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Parker H. French
Parker H. French (c. 1826 – before 1880)〔Johnson, Kenneth M., ''The Strange Eventful History of Parker H. French'', Glen Dawson, Los Angeles: 1958.〕 was a nineteenth-century adventurer, entrepreneur, and swindler. He left no personal records such as letters or diaries, and very few formal records have been found about him. However, he was a central figure in several gold rush memoirs, participated in William Walker's conquest of Nicaragua, and was often in the news in the 1850s because of his exploits criminal and otherwise. While not a figure of great consequence in American history, French's life provides an insight into antebellum America.
==Background==
The term "confidence man" first appeared in print in newspapers in the summer of 1849.〔Harper, Douglas, (Online Etymology Dictionary ), accessed September 16, 2011.〕 It described a New York man arrested for stealing watches or small sums by gaining trust only to betray it. Within months, another confidence man was working in New York, this one far more ambitious, bold, and imaginative. Parker French ran a "big con." He duped would-be Forty-Niners out of tens of thousands of dollars and the merchants who supplied them out of tens of thousands more.〔The ''Baltimore Sun'', August 20, 1850, reported merchant losses in Texas of $33,000, and a detailed analysis of the various lists of those on French's expedition makes it clear that he collected about $50,000 from 196 enrollees and 46 reduced fee “enlisted men.” French raised well over one million dollars in today’s money.〕 The US Army wined, dined, and supplied him on credit.〔A total $1990 was awarded in 1858 to three Army officers in compensation for being defrauded by French in San Antonio in 1850. ''A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875, Statutes at Large, 35th Congress, 1st Session'', p. 537. ()〕 His demonstrable connections in New York and New Orleans to the financial backers of an irregular invasion, a filibuster on Cuba, led by Narciso López, benefited no one but him.〔He met with López supporters he knew from 1850 again in 1855. See, Brown, Charles H., ''Agents of Manifest Destiny: The Lives and Times of the Filibusters'', University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill: 1980, p. 317.〕〔One memoirist commented, “I have seen a statement that his arms and wagons, and also money and supplies, were furnished him by parties in sympathy with López . . .” Baldridge, Michael, introduction by John B. Goodman III, ''A Reminiscence of the Parker H. French Expedition Through Texas & Mexico to California in the Spring of 1850,'' privately printed, Los Angeles: 1959, p. 25. Originally published in the ''San Jose Pioneer'', August – December, 1895. Baldridge (p. 4) and others mention that French represented he met with Lopez at Lake Pontchartrain in May 1850.〕
French was persuasive, confident, and tough. As the years passed he played many parts, all of them built on quick wits, charm, a remarkably convincing manner, and chutzpa: all the skills of a con man – including deceit. He was a county DA, a state legislator, a lawyer, a newspaper publisher, and, nearly, an ambassador – if his credentials had been accepted. Federal agents accused him of being a spy and sent him to a Boston prison. For a short while, he was a gringo bandito in the mountains above Mazatlan for which French received an eighteen month jail term in Durango. Once well known, he died in total obscurity.
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