José Gaspar

José Gaspar, also known by his nickname Gasparilla (supposedly lived c. 1756 – 1821), is a mythical Spanish pirate who supposedly terrorized the Gulf of Mexico from his base in southwest Florida during Florida's second Spanish period (1783 to 1821). Though details about his early life, motivations, and piratical exploits differ in various tellings, they agree that the 'Last of the Buccaneers" was a remarkably active figure who amassed a huge fortune by capturing many vessels and ransoming many hostages during his long career, and that he died by leaping from his ship rather than face capture by the United States Navy, leaving behind his still-hidden treasure.

While Gaspar is a popular figure in Florida folklore, there is no evidence that he existed. No contemporary mention of his life or exploits has been found in Spanish or American ship logs, court records, newspapers, or other archives, and no physical artifacts linked to Gaspar have been discovered in the area where he supposedly established his "pirate kingdom." The earliest known written mention of José Gaspar was a short biography included in an early 20th century promotional brochure for the Gasparilla Inn on Gasparilla Island at Charlotte Harbor, the author of which freely admitted that it was a work of fiction "without a true fact in it". Subsequent retellings of the Gaspar legend are based upon this fanciful account, including the accidental inclusion of José Gaspar in a 1923 book on real pirates that has caused ongoing confusion about his historical authenticity.

José Gaspar's legend is celebrated in Tampa, Florida during the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival, which was first held in 1904.

Legend

The story of José Gaspar's life and career has been told in many forms since the early 20th century. The accounts generally agree that Gaspar was born in Spain about 1756, served in some capacity with the Spanish Navy until turning to piracy around 1783, and died during a battle with the United States Navy off the coast of southwest Florida in 1821. However, the various naratives often conflict when describing his origins and his personal character.

Early years

The first published version of the Gaspar legend claims that he was a Spanish nobleman whose brilliant exploits helped him to rise to the rank of admiral and key advisor to King Charles III. While capable, Gaspar already harbored a piratical nature, and he masterminded the theft of the crown jewels. His crime was discovered, however, so he seized the "prize vessel of the Spanish fleet" with some loyal followers and abandoned his wife and children to flee across the Atlantic Ocean. Other versions follow a similar course but claim that Gaspar did not actually steal the crown jewels but was instead falsely accused of the crime by a jilted lover in the Spanish royal court. Unjustly facing arrest, he commandeered a ship and fled, vowing to exact revenge on his country.

Other versions of the story state that Gaspar was not of noble birth, but rather began life as a poverty-stricken Spanish youth who kidnapped a young girl for ransom. Captured and given a choice between prison and joining the Spanish navy, he went to sea and served with distinction for several years. Different versions of the story provide different explanations of why this Gaspar variant turned to piracy. Some say he was a junior officer on a Spanish frigate that fled from a fleet action with the English navy. Mortified by his captain's cowardice and disillusioned with his country, Gaspar took command by force. In some versions, he led a mutiny against a tyrannical captain, after which the grateful crew agreed to become his pirate band in exile.

Piratical career

Whatever Gaspar's origins, the various versions of his story agree that he established a base on Gasparilla Island on the uninhabited southwestern coast of Spanish Florida and turned to piracy aboard his ship, the ''Floriblanca''. Roving across the Gulf of Mexico and the Spanish Main, he amassed an enormous fortune by preying on shipping for nearly four decades during a period coinciding with the second Spanish rule of Florida (1783–1821). Plundered vessels and cargo were sold in friendly ports, male prisoners were either put to death or forced to join his pirate band, and female prisoners were taken as captives to Captiva Island to be held for ransom or to serve as wives or concubines for the pirates.Bradlee, p. 54

Different versions of Gaspar's legend relate a variety of adventues over his long career, some of which appear in conflicting variations depending on the source. One of the most famous episodes involves a Spanish princess (or Mexican, depending on the version) named Useppa, who was a passenger on a captured ship. The beautiful noblewoman rejected Gaspar's advances until he killed her in a rage (in some versions, because his crew demanded her death for refusing their captain). The pirate instantly regretted the deed and buried her body on a nearby island which he named Useppa in her memory. Some versions identify the lady with Josefa de Mayorga, daughter of Martín de Mayorga, viceroy of New Spain from 1779 to 1782, and contend that the island's name evolved to its current spelling over time. However, no evidence has been found to support this claim.

Sanibel Island is similarly mentioned as being connected to Gaspar, but different versions of the story conflict on the details. While some say that it was named for Gaspar's first love, others claim that it was named by Gaspar's first mate, Rodrigo Lopez, after his lover whom he had left back in Spain. In these versions, Gaspar eventually allowed Lopez to return home and entrusted him with his personal diary and ship's logs for safekeeping. Both of these documents have been cited as key sources for information about the pirate, though neither has ever been produced.

