Original subtitles

Describe Anne Bonny as a pirate in one word.

Fierce.

She would open up her shirt,

bare her breasts during battle as kind of a distraction tactic.

That would work.

She was one of the wealthiest pirates in history.

And what happens to Anne Bonny?

Poof, she vanishes.

Anne Bonny's treasure could be buried on this plot of land.

I think I know exactly where it is.

All right, let's find it.

Unbelievable!

It's an old padlock!

This is, like, pirates through and through.

Here we go!

Whoo-hoo!

- Whoa. - Whoa!

It's shiny. Whoo!

- Ohhh... - Oh, it's a [indistinct].

- It's a coin! - Oh my god!

Yes.

Close your eyes and picture the quintessential pirate.

Is he bearded? Threatening?

Eyepatch and pistol, or is he a swashbuckling rogue?

Not bad, but what if I told you

that one of the most notorious pirates of all time

wasn't a he at all?

Her name was Anne Bonny.

And Anne here broke the pirate mold

as a fearless and female buccaneer...

who was just as ruthless as her male counterparts,

terrorizing ships and amassing a fortune

in stolen loot that today could be worth millions.

Her story is also steamy.

Anne was finally captured with her lover,

Calico Jack Rackham,

and fellow female pirate and possible lover, Mary Read.

What can I say? Polyamorous wants a cracker.

But then she was convicted in a trial

that immortalized her as a sexually rebellious sensation.

Despite being found guilty and sentenced to hang,

Anne Bonny had one final trick up her sleeve.

She vanished.

As for the fate of her ill-gotten fortune,

well, that, my friends, is a mystery.

Now, treasure hunters in South Carolina are uncovering

new clues that point to Anne's legendary booty.

Back off, you know what I mean.

And a long-lost map is pointing toward a property deep

in the swamps where Anne and her treasure

may have hidden away from the world.

And in the rivers of the Lowcountry,

a long-lost black market trading post may be

the true final resting place of her stolen fortune.

So loosen your corset, buckle your swash,

and raise the Jolly Roger as we set sail in hot pursuit

of the treasure of the bewitching pirate Anne Bonny.

The past is all around us.

Oh, my God! It goes on forever!

A world of mystery.

Come on!

Look at that!

Danger.

Hang on!

And adventure.

It's just straight down!

I gotta get a new job.

I travel to the far corners of the Earth

to uncover where legends end.

We got it!

Yes!

And history begins.

Whoo-hoo! Here we go!

I'm Josh Gates, and this is "Expedition Unknown."

Welcome to Charleston, South Carolina,

regularly voted one of the best cities in America,

and it's easy to see why,

from the pastel-painted architecture

to world-class restaurants and some of the friendliest

and most hospitable locals you'll find anywhere

in the country.

Sure, it's a little humid in the summer,

and the spring, and the fall, and the winter sometimes,

but come on, how about all this old-world charm?

For the British colonists who first settled here,

70% annual humidity was a small price to pay

for this prime location.

The deep natural harbor off the Atlantic

made Charleston a major port city.

Even today, that connection to the sea is everywhere,

including right under your feet.

These cobblestones that line the streets of Charleston,

they're actually not native to North America.

They came here as the ballast stones

of English merchant ships and were dumped in Charleston

hundreds of years ago.

The ballast stones, which kept those ships upright,

are still here.

So too is the legacy of their trade.

Over 40% of all enslaved Africans

transported to America entered through the Port of Charleston.

They, along with the export of goods to Europe,

produced enormous wealth here,

but through unimaginable brutality.

And with so much money moving in and out of this harbor,

piracy is quick to follow,

so much so that by the early 1700s,

Charleston is America's pirate capital.

The Golden Age of piracy is in full swing.

Factoid-- in May of 1718, Blackbeard

and the so-called gentleman pirate, Stede Bonnet

blockade Charleston Harbor,

holding hostages for an entire week

and ransoming them, not for riches or jewels,

but medication that was reportedly for syphilis,

which apparently wasn't covered by their HMO.

But soon the pirate era will draw to a close.

Before the year is out, Blackbeard will be killed

in an ambush, and Stede Bonnet will be captured,

tried, and convicted, ultimately executed

along with 29 of his men at this exact spot

in Charleston's White Point Garden.

Longtime viewers will also remember that this park

is one of the possible hiding places of a treasure box

from the puzzle game "The Secret."

