
Pirates Hunting Sunken Treasure: How a Florida Shipwreck Sparked The Golden Age Of Piracy.
Dr. David Head with UCF joins us for a program exploring the beginnings and subsequent development of the pirate era here in Florida. It was the golden age of piracy, when notorious cutthroats like Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, and Bartholomew Roberts sailed the Caribbean. It all began in Florida with a shipwreck. Caught by a hurricane, the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet sank in the Florida Straits. When a salvage operation began, British pirates from Jamaica swooped in and robbed the Spanish on the beach. This program examines the wave of piracy that followed, and how it provided inspiration for countless works of fiction and modern-day ideas of pirates.
Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.