♪ ♪
(screaming)
WILLIAM SHATNER: Brazen buccaneers
-who terrorized the Seven Seas. -(grunting)
Vast riches
left hidden around the world.
And stories of adventures so outrageous,
they rival our imagination.
Say the word "pirate"
and immediately it conjures up images
of swashbuckling adventure, brutish behavior
and wooden chests filled with priceless treasure.
300 years ago, thousands of pirates roamed the Seven Seas,
and their rum-soaked exploits became enduring legends.
But in reality,
many of these dangerous marauders left a bloody trail
of pillage and plunder that, quite frankly,
is nothing to celebrate.
What do we really know
about the mysterious seafaring criminals we call pirates,
as well as the lost treasures they left behind,
still hidden and just waiting to be found?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
Founded in 1565
and considered to be the oldest town in the U.S.,
this former Spanish colony
was an important nautical gateway to North America
and what was called the New World.
And here,
at the St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum,
fascinating artifacts offer a glimpse
into one of the most captivating chapters
in maritime history--
a time long ago
known as the Golden Age of Piracy.
KEVIN McDONALD: So, the Golden Age of Piracy
was this extraordinary time in-in history
where you have these competing European empires--
competitors like England, France and the Netherlands--
and they are challenging Spain and Portugal
throughout the world.
They had established their New World territories
in the East Indies,
which was South Asia,
as well as the West Indies or the Caribbean.
It is the time of flourishing maritime trade,
where you have these trade networks
moving out of the Americas.
There's silver moving,
there's commodities, there's gold.
And all these things were very lucrative and very valuable.
SHATNER: But before there were pirates as we've come to know them,
there were privateers--
the paid mercenaries of the sea.
These ship captains and their crews
were hired by European empires
to steal the goods and valuables from other warring nations
as their colonial ships crossed the ocean.
MATT FRICK: A lot of people that were pirates
had started out as a privateer.
They had a commission called a letter of marque
that allowed them to operate
under the protection of a government.
Every country had these, because,
as the New World colonies expanded,
they didn't have, uh, the naval assets
to, uh, continue their fights,
so they used privateers.
SHATNER: From around the mid-1600s to the early 1700s,
privateers made their living
from the sizeable rewards they received
after capturing enemy ships.
But as many privateering contracts began to expire,
these now wealthy marauders were not willing to retire,
but instead were ready to work for themselves.
Privateers were paid in the goods that they take.
About 80%. They can keep about 80% of that.
And so, as a result, we've got loads of sailors
becoming privateers.
But then when the letter of marque expires,
a lot of them just kind of continue on,
and they're people who are operating
completely outside the law.
They're not working for a government.
They're working only for themselves.
And they're going to rob any ship they come across
that they feel could actually bring them a lot of money,
and they continued on into piracy.
SHATNER: Piracy was a profession that gave sailors an opportunity
to live by their own rules
and potentially make a quick fortune.
But there was one major catch.
Piracy was not only a capital offense punishable by death--
it was also a life of extreme violence.
I think we should never forget
just how brutal piracy is.
It is about violence.
It is about theft. It is about killing people.
And some of these pirates take that to such extremes,
probably to make a reputation for themselves
-and even to make their own lives easier. -(yelling)
Because if you capture a ship and everyone on that ship
is terrified of you, they're gonna surrender.
RUSSELL SKOWRONEK: They'd have captured a vessel and they say,
"Give up your treasure.
Tell us where it is hidden on the ship."
Because people would hide the materials on the ship.
And one way they would do it is they would basically
force someone over the side of the ship.
They'd have them walk the plank.
And they'd be pushed over the side
so that they would drown in the water.
-It's a great motivator. -(yelling)
And we know from some of the accounts
that they would cut off people's noses,
people's ears.
-They would whip them. -(whip cracks) -(groaning)
If there were women, they would rape them.
So lots of different things that would be used
-for intimidation... -(chains jangling)
-(gunshot) -...to get people
to turn over where their treasure was hidden.
(cannon blast)
SHATNER: Pirates became the scourge of the Seven Seas.
Stories of the exploits of these notorious criminals
-circulated all over the world. -(yelling)
And in 1724,
a book was published that would forever transform
these lawbreakers into legends
called A General History of the Pyrates.
