Introduction
For as long as there have been pirates sailing the seven seas, there have been tales of buried treasure. The era between 1650 to 1730, often called the "Golden Age of Piracy," was the peak of pirate activity in the Caribbean and Atlantic. Infamous buccaneers like Blackbeard, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and William Kidd plundered the shipping lanes, amassing huge treasures in gold, silver and jewels that rivaled the wealth of kings.
But for all the riches they looted, many of the most successful pirates‘ biggest hauls eluded discovery after their deaths. Did they really bury the bulk of their treasure, as legend suggests? Or were the stories of hidden gold just myths? Let‘s hoist the Jolly Roger and see what history reveals about the most legendary lost pirate treasures.
Pirate Booty By the Numbers
Just how common was it for pirates to bury their treasure? Probably not very, according to historian Benerson Little, author of The Golden Age of Piracy:
"Buried pirate treasure is a popular myth, but it‘s almost completely untrue. Pirates wanted their share of the loot right away, so it could be spent on women, drinking and gambling. The only pirate known to have actually buried treasure was Captain Kidd. The rest is fiction."
Still, there‘s no question that many pirates accumulated massive amounts of plundered riches. Based on historical records, here are some statistics on the wealthiest pirates‘ booty:
| Pirate | Estimated Career Haul (in 1700 £) | Modern Value (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| "Black Sam" Bellamy | £100,000 | $137 million |
| Edward "Blackbeard" Teach | £400,000 | $548 million |
| William Kidd | £400,000 | $548 million |
| Thomas Tew | £100,000 | $137 million |
| Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts | £200,000 | $274 million |
Of course, those numbers assume the pirates were able to keep all their loot and hide it away somewhere. In reality, much was lost in battles, shipwrecks, drunken debauchery, and raids by other pirates. And after 300-400 years, buried treasures would be extremely difficult to locate intact.
Nevertheless, the promise of discovering untold wealth continues to lure treasure hunters to this day. Here are some of the most legendary lost treasures that have inspired endless searches and speculation over the centuries.
Captain Kidd‘s Fabled Arabian Gold
Scottish-born William Kidd began as a privateer, legally hired by the English to attack enemy ships. But he crossed over to piracy in 1696, plundering vessels in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Indian Oceans.
Before his execution in 1701, Kidd claimed to have buried an enormous treasure worth £40,000 (about $55 million today). A cache of gold and silver worth about £10,000 was eventually found on Gardiners Island off New York, but Kidd insisted that was just a small part of his wealth. He hinted that the true hoard, which some believed was actually £400,000, was hidden in the Caribbean or American eastern seaboard.
Kidd tried to barter the location of his lost treasure for his life, but to no avail. He went to the gallows withholding the secret. In his final words, he proclaimed: "I have deposited Goods and Treasure to the value of £100,000 sterling, which I have hid, and none knows where ‘tis but myself and God."
So what might have been in Kidd‘s fabled lost treasure? A 1699 inventory of his ship, the Adventure Galley, recorded "two bags of gold and two bags of silver, a bag of jewels, rings, and sundry precious stones, and two bags of unpolished gems, including diamonds, rubies, and emeralds."
Some speculate much of it was exotic Arabian gold and Mughal Indian treasure that Kidd looted from ships in the Indian Ocean. But despite centuries of searching, no sign of the elusive trove has ever been found.
Blackbeard‘s £400,000 Mystery Hoard
Edward "Blackbeard" Teach terrorized Atlantic shipping in the early 1700s, capturing dozens of vessels from his base in the Bahamas and North Carolina. Period sources claim his total career plunder reached an astonishing £400,000, equivalent to over half a billion dollars today. A 1718 inventory from his flagship, the Queen Anne‘s Revenge, listed "27 chests of coins, gold plate, jewels, and goods including cocoa, sugar, indigo and cotton."
Yet when marine archaeologists discovered the wreck of the QAR off the Carolina coast in 1996, there were few traces of that legendary treasure. Aside from some 17th-century gold coins, most of the artifacts were cannons, navigational instruments, and other mundane items. So what happened to Blackbeard‘s loot? There are a few intriguing clues.
