Steve Ranella 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:41.040 wanting to get in on that. Here is Wimpy Serenae. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.760 He's eighty four years old and was raised on Delacroix 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.679 Island in the trapping camps. He's going to take us 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.520 right into the One Day War. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.160 What happened with Perez in that it was long before parting, 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:02.600 you know, get out, but uh, Perez gathered up cagunes 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:08.240 from the west part of Louisiana, Texans gunslingers at that time, 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.320 it was really gun slingers, and he formed like a 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:17.920 little army. He monitored a machine gun on oyster board. 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.360 I think it was either boat. You know. What happened 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:27.040 before they attacked the people from Dinna crew found out 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.520 about it, that they were planning this thing. Matter of fact, 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.560 my dad used to have relatives in what they called 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:39.760 Kinnharven and uh, these Texans and that was hanging around 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.600 the ballrooms there, you know, and you heard overheard them saying, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.719 we're gonna make some Spanish shop. Body these jokes down here, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:51.079 you know. Yeah, so they found out about that day. 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.120 Who was your dad involved in finding out about it? 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.120 Yeah, he found out about it, and I guess other 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.000 people did too, because they had relatives in Knoven And 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.760 this is what these guys used to hang on when 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.200 they was starting to get together, you know, and going 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.400 to barrooms in that and I guess they talked and 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.040 sort of people from Della Cruill find out that they 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:14.000 will come in. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.120 After almost one hundred years, the people from Delacroix Island 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.560 still recalled the words that started this war and maybe 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.240 saved their lives. They overheard someone saying that they were 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.120 going to make some Spanish soup. And if you remember, 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.199 the Islanios were originally from the Canary islands off the 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.400 coast of Spain. So this region, this island, they spoke Spanish. 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.880 Here's filmmaker David Dubos who made the film Delta Justice, 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:45.160 the Islanios trappers. 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:50.720 War word filtered down from They got into a bar 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.160 not too far from where the Islanians were, and it 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.640 was literally just guys bragging in a bar that they 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:00.880 were going to go down to Ela Crow and make 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:06.680 Spanish soup out of the Islanios and just loud, drunken 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:12.000 stupidity and arrogance, and was overheard. And they went back 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.559 and told them what was happening, and you know that 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:14.880 was it. 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.760 So this this gunboat with these Texas Rangers, this machine 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.960 gun mounted on the boat come down, comes down the bayou. 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.960 There's a levee, yeah, which is like a damn that's 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.800 keeping the bayou from going into the onto the land. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.920 And behind the levee is the Islanio's houses. 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:33.439 Right. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.600 Author Glenn Jeanson estimated there to be four hundred armed 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.199 Islanios on the levee waiting on this gun boat when 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.480 it arrived. The machine gun was essentially a gatling gun 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.160 like on a World War two boat, and the captain 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.360 of the boat was J. H Asher, a former Texas 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.640 ranger from Dallas. They had no idea they were going 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.079 to be met with resistance. They thought they were just 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.319 going to take the boat down the bayou and just 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.560 splattered the Islaono's camps with rounds from that machine gun. 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:10.000 Who knew these people were so passionate about muskrats. 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.880 And the way I understand it, they moneled the machine 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.200 gun on the boat, and so they monited and they 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.319 came up what they called gentility. It was, you know, 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.400 the island, like I said, with the with the machine 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.920 gun and all of the Texans in that. But the 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.400 people from down there was ready. So they got their 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.599 shot gun. There was a levee whe whether if you 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:35.120 go down there, you can see the road is on 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.280 the levee the highway, and it was a higher levee 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.720 than what it is today because everything's singing, but anyway, 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.000 it was much higher. So they got behind the limit 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.920 with the shot and guns and whatever guns that they had, 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.360 and when they made the turn into the Bayer Terra 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:56.719 buff you know, they started with the machine gun, but 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.920 they also went I got back up a little bit. 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.120 It took the machine gun the night before and set 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.679 it to shoot over the levee, over the bank, you know, 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:13.400 to buying the bank. But what happened when they attacked 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.640 the next morning, the tide went down. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.360 So they had to fix the machine gun, but it 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.599 couldn't reach the Islanios because. 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.520 They couldn't angle upwards correct. 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:27.840 So they were kind of stuck. 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:28.400 You know. 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.640 They tried to get it up and hang it up, 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.959 but that those things were enormously heavy. And then you're 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.440 in the line of fire too. 