Gaspar has been associated with various other pirates, both historical and not. Some versions of Gaspar's story claim that he often partnered with the real pirate Pierre Lafitte and that Lafitte barely escaped the battle in which Gaspar was killed. This is unlikely, as there is no record of Lafitte traveling to southwest Florida, and he died in Mexico before Gaspar's supposed demise. Gaspar has also been associated with Black Caesar, Brewster Baker, and "Old King John", other pirates found in Florida or Carribbean folklore for whom there is little to no historical evidence.

Death

Most versions of the legend agree that José Gaspar met his end in late 1821, soon after Spain transferred control of the Florida Territory to the United States.
As the story goes, Gaspar had decided to retire after almost forty years of pirating, and he and his crew gathered on Gasparilla Island to split the enormous treasure cache he'd collected over his long career. During the distribution process, a lookout spotted what appeared to be a vulnerable merchant ship nearby. Gaspar could not resist taking one last prize, so he and his crew hurriedly boarded the ''Floriblanca'' to pursue their prey. However, when the pirates closed on their quarry and fired a warning shot, their intended victim raised an American flag to reveal that it was the US Navy pirate hunting schooner USS ''Enterprise'' in disguise. A fierce battle ensued in which the ''Floriblanca'' was hulled several times below the waterline and began to sink. Rather than surrender, Gaspar wrapped an anchor chain around his waist, dramatically shouted, "Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy's!", and leapt to his death in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

His surviving crew attempted to flee as the ''Floriblanca'' sank within sight of the shore, but most were captured and hanged, with only a handful escaping into the wilderness. Some versions of the story claim that one of the survivors was John Gómez, who would tell the tale to subsequent generations.

Evidence

José Gaspar became a popular figure in Florida folklore after civic leaders in Tampa chose an obscure tall tale from 100 miles down the coast as a new theme for the city's May Day festival in 1904. However, though the authenticity of the legend has been investigated for over a century, no evidence to support Gaspar's existence has ever been found.

Historical context

All versions of the Gaspar story agree that he was active during the second period of Spanish rule in Florida, from the late 1700s through the early 1800s. This was well after the "Golden Age of Piracy" (c.1650-1725), when infamous figures such as Bartholomew Roberts, Blackbeard, and William Kidd operated in and around the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic basin. European nations began a concerted effort to suppress piracy near their colonial holdings in the early 1700s, and every major pirate of the "golden age" had been killed by 1730, over a quarter century before Gaspar's supposed birth in Spain.

Scattered seaborne attacks by small bands of privateers and pirates were a continuing nuisance in the Caribbean into the 1780s, when Gaspar is said to have arrived at Charlotte Harbor. However, the navies of Britain, France, Spain, and the newly independent United States were actively patrolling nearby waters, making it improbable that any pirate could successfully prey on trade to the extent claimed by the tales of Gaspar's career. The original published Gasparilla story and many subsequent tales claim that the pirate had amassed the enormous sum of $30 million in stolen wealth by the time of his death in 1821. To put that figure in context, the total military budget of the United States in 1821 was about $8 million, and Spain transferred the entire Florida territory to the United States in that same year for $5 million.

Even during piracy's "golden age", real-world pirates of the Caribbean operated on a much smaller scale. The vast majority of plunder consisted not of Aztec gold pilfered from massive Spanish galleons but of basic trade goods such as food, tobacco, and lumber taken from small cargo ships which could then be quickly liquidated in nearby ports without drawing unwanted attention. There were no established towns on Florida's west coast until well after Gaspar's demise, making the area unsuitable for disposing of stolen goods. In fact, there is little evidence that pirates of any era used Charlotte Harbor as their base of operations.

Archival evidence

Several historians and other interested parties have attempted to find records proving Gaspar's existence without success. The original version of the story claims that he stole the "crown jewels" of Spain and the "prized vessel" of the Spanish fleet during the reign of Charles III and first minister José Moñino, Count of Floridablanca, after whom Gaspar presumably named his hijacked ship. However, research in Spanish archives and other historical records has turned up no mention of Gaspar's presence in the royal court, his career in the Spanish navy, or his spectacular crimes.

Similarly, despite claims that he was the most feared pirate in the Gulf of Mexico for several decades, searches of contemporaneous American newspapers have found no mention of a pirate called "Gaspar" or "Gasparilla", and the U.S. Naval archives make no mention of Gaspar in official ships' logs or in the extensive records of piracy trials held during the era. While the ''USS Enterprise'' was assigned to the West Indies Squadron tasked with suppressing piracy in the Caribbean, it is documented to have been in Cuba in December 1821, not in Charlotte Harbor, where Gaspar supposedly jumped to his death in battle.

