A good article, as ever. I’m just surprised that Cecil mentions Treasure Island as the work instrumental in planting the concept of Pirate Treasure with a Map, when even Stevenson admitted in his preface his debt to the equally well-known story “The Gold Bug” by Edgar Allen Poe (which I’ve just re-read, so it’s fresh in my mind). poe himself is said to have been inspired by a story of Washington Irving’s that I haven’t read, although I don’t thibnk it involved pirates, just buried treasure.
The stories of Kidd’s buried treasure (and those of others) weere common in the early 19th century, as I know from reading histories from that time, with the credulous lokibng for it in places as unlikely as Vermont. Poe’s readers would have been familiar with the idea of buried pirate loot. I don’t know when the map got first added to the mix (Poe’s story involves a parchment, but with a cryptogram telling where it lies. ), but it’s an obvious addition.
(Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual also involves a buried treasure and a document giving clues to its location, rather than a map. But it’s got no pirates.)
Very good points Cal - just recently in your neck of the woods they have been digging up the Whydah off Cape Cod, though this is Marine Archaeology and not a hole in the ground it is still interesting. These pirate ships that scoured our coasts pilaged everything and anything coming into a or out of a port. Many did hide thier wares, to my recent memory Oak Island comes to mind, though nothing was found IIRC, the idea of hidden treasure enthralled young treaure hunters back in the 18th century. If hidden treaure has been a thought since then, I’d surmise there is a freckle of truth floating around somewhere out there.
Another really good column, continuing the string.
On the subject of pirates and Oak Island – in August, my family and I went to the Maritime Museum in Halifax, which was having a pirate exhibition. The exhibition was more dismissive than Cecil about buried treasure – after all, the pirates generally wanted something to spend, not bury. (Which is not to deny the few instances Cecil is able to come up with out of the long history of piracy.) One display about Oak Island was particulary striking: On one side, was the number of books written about the “Oak Island Mystery” – a huge pile. On the other, was the confirmed treasure recovered from Oak Island – nothing.
While “The Gold Bug” certainly predated “Treasure Island”, the popularity of it versus that of “Treasure Island,” or more specifically the popularity of the map as a plot point in the story, is what matters most. Although “The Gold Bug” was a very popular, maybe the most popular of Poe’s short stories, anecdotal evidence suggests that “Treasure Island” was more popular in its time than “The Gold Bug” was in its time.
And while not necessarily indicative of past preference, if you ask anyone on the street today which they’ve heard of, I’ll wager that it’s 10:1 or even 100:1 in favor of “Treasure Island.”
Unless, of course, the street you choose is near any major universities history or english lit buildings
On top of all of this, the idea of spending hundreds of hours devising maps, traps, tunnels, funnels and elaborate ways to not find a burried cache of highly valued booty would not be on the agenda of most Black Bearded types… Too much trouble, and not enugh rum.
It was interesting to see Gardiner named. His descendant still owns Gardner’s Island off the eastern end of Long Island, near East Hampton. See this map. I’d heard mention of Captain Kidd’s treasure there, but never got the full story.
I’ve never understood why pirates would want to bury their loot.
First, the life of a pirate was too short and too immediate for deferred gratification. Who knew if they would even live to get back to the treasure?
Second, what purpose was there in not having the loot on board? The only thing I can think of is that it wouldn’t be found if someone boarded. But if a Navy ship caught them, not having the loot wouldn’t save them. Same with a rival pirate. It might be there to secretly return to in the future, but see #1. The future was an open question.
Third, a captain might want the security of a hoard for retirement, but it’s hard to imagine his crew agreeing.
A very few exceptions obviously exist, since they’re documented. But even the ones Cecil talked about were short term, and Oak Island is a ridiculous hoax.
I don’t remember anything about Treasure Island. Did Stevenson give some sort of explanation for why the loot was buried?
[ul]
[li]If it’s well understood that pirates don’t keep their loot aboard ship, then there is no profit for other pirates in attacking them in the first place.[/li][li]It has been pretty well established in modern times that career criminals have trouble processing the concept, “If you keep doing this, bad things will eventually happen to you.” Pirates generally looked forward to a long and happy retirement; a rather surprising number of them actually succeeded.[/li][/ul]
Understood, but personally, I’d sooner have my hard-won booty someplace I could defend it, rather than where some mope with a shovel and an inquiring mind could help himself.