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:41.960 You have to remember that. So so when they couldn't 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.320 adjust it, that machine gun like the dude and did 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.120 it kind of so when they would shoot, it was 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.839 hitting the levee instead of hitting the people because the 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.040 tide went down, and so they would hit the bank. So, 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.080 you know, they didn't the machine gun didn't do them 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.319 too much good. And of Coastal had the other people 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.599 with their pistols and guns and what have you, and 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.480 they started that they wore right there and they they 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.319 shot up the the machine gun boat. They killed the 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.520 the only one was killed, the gun, the guy that 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.520 was running the machine gun boat. You know, quite a 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:22.120 few guns, quite a few guns. 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:22.400 Well. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.200 The stretch that the fought the battle was taken is 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.920 about let's see, about a mile, so you know where 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.480 where the battle took place, where they was at, where 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:33.920 they were. 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.160 Set shooting that whole mile down the canal this gun ship. 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.640 As to what our vision, the boat was going, and 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.520 they was with the machine gun and the people from 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.240 Delapert were shooting over the level, you know, just shooting. 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.720 They shot guns and rifles whatever they had. Yeah, you know, 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.000 because a lot of them had just shotguns, you know, 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.360 a lot of them with bird shot, a lot of 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:01.800 them with buckshot, you know, and would killed the machine 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:02.320 gun man. 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:02.920 I don't know. 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.240 I guess just just shot them up with the way 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.880 I understand that the mortar was all shot up the boat. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.560 The cabin on the boat was all shining up with 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.400 bullet holes. I guess that's what I could see. 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:14.680 You know. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:20.520 Yeah, the man who was killed, Sam Galland, was reported 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.480 by the coroner they had seventeen bullet holes in his body. 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:31.040 But these leios had, you know, the trajectory sort of 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:35.160 like a forty five degree trajectory angle on that boat 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.240 where they could just fire away. And yeah, they wounded 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.600 several of them and killed one. But yeah, that's like 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.400 you're literally walking into a I mean, I don't know 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.520 what you would call them. In the military. Sometimes in 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.560 these wars, they you know, you get trapped like that, 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.400 you're just you just just no way out. 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.200 So you have studied about this and talked to all 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.040 these different people, who do you think fired the first shot? 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.240 Probably the Islanios. Probably they weren't gonna sit there and 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.560 let them fire a machine gun at him. 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:10.160 Yeah. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.040 One, only one person was killed, one Texas ranger whose 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.320 last name was Gowland, Sam Gowland. He was the one 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.120 operating the machine gun. The other ones were driven away 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.160 and they went looking for Perez. They were going to 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.880 kill him. That's how angry they were, as you can imagine. 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:33.200 And Perez escaped and managed to get out of town 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:38.360 literally by getting over into New Orleans and getting out 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:39.080 of the parish. 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.640 Was Perez wasn't on the boat though. 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.440 No, he was not, of course not. No, those were 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.880 his hired guns. Literally, he was nowhere near the boat. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:50.880 He's not gonna get his hands dirty, He's not going 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.360 to get shot at. And I'm sure he had people 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:54.800 around him protecting him. 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:01.200 It was your dad. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.600 There was your father there. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.000 Yeah, he was there, yea. And like I was seeing 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.920 my dad had went to something happened, and I don't 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.639 know what it was. I just told these things that 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.160 these Texans and gunsling as well. When they started getting 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.320 shot at, they started running through the march and they 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.320 shot him up, you know, but they didn't kill them all. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.280 And they got all shot up, and one of them 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.800 was coming swimming across the bay. And this is when 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.359 I'm one of the incident. I was told and a 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:36.320 friend of my dad they said, look, that's the guy 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.119 that tried to beat you up and off in the couch. 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.320 And uh, my dad had an Elsie Smith shot double 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.639 shotgun and I didn't know, but he had it in 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.280 the in our attic and he never did use it. 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:53.760 I used to go up there and I could see 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:58.320 it and the stock was cracked, you know. And somebody 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.680 else told me that my dad hit that guy with 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.240 the stock of a shotgun and they broke the stock. 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.919 Oh wow, And I remember the shotgun. It was an 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.359 old Elsie Smith and the stock was broken. 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.720 Paul told me the same story about Whimpy's dad breaking 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:21.840 a gun stock off one of the boatman's heads. Here 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.560 is Paul with an unusual story of a first hand 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.879 account from a man on the boat involving a wild 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.760 coincidence with the dog and a guy named to What's 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:36.320 Yep to What's. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.680 I'm going to tell you another little story of cut 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.280 fits right into this. My daddy used to buy crabs 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:45.800 before he died. My daddy died when he was thirty 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.919 eight years old. I was fifteen fifteen is on when 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.720 he died, and we used to go to old on 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.560 Highway eleven. They had a family over there. They were 0:18:56.720 --> 0:19:00.800 s stands. The old man was Pete and he had 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.440 a son that was Pete. One of them was towards 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:09.639 uh old man, Old Man Pete. His daddy was on 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.640 the boat when they shot it up. Like I said, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.439 those people had no education and they looked to make 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.520 a dollar whatever they could make a dollar. And he 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.840 wasn't from Dela Crown. But they come there the trap. 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:28.000 When the trapping was good, they stayed. He said, well, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.120 some kind of way he got mixed up and got 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:31.800 on that boat. He must They must have gave him 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:36.080 a job, that can of whatever, and he got on 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.800 that boat. And he told me, he said, when they 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.880 started shooting that boat, the cast net LEDs were bouncing off, 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:45.920 And I asked him, said the cast that they said, Yeah, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.040 they take a cast net ledge. It's got a whole 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.399 clean through it, you know, the castle. Yeah, And they 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:52.280 had smashed the end of that and they put that 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.520 in the shotgun shell he said. He said, the cast 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.360 that LEDs were bouncing off. He said, But them steel jackinson, 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.800 them rifle shells was going clean through red boat. And 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.920 it wasn't no steel boat late they had. There was 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.479 a wood boat, he said. And he said, what happened, 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.960 he was sleeping on the other side of the motor away. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.720 It happened early in the morning. He's sleeping on the 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:18.879 other side of the motor and he said, three or 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.640 four of them Texas Rangers jumped on top of him, 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.240 trying to get away from getting behind that motor you said, 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.399 getting trying to get away from there. And uh, well, 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:30.920 let me back up a minute. We used to go 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.800 over there and buy crabs. We'd buy crabs or fifty 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.840 two pounds hamp of crabs for four dollars of hamper 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:44.240 number ones and uh but anyway, we were over there 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.840 buying him and old man, old man Pete was there. 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.600 He had a bunch of old cars and trucks stuff. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.160 You know junk, and they had a dog in there, 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.280 and that dog come out wanting to eat or something. 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.920 He told, told that dog, go let down. Dog. The 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.560 doge went it was button back and laid down. And 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:04.840 he told me saying, no, that dog is now I 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.160 can't remember exiety. It was sixteen at eighteen years old, 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:11.640 he said, I've been having that dog a long time, 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.760 the old dog. We went in the house, he told 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.639 told a story about that being behind that mode and 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.240 them Texas rangers and all jumping on top of him 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:27.160 and all. And when we come out of there to leave, 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:33.280 that dog was dead. I'll never forget that the dog 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:37.439 was laying their dead. He died. Why he told that story. 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:45.640 Yeah, it's odd the things you remember that seemed completely disconnected. 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.960 But I think these are mechanisms in our mind to 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:53.879 help us remember the important stuff. Like an eighteen year 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.640 old dog dying while the man was telling you about 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.280 being on the gun ship. That's just odds. What I'm 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:05.480 here for, Paul, good story here is wimpy. I'm trying 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:10.480 to understand, like how the thing could escalate to where 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.800 lander Perez was willing. 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:15.040 To kill people? 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:16.440 Yeah, how did that? 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.639 How does that happen. The only thing I can understand 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.920 is that he told these guys, all these people that 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.720 he's hired, Look, uh, we have to take care of 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.080 the people at Dental Croil, and you're going to have 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:31.840 the all this trapping lands and you can trap it 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:34.119 as long as you give me a percentage of whatever 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.480 you're catching all that, and you're going to have the 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:38.680 land instead of instead of and we got to run 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.600 them all and even if we have to kill Wow. 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:45.879 That was so he just had that that strong of 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.320 an iron fist. He was isolated enough down in the 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.840 deep Delta that he just thought, I can I can 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:54.399 do anything. 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:59.879 That's why I kind of consider him a dictator. You know, 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.240 he had that Powell and he thought he can just 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:08.920 do anything until he faced the people from Golacron. What 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:09.439 about his. 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.159 Reputation here, Like if you were to go on the street, 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.080 like when we drove here, we drove down. 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:21.480 Perez Drive, Yeah, in the Pere Rive, well, a lot 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.240 of the politicians were with you in Saint Benod. 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:31.760 Perez Drive was named after Leander Perez in nineteen sixty nine, 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:35.760 but in the late nineteen nineties, after history had kind 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:38.600 of showed who this guy was and had judged him. 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:43.320 The name of the road was changed to be named 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:48.240 after a more likable judge named Melvin Perez, so it 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:55.600 remains Perez Drive. It's just a different Perez. What tell 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:59.040 me how your dad handled the trappers war? So he 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.280 he is actually there on the levee with a gun, 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:07.120 did he? He didn't view that it's like something real 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:11.119 honorable that he had done, like he had defended his people. 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:14.600