Pirates Grotto
Why Pirate Treasure Still Fascinates Us
Gold coins, silver bars and a few real chests pulled from the sea. Here is what pirates actually chased, and why we still go looking.
For about a hundred years, roughly 1650 to 1730, the Caribbean and the Atlantic were crowded with ships carrying more wealth than most people would see in a lifetime. Spanish fleets hauled silver from the mines of Potosí in Bolivia and gold from Colombia back to Europe. Merchant ships carried coin, spices, silk and jewels. Wherever that much money moved by sea, pirates followed. That period is now called the Golden Age of Piracy, and it is where nearly every pirate legend comes from.
Pieces of eight: the coin that ran the world
The most famous pirate treasure is the piece of eight, a Spanish silver coin worth eight reales. It was the closest thing the 1700s had to a global currency. It was accepted in Boston, London, Manila and Canton alike.
Merchants who needed small change simply chopped the coin into pieces. One eighth of the coin was a "bit." That is why Americans still call a quarter "two bits." The early United States dollar was modeled on the same Spanish coin, and Spanish silver stayed legal tender in the U.S. until 1857.
Pieces of eight were silver. Doubloons were gold, a two-escudo coin worth about 32 reales, or four pieces of eight. A pirate with a pouch of doubloons was a rich pirate.
Did pirates really bury treasure?
Almost never. Pirates were usually broke, in debt or spending everything ashore as fast as they could. Most loot was split among the crew right away under the ship's written articles, then spent on drink, food and new clothes.
There is one famous exception. In 1699 Captain William Kidd buried gold, silver and jewels on Gardiners Island off Long Island, New York, while he tried to clear his name. Officials dug it up and used it as evidence at his trial. Kidd was hanged in London in 1701, and rumors of other hidden Kidd treasure have kept people digging ever since.
The idea of maps marked with an X comes mostly from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, published in 1883. That one book gave us treasure maps, one-legged cooks and parrots on shoulders.
The only pirate treasure ever proven
In 1717, the pirate ship Whydah Gally, captained by "Black Sam" Bellamy, sank in a storm off Cape Cod with its hold full of plunder. In 1984 explorer Barry Clifford found the wreck. Divers recovered thousands of coins, gold jewelry and the ship's bronze bell, cast with the words "THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716." It is the first pirate shipwreck ever verified, and the treasure is on display today.
The treasure pirates dreamed about
The Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha was not a pirate ship. It was the kind of ship pirates hoped to find. It sank in a 1622 hurricane off the Florida Keys carrying tons of silver, gold and emeralds. Treasure hunter Mel Fisher searched for 16 years before his team found the main pile in 1985. The haul has been valued at over $400 million.
Then there is Henry Every. In 1695 he captured the Ganj-i-Sawai, a treasure ship belonging to the Mughal emperor of India, in what may be the richest pirate raid in history. Every split the loot, sailed off and was never caught. Nobody knows where he died.
Why it still grabs us
Pirate treasure mixes three things people love: real gold, real danger and a mystery that is never quite solved. Some of it is still on the seabed. Some of it may still be under a sandbar somewhere. And gold and silver hold their shine for centuries, so a coin lost in 1717 comes up looking almost new.
Wear a little of the legend yourself: doubloon pendants, compass necklaces and pieces-of-eight replicas.
Enter the Gold & Silver Vault