The General History of the Pyrates
is one of the most important books
about piracy ever published.
It appears in 1724,
and it's published by a number of publishers in London.
It's an enormous success. It goes through many editions.
There's clearly a demand for stories about pirates.
And it's really a rogues' gallery of all of the pirates--
every pirate who's famous,
every pirate who's got a reputation.
It's drawing on pirate trial records, on newspapers,
but they're also inventing stories.
And in-in many ways, this is the book
that creates the idea of piracy
that we have in our heads still today.
SHATNER: For 300 years,
The General History of the Pyrates
has been the primary resource
on not only the lives of the world's most notorious robbers
but also their rumored vast treasures.
SKOWRONEK: During the Golden Age of Piracy,
3,000 ships clearly were taken by pirates.
Sometimes that ship is fabulously wealthy--
all kinds of treasure on it and everything.
Silver, gold, diamonds, emeralds.
When those came through,
those are the stories that kept being told
and retold through time.
Because the idea of treasure
captures the imagination of everyone.
SHATNER: Yet just as mysterious as the marauders themselves
is the whereabouts of all the valuable loot they stole.
Remarkably, shipwrecks
and battles at sea may have claimed
the vast majority of hundreds of years
of pirates' treasure.
SKOWRONEK: When we hear stories that here was this vessel
that contained these great riches and we hear it was lost,
it makes people think, "Oh, my gosh,
"maybe it's not so lost that we couldn't ever find it.
Perhaps we can find it again."
FRICK: There is likely a lot of money
sitting on the bottom of the ocean.
There could be
untold, uh, millions of dollars under there,
because there's thousands of shipwrecks
and they're still being discovered
by treasure hunters today.
SHATNER: April 26, 1717.
Just off the coast of Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
One of the wealthiest pirates in history,
Captain "Black Sam" Bellamy,
sails his treasure-laden galleon the Whydah to Cape Cod,
where his ship is destroyed in a violent storm.
Of the 146 crew aboard,
only two survive.
And the vessel is lost for centuries.
Until, in 1984,
underwater archaeologist and explorer Barry Clifford
discovers the long-lost ship rumored
to contain Black Sam Bellamy's legendary treasure.
Now, the Whydah lay at the bottom of the ocean
undiscovered for centuries
until Barry Clifford ended up discovering it.
And this was really, really important.
The Whydah has tons of what we would call treasure on it.
There's coins, doubloons, pieces of eights,
guineas. Tons of guineas.
There's gold and silver bars.
We've got jewels such as pearls and rubies and diamonds.
It's full of really expensive silks and other textiles.
It's got medicinal supplies.
It's got all kinds of different wines and rums and sugars.
It's been estimated that, in today's currency,
the Whydah probably carried
about $4 billion worth of merchandise.
This is really significant,
because this is the first instance
where we've been able to find an actual pirate ship
laden with legendary goods
that we've only heard about in stories.
SHATNER: The discovery of Bellamy's treasure
turned a pirate's lore from fiction to fact.
Could there be other legendary treasures
just waiting to be uncovered?
And what will it take
to figure out where "X" marks the spot?
SHATNER: Located between Long Island's North
and South Forks,
it's the oldest privately owned island
in the United States.
Today, there is a curious marker
that tells the story
of an infamous pirate that came ashore
in 1699 to bury some of his treasure.
His name was
Captain William Kidd.
William Kidd's career was-was quite interesting.
He began as a legitimate privateer.
English officials hired him
to go hunt pirates
up in the Red Sea region.
And when he gets over there,
his men are anxious.
They think they're gonna be getting some treasure in this,
and they really haven't been doing anything of the sort.
His gunner, in fact,
allegedly was inspiring a mutiny against Kidd.
And Captain Kidd murdered his gunner
by smashing him in the head with a wooden bucket.
He does then become a pirate.
SHATNER: According to A General History of the Pyrates,
Captain Kidd turns to piracy to appease his disgruntled crew.
And together, they capture many ships.
And in 1698,
they seized their greatest prize,
a wealthy Armenian ship named the Quedagh Merchant.
