Original subtitles

Brazen buccaneers

who terrorized the Seven Seas.

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.

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.

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.

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, the naval assets

to, continue their fights,

so they used privateers.

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.

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.

Because if you capture a ship and everyone on that ship

is terrified of you, they're gonna surrender.

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.

And we know from some of the accounts

that they would cut off people's noses,

people's ears.

They would whip them.

If there were women, they would rape them.

So lots of different things that would be used

for intimidation...

to get people

to turn over where their treasure was hidden.

Pirates became the scourge of the Seven Seas.

Stories of the exploits of these notorious criminals

circulated all over the world.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When we hear stories that here was this vessel

that contained these great riches and we hear it was lost,

it makes people think, "my gosh,

"maybe it's not so lost that we couldn't ever find it.

Perhaps we can find it again."

There is likely a lot of money

sitting on the bottom of the ocean.

There could be

untold, millions of dollars under there,

because there's thousands of shipwrecks

and they're still being discovered

by treasure hunters today.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Armed with a metal detector,

treasure hunter Jim Bailey hunts for hidden pieces of history,

one step at a time.

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.

In 2014,

I recovered a-a very odd,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At midday on June 7, 1692,

a disaster of cataclysmic proportions

tore through the seaside colony.

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.

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.

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.

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

that the sea also claims

the pirate paradise of Port Royal.

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, 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.

And Blackbeard was very successful.

There was one period, in about 42 hours,

he captured dozens of ships.

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.

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.

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.

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.

>>>>oakislandtk www.opensubtitles.org