I can think of two possible explanations:
- In case Johnny Law showed up, the pirates could say “arrr, what treasure? I see no treasure. yarrrrr”
- It’s a myth created by books and television.
So, why did they bury treasure, if at all?
I imagine it would be pretty effort intensive to keep it on the boat with them, always having to protect it. Plus, once word got out it would make them a target.
Burying it would free them up to go out and pursue even more.
Well, a sailing vessel makes a lousy bank. It can sink, burn, or be captured. And it might take months of sailing to get to a place where you can sell or pawn your treasure. So burying the non-perishables for a rainy day isn’t that bad an idea.
Everyone else wants pirates to have buried treasure, so they can get to dig it up!
So they tell stories…
What is the name of that island in Canada where people have dug and dug but not found it yet?
secretly believes in buried treasure in spite of doubting brain cellsThat would be Oak Island. There was a thread about it pretty recently, and there was a link to a site that argues pretty convincingly that there never was anything there in the first place…
Historically, pirates did not bury treasure, as a general rule of thumb.
A couple did; there’s the matter of the Money Pit, which I presume is what the last post refers to, as well as what Captain Kidd did with all his treasure, which has yet to surface.
Truth is pretty likely this: Captain Kidd didn’t have any treasure because he was a crummy pirate. Kidd was largely a victim of the press of his time, railroaded and executed and advertised around as the greatest, most evil pirate of the age.
…in much the same way that the three-foot Mako shark you hooked while fishing for sailfish is “A deadly man-eater!”
Most Caribbean pirates tended to spend the money as fast as it came in. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for…” I mean, after all, a lot of these guys had prices on their heads, and they all knew they could well get maimed or killed in their next big fight. Fun was at a premium.
Places like Port Royal, Jamaica, as well as various little hidey holes in Louisiana, were fine places for pirates to get roaring drunk and get rolled by the local hookers, and they welcomed pirate business. One of the major problems in wiping out piracy in the Caribbean was the fact that merchants in various towns found it so damn profitable; pirates could deliver a variety of goods at low prices, with no overhead!
Other pirates banked their wealth, or invested it, or did pretty much what you or I would do with the dollar equivalent of a chest of Spanish gold.
There are nearly no recorded instances of pirates burying their treasure. This became a popular piratey thing after Robert Louis Stevenson wrote “Treasure Island,” though.
Interestingly enough, there are no recorded instances of anyone ever having to walk the plank, either…
Cecil Adams on Oak Island. It’s a little dated, so subsequent information may be available.
Many pirates were not pirates at all, but were privateers. Jean Lafitte was a privateer for Portugal. Hence, while he may have had a few treasure caches around all of the real money went back to Portugal.
They were all Sea Dogs.
Oh, I just crack me up.
I belive that the romantic notion of pirates and buried treasure owes much more to writers (Like Robert louis Stevenson) than to reality. Most of these pirates were simply cargo hjackers, and very few made more than a living at it. The heyday ofpiracy was in the 1600’s-indeed, places like PORT ROYAL (Jamaica) actually were pirate havens. However, by the early 1700’s the British Navy had pretty much shut down the carribean pirates.
In my youth, I read a lot on pirates by the late Edward Rowe Snow (a prolific writer about pirates and the sea). In a lifetime of writing, Snow only found evidence of ONE actualburied treasure…it was a small stash of coins he found oin the basement of an abandoned house 9on an island in Boston Horbor).
The really successful pirates were privateers-men like Francis Drake and Walter raleigh.
So, what’s the difference between a “pirate” and a “privateer”?
I believe the difference is that a Privateer actually had permission from a state to do what they were doing - they acted just like a pirate but they (generally) targeted shipping that flew the flag of a state that was a rival or a war with their patron state.
urm, make that at war…
Letter of Marque now available through online form. Become a privateer in the privacy of your own home!
The privateer was given a Letter of Marque that allowed them to attack ships of specific nationalities – it was a cheap way for governments to harass enemy shipping. However it was often the case that the privateers weren’t overly nice in selecting their victims and they were often a pretty rough crew, not known for treating their victims very well. So the line between privateer and out-and-out pirate was frequently rather fuzzy.