Captain Kidd's most successful and gruesome raid
was the 400-ton Quedagh Merchant.
This was a simply enormous vessel
that was carrying gold, silver, treasure,
and actually a huge quantity of sugar,
which was actually an incredibly expensive commodity at the time.
Not only did they take the treasure,
but they also took the ship as well.
So, this was an enormous haul.
SHATNER: In July of 1699, Captain Kidd was arrested
in Boston for piracy and murder.
His buried treasure on Gardiner's Island
was recovered by authorities,
and Kidd was sent to England to stand trial.
Facing a death sentence,
Captain Kidd tried to barter for his very life.
SULLIVAN: The buried treasure that was recovered on Gardiner's Island
was only worth about a million dollars in today's money.
As they were about to execute him in London,
he was trying to bargain with the crown by saying,
"I've got another buried treasure worth--"
what today would be like $150 million.
"Spare my life and I will lead you to it."
They didn't buy it, and it was more advantageous
to them to execute him.
But word of it spread shortly after his death.
And his buried treasure became hugely popular.
SHATNER: The hidden location of Captain Kidd's lost treasure
has been sought out for centuries.
And many believe that the confession
of a crew member holds the key to the treasure's whereabouts.
SULLIVAN: 50 years after Kidd's death,
an old sailor was on his deathbed
and said he'd been part of Kidd's crew,
and that they had buried a treasure somewhere
around Nova Scotia
on an island covered with oaks.
And that story spread like wildfire,
and it started the idea that there was a buried treasure
of Captain Kidd, possibly on Oak Island
because there's no other island that's covered with oak trees.
And that area was known for being infested
with pirate crews.
SHATNER: Oak Island, Novia Scotia,
is one of the 300-plus islands that dot Mahone Bay.
Just what would lead treasure hunters
to point specifically to this location
as a possible resting place for a notorious pirate's stash?
Some believe clues can be found in treasure maps
that were allegedly drawn by Captain Kidd himself.
There are maps that identify Oak Island
as the location of Kidd's treasure.
One in particular appears in the book
Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island.
There's a lot of things about it that are compelling
because of the remarkable similarity
to landmarks on the island.
SHATNER: Could the map's striking resemblance
to Oak Island indicate that Captain Kidd's treasure
might really be buried here?
Many believe the answer came in 1795,
when a teenage boy named Daniel McGinnis
noticed a curious man-made depression in the ground.
SULLIVAN: It was a perfect circle and quite large,
and he realized
this didn't happen naturally, somebody did this.
And then immediately thought this could be Kidd's treasure.
And he recruited a couple of friends
to come out to the island with him and dig.
PICKNETT: The boys dug and they dug and they dug.
And about 90 feet down, they found
a very intriguing stone
with a mysterious inscription on it,
which-- translated-- said, "40 feet below
two million pounds are buried."
SHATNER: Two million pounds.
40 feet below.
To many, the peculiar inscription
can only mean one thing:
it marks the lost treasure of Captain William Kidd.
That's two million English pounds,
a vast amount of money.
So why didn't they just go down and get it?
Well, the boys dug down,
but the whole pit flooded.
And that's been pretty much the case to this day.
So, whether Kidd's treasure is there or not, we don't know.
SHATNER: The potential site of Captain Kidd's buried treasure
has remained filled with water for over two centuries.
And while many treasure hunters
have launched expeditions in search of this prize,
at least six have lost their lives in the process.
Centuries of treasure hunters
have come thinking they're the ones
who are finally going to solve
the secret of Oak Island.
A number of them, many of them,
have sunk everything they had into it.
It's cost them their lives, their reputations,
but they haven't been able to pull out
because there's always the sense that, if you stop now,
it might be just right around the corner,
and somebody else will come and get it.
It's intriguing to think that treasure hunters
have been digging on Oak Island for over 200 years,
hoping to find the lost riches of Captain William Kidd.
But not far from Nova Scotia,
an astonishing discovery of silver coins
has launched a search of a different kind,
not just for treasure,
but for an elusive pirate
who became the most wanted fugitive in the world.
SHATNER: Armed with a metal detector,
treasure hunter Jim Bailey hunts for hidden pieces of history,
one step at a time.