Now, if you'll just look here.

We're not doing "The Secret."

Fine, but I am this close.

Charleston, of course, holds many secrets,

and I'm here to learn about those

of the infamous Anne Bonny.

So to get a lesson in her wicked ways,

I'm heading to the Charleston Library Society

to meet a historian and the author

of "Pirate Queens," Dr. Rebecca Simon.

Josh, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, this place is gorgeous.

Yeah, it is-- the building has been here

since 1914, but the society itself was established in 1748.

Like everything else in Charleston, very old.

Exactly.

And speaking of old, we have a very important

and very old document about the female pirate Anne Bonny,

if you'd like to take a look. - I would love to, please.

Let's go.

I'm being granted special access to the library's archives,

where a very rare volume is held.

So Josh, this is a book you may be familiar with.

Yes, "A General History of the Pyrates."

I have run into this book before.

This is kind of, like, the Bible of pirate stories.

It is, and this isn't just any copy of "A General History,"

this is the first edition.

So we're in, what, 17...

1724.

Oh, my word, that is incredible, and Anne Bonny is in here?

She is-- she's basically got top billing,

because right underneath the main title, it says,

"The remarkable actions of the adventures

of the two female pirates, Mary Read and Anne Bonny."

So she's getting billing above people

like Blackbeard in here.

Yeah, that's correct, she was basically

one of the huge selling points of this book.

So we'll get to Mary Read here in a minute,

but let's talk Anne Bonny.

You wrote the book on Anne Bonny, literally.

Yeah.

Yeah, so what do we know about her historically?

Historically, believe it or not, we don't know very much.

Her story has turned into myth and legend over time.

- And there's a lot of legend. - So much legend.

OK, so what do we think we know about her?

So what we think we know about her,

starting with "A General History of the Pyrates"

for her early life, is that she was born

around 1697 in County Cork, Ireland.

Gird your loins, people, because Anne's story

is scandalous from the start.

She was purportedly the illegitimate daughter

of a wealthy lawyer named William Cormac,

who shacked up with, who else, the maid.

Such a cliché.

Then he raised Anne in Ireland, after the premature death

of her mother, until embarking on a new life

on a plantation in Charleston.

But as her daddy finds out,

it's hard to keep a bad girl down.

As Anne grows older, she develops a taste

for the wild side, hanging out with the roughneck sailors

down at the docks.

After reportedly sampling a large number of them,

she marries a man named James Bonny,

which goes over as well as you might expect

back at home, where Anne's father disowns her.

The honeymooners drift down to The Bahamas,

which at the time was a lawless magnet for pirates,

and Anne takes to it instantly.

But the governor there is making a name

as a pirate hunter, and James Bonny

decides to work for him.

The idea of her husband prosecuting her friends

turns out to be, well, a bit of a turnoff

for the rebellious Anne.

Damn, girl.

This is when she falls in love with

and leaves her husband for an infamous pirate

named Captain Jack Rackham.

"Calico" Jack.

This is the 18th century equivalent of breaking up

with your high school boyfriend on the football team

for a drummer in a rock band.

Bad boy "Calico" Jack Rackham gets his nickname for his love

of fancy clothes, but he's not just a pretty boy.

"A General History of Pyrates" gives him his own chapter,

chronicling an impressive pirate career

before he ever meets Anne.

Harley Quinn to his Joker, they take to the high seas

where Anne and Rackham become partners in love and crime,

with Anne acting for all intents and purposes

as his wife and co-captain.

Describe Anne Bonny as a pirate in one word.

Fierce.

She was known to be really ruthless.

At one point, they captured a woman

named Dorothy Thomas, and Anne Bonny

wanted to kill her, because they said

"Dorothy Thomas could speak out against us,"

but Jack Rackham let her go, and spoiler alert,

Dorothy Thomas would become a chief witness at the trial.

Anne Bonny was right, they should have killed her.

She was right, and, in fact,

in "A General History of the Pyrates,"

we have an illustration of her.

OK, let's see her.

Yeah.

So this is flagged as Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

So she's which one?

She's the one here on the right.

She's holding an axe-- you can see she's got a cutlass in her hand.

She's got a sash.

She's got two pistols strapped to her body.

She's wearing men's clothing.

Later illustrations of this even show

that she would open up her shirt,

bare her breasts during battle, as kind of a distraction tactic.

That would work.

Yes, it would, yes.

