Pirates buried their treasure.

[Skeptic]

It is a well stated 'fact' that pirates buried their stolen treasure with a detailed map to retrieve it later. But isn't this at odds with the fact that in real life, pirates were not wealthy and lived a frugal existance. It seems likely that any treasure found would be spent promptly, lest it be stolen from them.
What is the real case here.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

It is a well stated 'fact' that pirates buried their stolen treasure with a detailed map to retrieve it later. But isn't this at odds with the fact that in real life, pirates were not wealthy and lived a frugal existance. It seems likely that any treasure found would be spent promptly, lest it be stolen from them.
What is the real case here.

That is exactly correct. Every pirate Documentary has stated the fact that pirates did not bury their treasure. They would dump some if they couldn't carry it but overall when you signed up on a pirate crew you would have a share of the treasure by default which (like most other sailer's) would spend it when they could make port.

[Kutter]

This is based on the English Privateer Captain William Kidd, who buried his share of treasure taken from a allied ship that had been flying enemy colors. Once he discovered that the ship's captain was English, he tried to return the ship and treasure, but his crew refused.

During Kidd's trial, this treasure was recovered and used as evidence against him. He was eventually executed as a murderer after a very public trial.

This little episode was the inspiration for Treasure Island, which is the basis of most modern ideas about pirates.

[RivkahChaya]

There are lots of stories, pirate, and other (The Beale Cipher, for example), about people who somehow came across more than they could carry, and hid some of it until they could return. I think this was fairly plausible (whether it actually ever happened or not) until the most recent century, what with the invention of parcel post and safe-deposit boxes, that the stories were popular.

[quote=Skeptic;251559]It is a well stated 'fact' that pirates buried their stolen treasure with a detailed map to retrieve it later.

Jean LaFitte lived in Galveston, Texas for rather a long time. Then he moved to S. Padre Island and from there to Barataria, now in Mexico. It is known that he buried his treasure...in one of these 3 places.

Everyone who lives near the Texas coast has been looking for that treasure on both Galveston and S. Padre Islands for years.

There IS a treasure map but it says something like "Walk 3 long paces from the dead tree and then ten paces north until you come to a sand dune..."

Of course it is impossible to identify a location from something like that.

Pirates would almost never have buried anything. Pirates spent almost as fast as they earned.
There are rumours about almost every famous pirate burying treasure, but who knows if any really did. There is even a lot of dispute about Capt. Kidd (who was not even a pirate actually) and what he actually did and didn't do.