The privateer was given a Letter of Marque that allowed them to attack ships of specific nationalities – it was a cheap way for governments to harass enemy shipping. However it was often the case that the privateers weren’t overly nice in selecting their victims and they were often a pretty rough crew, not known for treating their victims very well. So the line between privateer and out-and-out pirate was frequently rather fuzzy.
Wasn’t “burying treasure” pretty common throughout early history?
If you were a farmer, say, who had saved up some coins and didn’t want the invading barbarians to find them, your best bet would probably be to dig a hole in your field and hide your life savings until things quieted down. It’s not like you could open a safe deposit box at the bank. Of course if the barbarians killed everybody, your loot might sit undisturbed for centuries until some archaeologist found it and called it a “hoard”.
I can certainly understand why someone in that position would bury their treasure, but why a pirate? I mean if you’ve got a nice, mobile ship filled with cannons that can easily haul your loot around, why not keep it close at hand?
Exactly. Why leave it where some mope with a shovel can go “Hmm, that ground looks like it’s been disturbed, maybe I’ll take a look-see”.
Not to mention, from the point of view of each individual pirate, you’re abandoning it in a place known to the other pirates – each of whom has already shown himself to be a murderous criminal. Better off to keep it on the ship until you can spend it, where at least you can keep an eye on the other cutthroats.
Add to that, that, as already mentioned, for the average pirate the booty was more likely to be rum and slaves than gold doubloons, and it’s no wonder that there aren’t many authenticated cases of burials.
Pirates buried their treasure so they could eat it during the winter.
A pirate with his cheeks full of booty is a funny, funny sight.
Oookay… I am prepared to believe that perhaps Jean Lafitte was a privateer for Portugal. I have never heard this, although I know he worked for the Americans and the French periodically.
I also know that “letters of marque” were basically letters saying: “Ships of (insert country here): This Pirate Is Working For Us. He Has Agreed Not To Attack Our Shipping, and to Bug The Hell Out Of Our Enemies. Don’t Hassle Him Unless You Catch Him Attacking Our Shipping Again, Or Unless We Change Our Minds.”
…but this did not entitle the issuer of the letter to any of the booty. It simply kept ships of a certain nationality off the pirates’ necks. As previously mentioned, it was a cheap way to hassle your enemies’ shipping and trade.
The idea of trying to make a pirate come back and give you a share of the money is a risky idea at best. There were a few recorded incidents where merchants actually bankrolled pirates. Most of these affairs did not work out well for the merchants; enforcing loan payments was difficult under the circumstances, and keep in mind that piracy was supposed to be illegal!
The most famous case was Captain Kidd, where a gaggle of English merchants literally created a piracy enterprise, sold shares, and sent Kidd out with a ship and a crew to loot and plunder and then come back and share the wealth. This did NOT work out well, largely because Kidd was a lousy pirate. He was an honest one, though, and came home to confess about it… upon which the crown had him hanged for piracy, and his backers didn’t lift a finger to stop any of it. It all made great press, though, and today we remember the name of Captain Kidd as one of the greatest pirates ever… despite the fact that he was a remarkably crappy pirate.
The Dread Pirate Roberts, on the other hand, may well have been THE greatest pirate ever… but today, no one’s ever heard of him except via a brief mention in “The Princess Bride.”
Yes, burying treasure has been quite common among landlubbers for millenia, everyone from bandits to ordinary folks looking to fool the tax collectors or stay ahead of invading armies and looters and such.
On the other hand, if I bury treasure in my backyard, I know exactly where it is, even if the Huns come and burn my house down. If I bury treasure on a little island somewhere in the Caribbean, well… THAT’s another matter entirely… for one thing, I can’t WALK to that damn island in the Caribbean… and at the time, navigation was a chancy thing. Getting BACK to that tiny little island where you buried that fifty pound chest of rubies and Spanish gold could be a hell of a trick! Historically, most pirates did NOT bury their treasure, but upon accumulating a respectable amount of it, promptly went in search of a port where they could get their ship repaired and restocked and the crew could go in search of unsavory entertainments, generally. In some cases, a “bank” of sorts was maintained by the ship’s quartermaster, where he’d keep your money on account, but for the most part, most pirates seem to have spent it as quick as it came in…