Now, I was about to say she's one of a kind, but she's not,

because here next to her is Mary Read.

That's correct, the other female pirate on the ship.

Mary Read was another woman running against

the grain of history.

She stowed away on pirate ships disguised as a man,

and a rather vicious one at that.

Her secret was supposedly discovered by Anne Bonny,

who took a liking to her.

And soon the trio of Anne Bonny, Mary Read,

and Jack Rackham were inseparable.

And you can read into that three-way friendship

what you will.

The theory that they were lovers goes back

to the 18th century.

So Anne Bonny and Mary Read and Jack Rackham,

they're out there in the high seas doing their thing,

but nothing lasts forever. - No.

And unfortunately, what they don't realize is that

there are two pirate hunters on their tail because there is

a reward for their capture.

The "General History of Pyrates" tells us that the trio

kicked off their reign of terror with an audacious heist,

hijacking a sloop called "The William."

Armed with four cannons and two swivel guns,

they used their makeshift warship to plunder

a great number of boats in the Caribbean,

racking up a sizable collection of treasure.

This string of successes prompts the governor

of The Bahamas to issue a proclamation

calling for their arrest.

Soon after, a pirate hunter surprises Bonny's crew

during a night of heavy drinking.

Too yo-ho-hoed to fight, the men hide below deck.

Read is so livid at her drunken crewmates,

she reportedly fires into her own hold in anger.

In the end, the entire crew is captured and remanded

to Jamaica for trial.

The trial was done in two parts.

First, Jack Rackham and all the men

were put on trial,

and they were all found guilty and sentenced to hang.

And after they were all executed

in November of 1720, about ten days later,

Anne Bonny and Mary Read have their own trial.

And so according to the trial documents,

the outcome is that they are found guilty

and they are sentenced,

"To be severely hanged by the neck,

'till you are severely dead."

- Yes. - Not just dead.

- Severely. - Severely dead.

Until a big plot twist.

They both reveal that they are pregnant at the stand.

Shock.

As a rule, the British don't hang pregnant women.

So Anne and Mary are given a stay of execution

until the births of their children.

Mary Read, though, dies of typhus first,

and Anne-- well, nobody knows.

So at the end of her chapter, it says,

"She was continued in prison, but what has become

"of her since,

"we cannot tell.

Only this we know, that she was not executed."

Poof, she vanishes.

So where the hell did she go?

Well, the most prominent theory, the one that most people

tend to believe, is that her father

was able to bail her out of jail and was able to bring her home.

And from there, probably able to marry her off,

and that she lived in South Carolina

for the rest of her life.

Never to be heard from again.

Never to be heard from again.

And then we get to the legend of her treasure.

We don't really know what she was worth, right?

No, we don't-- we do know that Jack Rackham

was a very successful pirate before he met Anne Bonny,

and together as pirates, they had their own successes.

And a few years ago,

Forbes published an article saying that she was

one of the wealthiest pirates in history.

And just because we don't know the exact amount,

that hasn't stopped people from looking, right?

No, there are lots of people who are still looking for treasure.

In fact, there's a historian here in South Carolina

who claims he has a new lead on the case.

I like new leads.

If I strike it rich, I'll let you know.

- Excellent. - Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

- You're welcome. - All the best.

To link up with a team looking for Anne Bonny's treasure,

I leave Charleston to head up the coast.

But for once, I'm going in style.

I am sitting behind the wheel of a fully-restored

1964 Land Rover in Ferrari green,

modified with a 430-horsepower LS3 Corvette engine.

In other words, daddy is very, very happy.

Let's do this.

Whoo! She moves!

Ha-ha!

Come on!

Eighty exhilarating miles later, I arrive on the banks

of the Pee Dee River and find the man with a red-hot lead

on Anne Bonny's loot-- Harley Houston,

from the preservation group Old Carolina Outdoors.

- I take it you're Harley. - Yes, sir.

- Nice to meet you, man. - Nice to meet you.

And Harley isn't here to waste time.

Before I know it, I'm ushered into a waiting airboat.

- OK, here we go. - All right.

It's about to get loud.

Whoo!

2

I'm on the trail of the world's most infamous female pirate,

Anne Bonny, or more specifically,

her buried loot.

To find it, I've boarded

the world's largest vegetable peeler on South Carolina's

Pee Dee River.

Leading the charge is treasure hunter, Harley Houston.