In the months before Blackbeard‘s death in battle with the British Navy in 1718, he frequently visited the Outer Banks islands off North Carolina. Some speculate he cached his treasure there in secret hidey-holes. Others think he may have scuttled ships full of plunder near his hideouts at Ocracoke Inlet and Beaufort.
Or maybe Blackbeard wasn‘t exaggerating when he once boasted that his "real" wealth "lay in a location known only to him and the devil." If so, he took that devilish secret with him to Davy Jones‘ locker.
The Vanished Riches of the Treasure of Lima
Not all lost pirate treasures were originally stolen by pirates. The greatest missing haul of all actually began with an attempt to safeguard riches from pirates and revolutionaries.
In 1820, Lima, Peru was besieged during the war of independence from Spain. Fearing looting, officials decided to ship the city‘s immense wealth to Mexico for safekeeping. The priceless cargo loaded on the British brig Mary Dear was recorded to contain:
- 500,000 gold coins
- 16-18 pounds of gold dust
- 11,000 silver ingots
- 150 gold chalices and communion plates
- 1,500,000 pesos in jewels
- Hundreds of gemstone-encrusted swords and crowns
- 5 life-size solid gold religious statues
- 200 chests of jewels
- 450 barrels of church property
In all, it was valued at £12 million at the time – over £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) today! But the immense treasure proved too tempting for the British captain, William Thompson, and his crew. Six days after leaving Lima, they cut the throats of the Peruvian guards and commandeered the loot for themselves, becoming pirates in the process.
Unfortunately for the buccaneers, they were captured shortly thereafter by a Spanish warship. Tried and convicted of piracy, the crew were hanged in 1822. Captain Thompson and his officers had one last shot at avoiding the noose by disclosing where they had hidden the stolen riches. But they refused to cooperate and were executed, taking the location to their graves.
Countless expeditions have scoured the Cocos Islands off Costa Rica, where many believe Thompson buried the Treasure of Lima. Centuries later, not a single gold coin from the Mary Dear‘s fabled cargo has ever been found. The lost haul‘s location remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of pirate history.
Why are we still fascinated by pirate treasure?
From Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean, hunting for buried pirate gold has become a fixture of popular culture. But the historical reality is that very few, if any, of these lost treasures are likely to ever be found intact. After hundreds of years, wooden treasure chests would have rotted away, and their shiny contents corroded and scattered. And that assumes the hidden hoards actually existed to begin with, rather than being tall tales spun by buccaneers and rumor mills.
So why does the lure of lost pirate booty continue to captivate us? Anthropologist Peter Leeson, author of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, offers a theory:
"The idea of an enormous treasure that‘s there for the taking, with X marking the spot, taps into a basic human desire to get rich quickly. We love the romance of adventure and the notion that anyone could strike it big with one lucky find. Never mind that actual odds of discovering a pristine pirate treasure are about as good as winning Powerball multiple times."
There‘s also what social scientists call "optimism bias" – the belief that we have a greater chance of success than others, even in the face of daunting odds. Countless hunters have failed to find Captain Kidd‘s gold or Blackbeard‘s hoard, but maybe – just maybe – we‘ll be the lucky one to finally solve the mystery. And the tantalizing clues left behind, whether real or mythical, provide just enough plausibility to keep hope alive.
But in the end, perhaps the real allure isn‘t the gold doubloons themselves, but the thrill of the hunt and the storybook fantasy pirates represent. The strict social order of the 17th and 18th centuries is part of what drove many men to become pirates in the first place. A lowly deckhand could never dream of attaining the wealth and status of the aristocracy through hard work alone. Piracy offered a way to level the playing field and thumb one‘s nose at the establishment – to take power and treasure for oneself.
That rebellious dream is still enticing centuries later in our own era of income inequality and upward immobility. While we may not condone the violence and lawlessness of the pirates, the idea of discovering a huge buried treasure is the ultimate fantasy of circumventing the system. As long as those dreams of finding an easy shortcut to wealth are alive and well, people will keep seeking the lost gold of the pirates, even if it proves eternally elusive. The real treasure is the enduring myth itself.
