Jose Gaspar
Encyclopedia
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
pirate, the "last of the Buccaneer
Buccaneer
The buccaneers were privateers who attacked Spanish shipping in the Caribbean Sea during the late 17th century.The term buccaneer is now used generally as a synonym for pirate...
s," who is claimed to have raided the west coast of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Though he is a popular figure in Florida folklore, no evidence of his existence appears in writing before the early 20th century. His legend is celebrated every year in Tampa
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
with the Gasparilla Pirate Festival
Gasparilla Pirate Festival
The Gasparilla Pirate Festival is an annual celebration held in the city of Tampa, Florida. Held each year in late January and hosted by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and the City of Tampa, it celebrates the apocryphal legend of José Gaspar , supposedly a Spanish pirate captain who operated in...
.
Legend
The stories of Gaspar are fairly consistent. Most say he was born in Spain in 1766 and served in the Spanish NavySpanish Navy
The Spanish Navy is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces, one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Armada is responsible for notable achievements in world history such as the discovery of Americas, the first world circumnavigation, and the discovery of a maritime path...
aboard the Floridablanca. Among his early exploits was his kidnapping of a young girl for ransom; some versions give his subsequent capture as the impetus for joining the navy. Simpler versions of the story have him starting a mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
and becoming a pirate soon after, but more romantic ones say he achieved a high rank and became a councillor to King Charles III
Charles III of Spain
Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...
. He was popular in the court, but when he spurned one lover for another, the jilted lady levied false charges against him, often said to involve the theft of the crown jewels
Crown jewels
Crown jewels are jewels or artifacts of the reigning royal family of their respective country. They belong to monarchs and are passed to the next sovereign to symbolize the right to rule. They may include crowns, sceptres, orbs, swords, rings, and other objects...
. To escape arrest he commandeered his ship and vowed to exact revenge on his country through piracy. Renaming himself "Gasparilla", he patrolled the coast of Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
for the next 38 years (often 1783 – 1821, approximately the dates of the second Spanish rule of Florida), sacking every passing ship and amassing a huge treasure, which was stored in his fabulous den on Gasparilla Island
Gasparilla Island
Gasparilla Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida, United States, straddling the border of Charlotte and Lee Counties. Its largest town is Boca Grande, and it is the location of the Gasparilla Island State Park...
. Most male prisoners would be put to death or recruited as pirates, while women would be taken to a nearby isle, called Captiva Island
Captiva Island
Captiva Island is an island in Lee County in southwest Florida, located just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.-History:According to local folklore, Captiva got its name because the pirate captain José Gaspar held his female prisoners on the island for ransom or worse...
for this reason, where they would serve as concubines or await ransom payment from their families.
This is one of several Gasparilla tales that attempt to explain a local place name. One of the most famous involves a Spanish (or Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
) princess Gaspar had captured. Allegedly named Useppa, she consistently rejected the pirate's advances until he threatened to behead her if she would not submit to his lust. Still she refused, and he killed her in a rage (or alternately because his crew demanded her death). The captain instantly regretted the deed and took her body to a nearby island, which he named Useppa
Useppa Island
Useppa Island is a barrier island located in Lee County, Florida. It has been known for luxury resorts since the late 19th century, and it is currently the home of the private Useppa Island Club. On May 21, 1996, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, due to its...
in her honor, and buried her himself. Some versions identify the lady with Josefa de Mayorga, daughter of Martín de Mayorga
Martín de Mayorga
Martín de Mayorga Ferrer was a Spanish military officer, governor of the Captaincy General of Guatemala , and interim viceroy of New Spain .Martín de Mayorga Ferrer was a field marshal in the royal army of Spain, and a knight of the military Order of Alcántara...
, viceroy of New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
from 1779 to 1782, and contend that the island's name evolved over time. Similarly, Sanibel Island
Sanibel Island
Sanibel Island is an island located on the Gulf coast of Florida, just offshore of Fort Myers. In 2000, it had an estimated population of 6,064 people...
is said to have been named by Gaspar's first mate, Roderigo Lopez, after his lover whom he had left back in Spain. Empathizing with his friend's plight, Gaspar eventually allowed Lopez to return home, and even trusted him with his personal log. Sanibel Island re-emerges in other stories as the headquarters of Black Caesar
Henri Caesar
Henri Caesar, also known as Black Caesar, was allegedly a 19th century Haitian revolutionary and pirate. Efforts to find historical evidence of his existence have been unsuccessful...