All right, so Harley,

where are we going-- where are you taking me?

We're going up about two miles.

- Two more miles? - Yes.

So why do we think it's up here?

So the biggest mystery about Anne Bonny is

what happened to her.

Right, we know she was arrested, we know she was

sentenced to hang, and then she disappears.

Yeah, so the number one theory is her dad used his influence

and money to spring her out of jail.

Right, William Cormac, her dad, springs her somehow,

and what, brings her back to Charleston?

Yeah, brings her back here in South Carolina,

and puts her up in a big house overlooking the river,

which is the spot she's supposed to have buried her treasure.

- OK, it's a great story. - Yeah.

Is any of it true?

So I have two documents from the archives that show us

right where to look. - OK, what'd you find?

Yeah, so right here...

This is the official King's grant given

to William Cormac.

So this is an actual land grant...

- Yeah. - ...for William Cormac,

name-checks her father, and he's being given

50 acres of land in Queensborough Township. - Yes.

Are we in Queensborough Township?

We are here right now.

So this gets us to the right area,

and how do we narrow it down from here?

So the next document I have here is actually

a plat map.

A plat map, like an old property line.

Yeah, and showing where the exact property is.

It sits on the edge of the Pee Dee River.

- Yes. - This river.

This river that we're on right now.

Anne Bonny's treasure could be buried on this plot of land.

I think it's a great chance it could be buried there.

OK.

- Couple miles, you say? - Just a couple miles.

- Should we punch it? - Let's hit it.

Let's do it, come on.

Whoo!

This guy's excited!

Just get these on.

All right, you can go ahead now.

Hit it.

Harley's in a hurry to get to the treasure,

so he has the pilot crank this thing up to 50 miles an hour...

Whoo!

...more than twice the top speed of a ship in Anne Bonny's day.

Whoo!

We're going so fast,

even the mosquitoes can't catch up.

Whoo-hoo!

We're here!

Welcome to Pirate's Cove.

We've arrived in a remote area, deep in the swamp,

shutting down our engine beside another airboat

that's been pulled ashore.

We climb up the embankment and find Harley's team

already hard at work.

To find the treasure, he's assembled

his own motley crew of metal detectorists,

relic hunters, historians, and quite possibly

a real-life pirate.

- Nice to meet you guys. - Nice to meet you.

First of all, you're wearing a pirate bandanna

and a giant shark's tooth around your neck.

Yes, I love digging for megalodon teeth

and pirate treasure. - You're my hero.

- Thank you, I appreciate that. - Amazing.

They've been scouting the area

and are already finding artifacts.

The first thing we found was this rosehead nail.

Well, look at that.

Which indicates, like, a 1700 site.

This is what we would refer to as an old-ass nail, I believe, yeah?

- Yeah. - Yeah?

The nail is the right period for Anne Bonny,

but they've also found later items,

like part of a horse's bridle from the late 18th century,

a sash buckle from the 1830s,

as well as earlier materials like Staffordshire ceramics

from back in the late 1600s.

We've got people out here, no question,

and on that plat map, we are on that Cormac property.

Yeah, we are right here.

OK, you guys mind a little help?

Oh, come on, let's do it.

Can we get our stuff in the boat?

- Let's do it. - Let's do it.

Don't find pirate treasure without us.

We'll be right back.

Harley and I grab our gear, and in no time,

we're all working together, swinging and pinging.

And once this group of pros gets to work,

this quiet stretch of backwoods fills up with enough beeps,

bloops, and hoots for a casino floor.

And it pays out like a slot machine, too.

Hey, guys, I got something over here.

- Good hit? - Yeah.

Let's see it.

- OK. - Let's see.

It's right at the bottom.

- Way down there. - Oh, look at that.

Oh, something round.

- Be careful. - Could be a coin.

I'm gonna be careful, hold on.

That's a coin, that's a coin!

Oh, my God!

Good job.

That's a King George.

Dude, that's in great shape.

Old, old coin.

Oh, I've never found one of those before.

Dude, did you see the bust?

This is super worn, but you can see just the outline

of a profile there, yeah? - Oh, yeah.

And you can see Roman numerals "II" on the right, right there.

- That's King George II. - King George II.

So this is an English penny or half penny?

Yeah, no doubt.

This is a coin from the era of King George II,

who sat on the English throne from 1727 to 1760.

So this may be exactly 300 years old.

Exactly.

That puts us in this time period.