(metal detector beeping)
And in May of 2014,
he makes a remarkable discovery.
He finds a peculiar object in the ground
that seems to have no business
being in a strawberry orchard in New England.
JIM BAILEY: In 2014,
I recovered a-a very odd,
uh, silver coin.
I saw this-this bold, clear, crisp Arabic script
on the coin,
and I was amazed.
It turned out to be a 17th century coin,
and the coin predates direct trade
between the American colonies and the Red Sea,
the East Indies by over a century.
So, I knew the coin could've not come through trade.
SHATNER: Just how did such an exotic coin
make its way to a small town in New England?
Jim Bailey believes the silver piece he found
is connected to one of the most dangerous
and wily seafarers in maritime history,
an English captain named Henry Avery,
whose exploits in the Indian Ocean
earned him the nickname "The King of Pirates."
Captain Avery's legendary status can be traced back to 1695
and a bloody heist heard around the world.
Henry Avery sails north in the Indian Ocean
to the Strait of Aden,
which is part of the long-established pilgrim route
for Muslims from India traveling to Mecca.
And this is an extremely valuable trade route.
The ships traveling from Western India to Mecca and back
are carrying passengers of all kinds of social ranks
and lots of wealth.
So Henry Avery goes looking for the pilgrim fleet
sailing from Mecca to Western India,
known as the Mughal fleet.
SHATNER: The Mughal fleet was owned by the Mughal dynasty,
a powerful and wealthy empire
that ruled large portions of India
from the 16th to the 18th century.
Along with carrying pilgrims to and from Mecca,
this armada contained treasure ships
owned by the Grand Mughal of India himself.
And the crown jewel of this royal fleet
was a ship named the Ganj-i-Sawai.
So, Avery and his confederates pursue that ship,
and they find it.
A cannon explodes.
The mast is hit and collapses.
And so, Henry Avery and his fellows
sweep aboard the ship
and spend days plundering, torturing,
doing all kinds of horrible things to the crew
and the passengers.
And the cargo they have seized
is one of the most valuable
crossing the Indian Ocean at that time.
And so, Henry Avery became known
as the King of the Pirates, as a figure who appears
in ballads and plays and in books that appear
very, very quickly after his capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai.
SHATNER: Henry Avery's huge score
made him a legend.
But when word got back to the Mughal emperor
that an English pirate was responsible
for these atrocities,
Avery became public enemy number one
and triggered the first global manhunt in human history.
SIMON: The capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai
infuriated the Mughal Empire
to the point where they threatened to cut off
all trade and declare war against the British.
Especially because Henry Avery and his crew had gotten away.
So, it's very, very important for Britain to maintain
this good relationship with the Indian Mughals.
So the British government stages this huge manhunt
going after Henry Avery.
McDONALD: The idea that
the manhunt for Avery
was the first global manhunt is factual.
That there are authorities all over the world
literally looking out for this man,
and he becomes one of the most infamous,
notorious pirates of all time.
SHATNER: Despite the entire world looking for him,
Captain Avery manages to elude authorities.
And to this day,
the legend of his heist and his ability to hide out
has forever made Henry Avery the King of Pirates.
McDONALD: No one knows exactly
what happened to Henry Avery,
and he escaped into legend and mystery.
And that's why he becomes one of these key enduring figures.
Basically every pirate that came after him
wanted to emulate that huge hit, that big score,
and then disappear and presumably spend the riches.
The big mystery here is what happened to Henry Avery.
Maybe he went into hiding somewhere in the Caribbean,
or it's possible he went back to England.
He may have actually, also, been able to kind of
blend into colonial American society,
maybe change his identity
and just set himself up somewhere.
SHATNER: Is it possible that this Houdini of the High Seas
ultimately escaped to a life of anonymity
in the American colonies?
Jim Bailey believes the coins he's found might hold the answer
to where the King of Pirates may have come ashore.
I found the first complete coin,
but other coins started to follow.
There's been 27 Arabic silver coins
that have been found throughout New England.
Now, here's the thing,
the coins, they're all silver,
they're all Arabic,
they all circulated in the Red Sea.
They all correlate perfectly
with the date for the capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai.
