#Captain kidd death series#

If you were to take a short stroll from Wapping, you may find yourself in London’s principal port at Custom House Quay, where the anchored ships with their masts and riggings appearing as a jungle of wood and rope, all the way to Old London Bridge. A veritable wooden city within the heart of the British Empire’s capital, with its incessant wharves and timber yards, and its blackened streets surfeited with the homes of sailors and merchants alike, within a community where maritime culture reigns supreme. Imagine for a moment, what Wapping’s waterfront may have looked like during the dawning years of the eighteenth century. That little scaffolding in Wapping was built to send the Crown’s enemies to the other side, but above all, it served another purpose. Pirate Legends I: The Legend of Captain Kidd’s Buried Treasureĭuring the course of four centuries, smugglers, thieves, and pirates alike met their ends at London’s Execution Dock. From buried treasure and cryptographic maps, to sloops and floating fortresses, it is the objective of this blog to seek the sunny horizons of freedom, over the darkness of the deep blue sea, and bring into the light true tales from pirate’s life. This is the aim of Pirate Legends, to explore, demystify, and even authenticate some of the most extraordinary legacies of the pirating practice. Evidently, images of colourfully dressed pirates swinging from ropes and burying their treasure on exotic desert islands is certainly an alluring concept, yet unfortunately, it is a far cry from reality.

Howbeit, one of the Golden Age’s most enduring legacies is the piratical tropes it endowed. Those rogue sailors have bequeathed to the world some of literature’s most colourful characters, including Captain Hook and Long John Silver, and despite the pirates creating a culture based on terror, in challenging the cultural and social norms of the contemporary period so dramatically, they captivated the minds of their contemporaries, and are still revered as folk heroes to this day. While the exact parameters of the Golden Age of Piracy are still debated amongst historians, it is generally accepted that the period spanned from around 1680-1730, and those mavericks who terrorised the trade routes have forever been epitomised by the larger-then-life figures of Blackbeard, Henry Avery, and many other legendary pirate ringleaders. They say ‘dead men tell no tales’, yet the real pirates of the Caribbean continue to spout their legends in continually spectacular fashion.

#Captain kidd death series#

Île Sainte Marie: Découverte d’une épave et d’un trésor dans les eaux de l’Îlot Madame à Ste Marie Brief Introduction to the Pirate Legends Series The president's office Tweeted a photo of the find, with the note: 'Saint Marie Island: Discovery of a wreck and treasure in the waters of the Island of Saint Marie.” Clifford and his team presented it to the president of Madagascar Thursday, and Elgot writes that officials hope the find will promote tourism in the country. Genuine or no, one thing is clear: that’s one big piece of silver. But though his team “has no doubt that the discovery is genuine,” they hope to validate their findings with analysis of wood from the shipwreck. The BBC reports that explorer Barry Clifford, who discovered the ship more than a decade ago, is convinced there’s even more loot at the bottom of the ocean. Kidd’s death did little to tamp down rumors that he left plenty of treasure behind on his adventures. His crew deserted him to join another pirate captain and he was arrested, tried, and executed for piracy in 1701. By 1698, the vessel was unseaworthy and Kidd ran it ashore in Madagascar. But, the story goes, when Kidd failed to find pirates on his journey, he became one himself. Though past trips unearthed old bottles of rum and shards of pottery, archaeologists never found anything that could be considered “treasure” until now.Ĭaptain Kidd took the helm of the Adventure Galley in 1695, when he was hired by a group of English investors to hunt down pirates. They’ve been scouring the area for remains of the Adventure Galley, William Kidd’s ship, which was discovered underwater in 2000. The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot reports that a team of divers found the bar of silver while investigating shallow waters off Saint Marie Island.

Now, a group of archaeologists thinks they’ve found part of Captain Kidd’s booty in a shipwreck off the coast of Madagascar - a 121-pound bar of silver, they say, is just the tip of the treasure iceberg. William Kidd was a notorious pirate hunter turned notorious pirate, and legend has it that he left treasure behind.