But remember the context - this happened at a time when somewhat large portions of the world were unexplored, or at a minimum only sparsely populated. It was not only possible to easily sail along many coasts and find a spot where people wouldn’t be likely to be digging, it might also be easy to find places, or even whole islands, where no one might happen by for years. In effect, provided your crew was 100% trustworthy, finding a remote stretch of beach somewhere (assuming it was not washed away by a storm or erosion) to bury your treasure at might have been safer than any bank in the world.
Again, understood. However, I like to keep things where I know they’re safe. Also, the “provided your crew is 100% trustworthy” would give me some pause, since the crew were, by definition, thieves and murderers.
Another point – how many pirates actually got their hands on pieces of eight, and how many were grabbing slaves and casks of rum, which don’t lend themselves to burying?
On a clear day I can see Gardiner’s Island from my front yard. I go out there on day trips fishing all the time. If you zoom out a little from your map you’ll see Fisher’s island off the coast of CT. I live right on Fisher’s Island Sound.
There are still a group of people who “treaure hunt” on Gardiner’s island, I’ve met a few. IIRC it is quite illegal but quacks still do it anyway.
Would somebody explain to me the state of banking in ye olde pirate days? Could a person walk into a bank with a trunk of gold coins and not be expected to have some explanatioin for it? It seems with communication as slow as it was, there would be no way to check.
Sure people could do it if there was a bank safe enough to do it at…And in the New-ish world those banks were hard to come by. Also, no self respecting Pirate would put money in a bank, let’s just say he’s be a little out of place. IIRC, pirate were outlaws, not farmers…and walking into a bank with a few pistols on your belt looks alittle different than walking in with a pice of wheat grass hangin from your gaw.
"Wow that’s a lot of spanish gold you got there sir… mind if I ask where it came from? How about that aramaic goblet you got there…will that be going in the safe as well today??? "
For a more sympathetic and very readable take on Capt. Kidd, see Robert Lawson’s great kids’ book Captain Kidd’s Cat. At the end of his long voyage, Kidd - who is no pirate, in Lawson’s retelling - leaves some of his loot (properly captured from Britain’s enemies while under royal warrant) with a friend (might even have been Gardiner, although I don’t remember for sure) while he goes to London to clear his name, but it soon goes “missing.” Kidd is left with nothing but the noose used to hang him.
Well that was my first thought also, but at some point a ‘successful’ pirate is going to want to spend some of his booty. You can only spend so much on gold plated parrots and diamond encrusted peg legs. Might he not eventually decide to buy some land and become a part of society?
I think they spent their money on fast women and drink…and I doubt many of them had a thought in the world for what they would do tomorrow. I think the concept of pirates burying their treasure is mostly fiction. The way I understand it, the loot was pretty much divided up at the end of the voyage. Perhaps a few enterprising captains decided to stash their personal loot (for the short term) somewhere…but the idea that a crew would just go alone with burying the undivided treasure somewhere is ridiculous.
Ben Gunn tells Jim Hawkins that he was with Long John Silver on The Walrus anchored off Treasure Island.
They were there for a week with the rest of the crew while Flint took six men with him to bury the treasure. Flint returned to the ship alone having buried both the treasure and the unlucky sextet, after first killing them (one would sincerely hope). Although the author doesn’t give a specific reason for Flint burying the treasure it seems pretty certain he wanted it all for himself, which may answer your first question as well.
Potential problems arise when thinking about how he intended to retrieve the booty, let alone how he murdered ‘six strong seamen’ after interring it, but I’m sure Stevenson could have circumvented such difficulties with his customary ease if he had chosen to write the novel in a different way.
Keep in mind that piracy usually wasn’t a full time job. Could be a privateer, a smuggler, a regular shipper, or any combination. Times and circumstances dictated what you may be doing.
So you sail into a port loaded with the goodies from a recent haul and the first thing that happens is that the tax and custom people are all over you. You got a lot of splainin’ to do Jack.
Bury the treasure, go into a friendly port, get supplies and such. Come back later to go to a really friendly port. Maybe after the heat’s died down.