And in the course of my research,
I found Henry Avery's ship
by the name of the Seaflower arriving in Newport
around April of 1696.
So, Henry Avery's men,
they've been on the run for a long time,
so maybe it was best to stay in the American colonies.
When I started researching the coin,
Henry Avery was the farthest thing from my mind.
But the evidence was far stronger
than I could have ever imagined.
I think these coins were carried by Henry Avery's men
upon coming to the American colonies
to seek new lives of comfortable obscurity.
The King of Pirates' disappearing act
made him a legend.
And while Henry Avery vanished without a trace,
another famous marauder
chose to publicly celebrate his infamy
by creating a clever code that is said to lead
to one of the greatest pirate treasures in history.
SHATNER: This remote, tropical paradise
is home to lush forests and white sandy beaches,
as well as a curious gravestone
adorned with a skull and crossbones.
It's a historic monument
to mark the resting place of the man who pulled off
one of the most lucrative pirate heists
in recorded history.
His name was Olivier Levasseur,
otherwise known as The Buzzard.
SIMON: Captain Olivier Levasseur
was a French pirate who was born sometime around 1690.
He ended up sailing with some of the infamous British pirates,
including Samuel Bellamy.
He quickly gained a reputation for himself
and was known as La Buse, or The Buzzard,
because of the viciousness in which he attacked his victims,
physically and verbally.
McDONALD: Levasseur had a spectacular hit
at Mauritius, just east of Madagascar.
He captured a very large Portuguese carrack
that was filled with treasure.
The Portuguese were traveling from Goa in India
back to Lisbon, and they're bringing all kinds of treasure.
So, it was an extraordinary target
for this French pirate to hit.
SHATNER: Levasseur's capture of the wealthy Portuguese vessel
named Our Lady of the Cape,
is considered one of the greatest pirate heists
in history.
One remarkable firsthand account of the robbery
comes from a man who was, for a time,
captured by The Buzzard,
and he describes a wondrous treasure of gems,
gold and silver unlike anything he'd ever seen before.
PICKNETT: Our Lady of the Cape
was just one floating treasure chest.
It was packed to the seams with, at least,
three million dollars' worth of loot.
Which is worth, in today's money,
something like $4 billion.
But its greatest piece of absolute treasure
was the Fiery Cross of Goa.
And this was a seven-foot tall, solid gold cross
encrusted with diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
It was called the Fiery Cross
because when the sunlight hit it, it blazed.
"Come and get me, come and get me."
That's certainly what Levasseur thought,
and he did get it.
SHATNER: The riches stolen from Our Lady of the Cape
made Levasseur a billionaire.
But ultimately, The Buzzard could not outrun his own infamy.
In 1730, he was apprehended for his crimes
near Fort-Dauphin in Madagascar
and was taken to the nearby island of Réunion
to be executed.
Upon capture, his treasure was nowhere to be found.
In fact, it's still missing.
Yet, many believe that clues
to where this pirate's bounty hides
were shared by The Buzzard himself.
As he was about to hang,
he shouted at the crowd,
"My treasure for he who can understand,"
and he reached for a necklace and he threw at them
this parchment that he'd worn around his neck.
This was an encoded message, a cryptogram,
which he was saying had the secret
of the location of his treasure.
The cryptogram,
with its 17 lines of mysterious script,
looks completely confusing.
It's this very kind of blocky gibberish that makes no sense.
At some point in the 20th century,
the cryptogram was eventually decoded, possibly.
But what's interesting about it
is that it didn't actually have any instructions
of how to find any goods that he may have stashed away.
It actually contained recipes.
SHATNER: When decoded, The Buzzard's message
appeared to be instructions
for concocting bizarre folk remedies.
For example, "To stop a woman from snoring,
"you just have to whip together some oranges
and oily olives to then spread just the oil on the pillow."
Either Levasseur had a great sense of humor
or there is another layer of clues hidden within his cypher.
To this day, no one knows.
By the mid-20th century, and over 200 years
since The Buzzard's death, a modern-day treasure hunter
discovered a very different kind of clue,
one that led to an island in the Indian Ocean
known as Mahé.
PICKNETT: After World War II,
an Englishman called Reginald Cruise-Wilkins
became utterly obsessed with Levasseur's missing treasure.
And he did believe that the haul
was probably on Bel Ombre beach,
Mahé Island in the Seychelles.
There was some evidence.
A local notary sometime before had found an old pirate's will,
in which he said that a portion of the land,
including Bel Ombre Beach, had belonged to-- drumroll--
Olivier Levasseur.
It's not a huge stretch to think that Levasseur
might have buried his haul on his own land.
Unfortunately, before Reginald
could actually solve the mystery, he passed away.
But to this day, his son has taken up the mantle
and he has actually found a cave where it's very possible
that Levasseur could have stashed some of his goods,
but there are a lot of obstacles with it.
SHATNER: Today, giant boulders and government restrictions
block access to the cave that Wilkins believes
might hold the world's greatest pirate treasure.
Could the priceless bounty of Our Lady of the Cape
be stashed deep inside an impenetrable island cave?
Perhaps, but what's certain
is that, just like a dead man,
a hidden treasure tells no tales.
Whatever happened to the Cross of Goa?
Who knows?
That's a tantalizing thing.
That's the reason why people will keep looking
for La Buse's treasure.
These are the kinds of mysteries that, hopefully,
future researchers are gonna be able to reveal for us.
It's fascinating to consider
just how many priceless artifacts are hidden
in the Caribbean Islands
or buried at sea in sunken ships of long ago.
But what if I told you that it's not just treasure
that's captivating to the imagination
and that there is a place where pirates once gathered
that was so scandalous,
it was known as the wickedest city on Earth.
SHATNER: England launches a full-scale invasion...
...on this valuable Caribbean island...
...and successfully captures it from Spain.
The English construct imposing forts in Port Royal
a key strategic location in Jamaica,
to protect their new territory.
Soon, the town of Port Royal grows
into the most economically valuable English town
in all of the Americas.
And its unrivaled success can be credited...
to piracy.
SIMON: England gave pirates
a bit of free reign.
They asked pirates,
you know, "Please bring in goods,
it'll help our economy."
This is how pirates were actually able to make
Port Royal their major stronghold.
One of the really
infamous people to come out of Port Royal
was the pirate Henry Morgan.
He goes to Port Royal and he orders
all of the pirates to spend your money here,
spend it for the crown in this English colony.
He's actually made the lieutenant governor
of all of Jamaica because he knows pirates,
and he was able to bring loads of wealth to the island.
Handing over Port Royal to the pirates was described,
quite rightly, as doing a pact with the devil.
And the devil came in the form
of many leading pirates of the time,
including Blackbeard,
Calico Jack,
but also female pirates like Anne Bonny.
SHATNER: While pirates made Port Royal
the most successful English colony at that time,
they also transformed it into a den of sin.
In fact, it became known as the wickedest city on Earth.
PICKNETT: According to the Dutch-born writer
Alexandre Exquemelin and his book,
Buccaneers of America,
Port Royal had a worldwide reputation
as being this hub of complete debauchery and degeneration.
It was said that every fourth building was
a brothel or a tavern.
It was a hub of violence and booze and sex.
McDONALD: At the height of its wickedness,
we might consider Port Royal to be
Las Vegas on steroids.
It was gambling, drinking,
prostitution,
and then in 1692...
...it all came crashing down with this extraordinary event.
SHATNER: At midday on June 7, 1692,
a disaster of cataclysmic proportions
tore through the seaside colony.
(people screaming)
Port Royal is struck
by an enormously destructive earthquake.
Buildings collapse. People are sucked down.
Ships in the harbor are swept across
into the marketplace because of a tidal wave
that strikes the town.
The tidal wave sank 60% of the city into the ocean...
...and killed almost half the people
that were living there.
Ships were moved all the way from the water
and dropped right down into the center of town.
SHATNER: Within minutes,
Port Royal was crushed by destruction
on a biblical scale,
leading many to wonder,
did the so-called 'Wickedest City on Earth'
fall victim to divine punishment?
Many of the writers, and especially the religious writers
commenting on this earthquake and its effect on Port Royal...
