The Braithwaite family was a prominent Louisiana plantation dynasty which was founded in 1779 when the Braithwaites migrated from England to the United States. The family came to settle in the Louisiana Territory following the Louisiana Purchase, founding Braithwaite Manor in Beauregard Parish in the rural south of Louisiana (in the Scarlett Meadows region). The Braithwaite family came to be quite wealthy due to their cultivation of tobacco and cotton through slave labor, and they supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War; the emancipation of their slaves took a toll on their business. During Reconstruction, the Braithwaites' rivalry with the Gray family escalated due to the Grays' Republican-backed rise to power. By 1899, the Gray-Braithwaite feud turned violent due to the Braithwaites' alliance with the murderous Louisiana Raiders gang and the Grays' alliance with the Van der Linde Gang. Ultimately, Dutch van der Linde played both sides against each other, and family matriarch Catherine Braithwaite retaliated by having gang member John Marston's young son Jack Marston kidnapped and sold to the New Orleans Mafia boss Angelo Bronte. Dutch and his gang, intent on rescuing the boy, showed off with the Braithwaites at their mansion, setting the mansion on fire and killing all of Catherine's sons and bodyguards. Catherine revealed her dealings with Bronte before rushing back into her burning mansion, where she died in the flames. The Braithwaite family went extinct after the burning of Braithwaite Manor.