Local place names

One constant across all versions of the Gaspar story is the claim that multiple locales in the Charlotte Harbor / Fort Myers area acquired their names from their connection to the pirate and his activities. However, most of these place names - including "Gasparilla", "Captiva" / "Captivo", and "Sanibel" / "Sanybel" - appear on Spanish and English maps published in the early 1700s, decades before Gaspar's supposed arrival in Florida.

Eighteenth century documents suggest that the true namesake of Gasparilla Island was a Spanish missionary called Friar Gaspar, who visited the native Calusa in the 1600s. And while the original version of the Gaspar legend claims that "Gasparilla" means "Gaspar, the outlaw", the -''illa'' suffix in Spanish is actually a feminine diminutive connotating "little Gaspar" or "gentle Gaspar", leading historians to argue that the nickname seems to be more fitting for a pacifist priest than a bloodthirsty buccaneer.

Physical evidence

All versions of the Gaspar legend claim that he built an expansive hideout on Gasparilla Island, with the original written story claiming that his "pirate kingdom" consisted of a dozen or more buildings plus a "tall watchtower perched atop an ancient Indian mound filled with gold and the bleached bones of his victims." However, no physical evidence has been found to support these contentions.

Gasparilla Island is a narrow barrier island about long and less than across at its widest point. It was undeveloped until the late 1800s, when large phosphate deposits were discovered nearby in Bone Valley. The southern tip of the island abuts the relatively deep channel into Charlotte Harbor, so a railroad bridge and port facilities were built to ship out the material. The Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway, which owned much of the island along with the only link to the mainland, sought to increase the value of its holdings by developing the town of Boca Grande and building the Gasparilla Inn & Club along its rail line in 1911. The nearby waters gained a reputation as an excellent area for sport fishing, and Gasparilla Island became increasingly popular with tourists and snowbirds, especiallly after a causeway for motor traffic was added in 1958. Additional hotels, hundreds of homes, and a golf course were built in the decades that followed, and when Port Boca Grande ceased operations in the 1970s, its footprint was converted into Gasparilla Island State Park, completing the island's transition to a tourism-based economy.

However, while virtually all of Gasparilla Island had been developed and often redeveloped by the dawn of the 21st century, no trace of José Gaspar's pirate haven, treasure, victims, or sunken ship has ever been uncovered.

Impact of treasure hunters

Over the years, the persistent belief that Gaspar was a real historical figure and unsubstantiated rumors about mysterious maps and caches of coins has prompted professional and amateur treasure hunters to search for his lost pirate gold across southwest Florida. But while no such discovery has ever been documented, unauthorized seekers have repeatedly disrupted Native American archeological sites around Charlotte Harbor, often in violation of state law. As described by the Boca Grande Historical Society, the site of the Calusa's principal town at Mound Key along with other historical sites in the area have suffered "unimaginable damage" at the hands of "looters in search of a non-pirate's non-treasure."

Sources of the legend

By the late 1800s, Fort Myers and other coastal towns in southwest Florida had been connected to the US railroad network and were becoming modern cities. However, the nearby Ten Thousand Islands and Big Cypress Swamp to the south and east still comprised a vast and almost impenetrable sub-tropical wilderness home to a small population of mostly pioneers and recluses scattered across a few remote settlements and homesteads. Influenced by this "romantic" isolation, the region developed a colorful local folklore featuring savage native warriors, ruthless Spanish conquistadors, desperate outlaws and pirates, and the occasional Swamp Ape hiding in the trackless mangrove swamps.

The legends of a bloodthirsty local buccaneer developed in this milieu, most likely as locals wove the exploits of real Caribbean pirates of an earlier age into campfire stories and tall tales seeking to creatively explain the origins of nearby place names. Whether or not the name "José Gaspar" was used in these early stories is uncertain, but if so, his story remained so obscure that it has not been found in writing from before the early 20th century.

John Gómez

John Gómez (also known as Juan Gómez and Panther John) was a real person who became entangled with the legend of José Gaspar. In the late 1800s, Gómez lived in a shack with his wife on otherwise uninhabited Panther Key, a small spit of land on the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands near Marco Island. He was well known along Florida's Gulf coast as an expert hunting and fishing guide, boat pilot, and an eccentric teller of tall tales, mostly about himself. His self-reported age and birthplace varied, even on official documents. In the 1870 United States census, he was born in 1828. However, during the 1880 US census

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