...see it as a judgment of God
driven by the reputation for sinful behavior
and also attitudes about plunder and piracy.
This is a very providential belief system
where God actually strikes down
people who are misbehaving.
SHATNER: Was the demolition of Port Royal
the work of Mother Nature or that of a higher power?
While it sounds far-fetched
a series of catastrophes
continued to plague the fallen city...
...even after it was sent to the bottom of the sea.
There were many efforts for decades
to try to rebuild Port Royal.
But catastrophes just kept happening
every few years.
These would be things like fires,
heavy drought, hurricanes,
floods, other earthquakes.
And so, eventually,
the money and resources just weren't really worth it.
It was known as Sodom of the Sea, and so
there were religious populations who very much believed
that God was punishing the region
so that nobody could ever set it up as a port town again.
SHATNER: Today, scuba divers visit
the crystal clear waters off the coast of Jamaica...
...to explore
the only sunken city in the western hemisphere.
And just like the treasure-laden shipwrecks
that lie buried on the ocean's floor,
it seems only fitting
that the sea also claims
the pirate paradise of Port Royal.
♪ ♪
SHATNER: A search team locates the remains
of an early 18th-century vessel in Beaufort Inlet.
After analyzing artifacts pulled from the wreck,
experts realize they've discovered
the Queen Anne's Revenge.
It is the flagship of Captain Edward Teach,
one of the most feared figures from the Golden Age of Piracy,
forever known as Blackbeard.
Blackbeard is probably the most famous pirate.
Blackbeard was, uh, six foot four, 220 pounds.
A long beard, black beard, obviously,
braided and then tied with ribbons.
And when he would go into battle,
he would put burning fuses underneath his tricorn
so that the smoke and the glow would add to the fear.
People thought he was the devil himself.
SIMON: And Blackbeard was very successful.
There was one period, in about 42 hours,
he captured dozens of ships.
SHATNER: While the ruins of Blackbeard's ship have been recovered,
his treasure has not.
But that may be because it's rumored
that the terrifying pirate buried millions
in gold and jewels somewhere in Savannah, Georgia.
McDONALD: Blackbeard was active
off the southeast coast of North America,
including Georgia.
He would come back into port places like Savannah.
Savannah, it seemed to have been another base.
There are stories about caves
or tunnels in and around the river,
and it's possible that he would've been able
to use these tunnels
to either store goods
or perhaps move in and out from the port
to their ship under cover of darkness
without being spotted by any authorities
who might be looking for them.
Did pirates use these tunnels in Savannah?
I don't think we'll ever know.
They're sealed off
and it becomes a mystery.
And it is exciting, so perhaps they did,
perhaps they didn't.
We'll just never know.
SHATNER: Has Blackbeard's lost treasure remained sealed for centuries
somewhere in the tunnels below Savannah, Georgia?
It's a fascinating thought.
And while it's been over 300 years
since the Golden Age of Piracy,
time has not diminished our curiosity
about the countless tales of treasure,
larger-than-life characters,
and harrowing adventures
of the world's most notorious pirates.
I think there are a lot of reasons
why these figures are still so popular
and still so famous today.
The stories are very dramatic.
They escape from the confines of society.
They break out of the rules,
they go to exotic locations,
to distant oceans and desert islands.
The mystery around them,
and especially around buried treasure,
which appears very, very quickly
after the deaths of certain pirates,
becomes a key part of that legend,
of that story, I think drives people in.
SKOWRONEK: Pirates were dangerous characters.
Pirates knew they had nothing to lose.
If they were captured, they would die.
That said, there are lots of questions.
The biggest thing about pirates is
we know about a handful of them.
If it wasn't for A General History of Pyrates,
we wouldn't know very much about them.
And it's one reason why people study pirates today,
archaeologically and in the historical record,
to try to make what is the unexplained explained.
♪ ♪
Pirates hold a truly unique
and notorious place in history, folklore and popular culture.
They robbed and killed for gold and treasure, and yet,
we're fascinated by these legendary characters
and the stories of their dangerous encounters.
Perhaps most intriguing is
where on Earth the stolen riches these scoundrels left behind
might be hidden?
Well, just exactly where X marks the spot
may forever remain...
...unexplained.
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