, a Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an pirate whose story has become entangled with Gasparilla's.
Then in 1821, the year Spain sold the Florida Territory
Florida Territory
The Territory of Florida was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 30, 1822, until March 3, 1845, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Florida...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Gasparilla decided to retire. But while the men were going about dividing up the treasure, they spotted a fat British merchant ship, an opportunity too good to pass up. But when they approached, the intended victims lowered the Union Jack and raised an American flag, revealing that this was no merchant vessel, but the pirate hunting schooner USS Enterprise
USS Enterprise (1799)
The third USS Enterprise, a schooner, was built by Henry Spencer at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1799, and placed under the command of Lieutenant John Shaw...
. In the battle that followed, Gasparilla's ship was riddled by cannon balls. Rather than surrender, Gaspar chained the anchor around his waist and leapt from the bow, shouting "Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy's!" Most of the remaining pirates were killed or captured and subsequently hanged, but a few escaped, one of them being Juan Gómez, who would tell the tale to subsequent generations.
Sources of the legend
This Juan Gómez, or John Gómez, was a real person who lived in Southwest FloridaSouthwest Florida
Southwest Florida is a region of Florida , United States located along its gulf coast, south of the Tampa Bay area, west of Lake Okeechobee and mostly north of the Everglades...
in the late 19th and very early 20th century. The old man was well known locally for his tall tales of his supposed life as a pirate, and was said to have been the oldest man in the US at the time he died (though this is very unlikely). Gómez is widely speculated to have been the foremost contributor to the development of the Gasparilla legend, although no pre-20th century account of him specifically associate his piratical exploits with José Gaspar, whose story, real or fictitious, does not appear in writing until about 1900, when it was included in an advertising brochure for the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railroad company.
This brochure was given to the guests of the Boca Grande Hotel situated in Boca Grande, Florida
Boca Grande, Florida
Boca Grande is a small residential community on Gasparilla Island, in southwest Florida. Gasparilla Island is a part of both Charlotte and Lee Counties, while the actual village of Boca Grande, which is home to many seasonal and some year-round residents, is entirely in the Lee County portion of...
, the largest town on Gasparilla Island. It refers to Old John Gómez's death in 1900 and mentions that Gaspar's massive treasure, hidden somewhere on the island, had never been found. The version of the Gasparilla story told in the pamphlet influenced all later accounts, and served as the inspiration for Tampa's Gasparilla Pirate Festival, first held in 1904.
In 1923, a Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
historian named Francis B. C. Bradlee received a copy of the brochure from the president of Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railroad, and included the story of Gasparilla in a book he was writing about piracy. His book, Piracy In The West Indes And Its Suppression, was used as a source for works such as Philip Gosse's Pirates' Who's Who and Frederick W. Dau's Florida Old and New, the authors of which took Gaspar's historicity for granted. From this point on, historical works about pirates routinely included Gasparilla. At the same time, Tampa's Gasparilla Festival grew more and more elaborate every year; today it attracts thousands of people to the city. In 1980, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
anthropologist Andre-Marcel d'Ans exhaustively chronicled the development of the Gasparilla story and the history of the festival in an article for Tampa Bay History.
Gasparilla Pirate Festival
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Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla
Founded in 1904, Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, or YMKG, is Tampa, Florida's oldest and most prestigious krewe, or social organization. Each January, YMKG sponsors a festival called the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa re-enacting a pirate invasion of the city...
", an organization modeled after the New Orleans Mardi Gras
New Orleans Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a Carnival celebration well-known throughout the world.The New Orleans Carnival season, with roots in preparing for the start of the Christian season of Lent, starts after Twelfth Night, on Epiphany . It is a season of parades, balls , and king cake parties...
parade krewes, the invaders donned pirate costumes and rode through the streets on horseback. The event was a hit, and the Krewe planned an even more elaborate spectacle the next year, when all 60 of Tampa's cars were paraded through downtown. Now the invasion is led by the pirate parade float, pictured on the left. The Gasparilla Pirate Festival has been celebrated every year since then, with only two lapses, and today, over 400,000 attend the event, which contributes over $20 million to the local economy. The Gasparilla Pirate Festival consists of three street parades, a children's parade, an adult day parade and an adults-only night parade. It should also be noted that many krewes raise money for charitable events throughout the year as well in addition to participation in the parades.