SWORDDUELING.COM

Don Jose Llulla was the foremost dueling master of New Orleans.

Born in 1815 near Port Mehon on Menorca in Spain’s Balearic he sailed to the Artic and Africa until settling in New Orleans as a bouncer.

The New Orleans of the 1830s-1840s saw an average of a duel a day, sometimes up to ten, to the point where spectators commented that the grass under the Oaks should be stained red.

Many attended salles d’armes to better their chances on those streets of honor and violence and Llulla’s master, L’Alouette soon appointed Llulla as his assistant. Llulla was impeccable with the rapier, saber, broadsword, bowie knife, pistol or rifle, with his friends letting him shoot pipes out of their mouths.

Llulla (who succeeded L’Alouette in the school after publically beat him with wooden Bowie knives) took up a variety of business pursuits – a bar, grocery, slaughterhouses, cattle, real estate, flatboats, a sawmill, etc., until he built a fortune and bough the island of Grand Terre.

He engaged in duel some 20 to 30 times and acted as a second in more than 100 duels and generally met every other challenge perfectly, taking on European fencing masters, to assassins, sailors, mobs, foreign champions, etc., all without defeat. However, by the end of his life, he claimed only two men had died at his hands.

He died of natural causes on March 6, 1888. His grave is in St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery.