Paul Boüet Laffitte, progenitor of the Laffitte family in northwest Louisiana, was born in Pouyroquelaure, Gascony, France, on March 4, 1746, to Francois Jean Boüet and Marie de Laffitte. He immigrated to Louisiana in 1764 and eventually settled in the Bayou Pierre community. A prominent figure in local affairs, he was a respected trader with the Yatasi and other Caddo Indian groups in northwest Louisiana and northeast Texas, established a cattle ranch in the Dolet Hills region of present-day DeSoto Parish, and was appointed a justice in the Bayou Pierre settlement by the Spanish. In 1770 he married Marie Magdeleine Grappe (1754-1781), of French and Chitimacha Indian descent. Although contemporaries, their eldest sons, Pierre and Jean Baptiste, were not related to the pirates Pierre and Jean Laffite of Barataria fame. In 1782 Laffitte married Eulalie Marie Anne de Soto (1762-1833), of French and Spanish descent and granddaughter of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, founder of Natchitoches. His name disappears from local records after 1815, and the date and place of his death are unknown.