We are in the money, literally.

- Yes. - That's it.

- Dude, nice find. - Thank you, man.

I've never found one of those in my life, so...

- That's awesome. - Thank you, man.

- Thank you. - How old are you?

- I'm 20, I mean, yes... - Well, you got some time,

you got some time.

The question is, could the coin be one of many,

like in a treasure chest, let's say?

We quickly get back to work,

but most of the treasures here are of the recent variety.

Nail.

Ah...

...22 casing.

There's something here.

Ooh.

That sounds pretty good.

Yeah, something there.

Dig it!

Yeah, for sure.

- It's something big. - Really?

Yeah, it's something big, ooh.

Wait, what is that?

What the hell is that? A piece of iron?

- Turn around. - Whoa!

2 What the hell is that? A piece of iron?

- Turn around. - Whoa!

It's a lock!

It's a lock, dude!

Whoo!

Unbelievable!

In the swamps of South Carolina,

I'm with a team searching for the lost treasure

of the trailblazing pirate Anne Bonny.

We've already found a period coin.

Now, we might have discovered evidence

of what it was stored in.

That's 1700s all day.

- See that triangle piece on top? - Yes.

That is definitely in the time period that we're looking for.

That's what they use on chests.

So the million-dollar question.

Multi-million-dollar question.

- Multi-million dollar question. - Yeah.

What the hell was this padlock locking?

I think we know what it was locking.

If you're burying treasure, in a box...

there's your lock.

We gotta search this whole area right here.

Totally. It's amazing.

- That gets a "Whoo". - A what?

Whoo!

- Let's do it. - Come on!

Look at that!

We search around the area where we found the lock,

but there's no trace of anything it might have been guarding.

So we move on to a different corner of the property.

This opens way up in here. Look at this.

And actually, I think we can home in on where

the original house was.

- That Cormac built out here? - Yes.

Team member Axel Macon has been looking forward

to exploring here, because it's believed

that the treasure is buried close to the house

of Anne Bonny's father,

and he thinks he has a way to find it.

Here, check this out.

So this is a satellite view?

Yeah, you see this dot right here?

- That's us. - That's us,

and we're in this big, clear cut field.

Correct.

But check it out when I do this.

- Whoa. - That's LiDAR.

This was done by the state.

They did a big survey across statewide.

So LiDAR, this very, very high-tech mapping technology,

strips away what's here,

and now we can see the actual topography

of this site. - Correct.

- And what do you notice there? - I notice a hill.

Like, it's kinda hard to see with the naked eye,

but there's definitely a hill here that we're on the edge of.

Mm-hmm, and then what is this little spot right here

that's kinda directly in front of us?

Look at that. So on the high ground

on that hill, there's some sort of weird divoting.

- Yep. - You think that could be,

what, like the foundations of the old house?

I really do.

OK, so that would be where from here?

- Up here somewhere? - Just dead ahead.

- High ground? - Yep, high ground.

Let's see what's on high ground.

- Come on. - Let's do it.

We make our way to the hidden high ground,

hoping to find signs of the home Anne Bonny's father

once owned and the treasure said to be buried nearby.

I got iron.

Yeah, I got some iron here, too.

So maybe there was something right here.

- There's a lot of iron here. - Oh, hey, there's

a little piece of brick right here.

- Piece of brick? - You got brick?

Yep, and it's...

hand-mixed, you can tell by the two different colors,

so that puts it at our 1700s.

- Dude, yeah, that's period. - Look at that.

That is old hand-mixed brick. Look at that.

Definitely what we're looking for.

Something here? Chimney, maybe?

Definitely-- usually, the house rotted away,

and all that's left is the nails and the bricks

from the old chimney.

OK, so in here for sure.

The remains of the bricks and mortar here are evidence

that we're searching what could be the main residence

of Anne Bonny's family home.

- Good hit? - Yeah, it's ringing.

Dig it!

Got it in my hand.

Wait, nothing...

Nothing...

- Oh! - What is that?

- Is that a coin? - No, it looks like a button.

- Look at that. - Yeah, that is a button.

- You can see where the shank was on the back. - Yeah.

But what is on the front of this thing?

It's got like a portrait on it.

Looks like a person.

Oh, you see the hair?

The hair bow, and the hair coming this way?

Oh, yes, yes, the person's facing right.

Dude, there's some writing on there.

Let's clean up a little bit. Hold on.

What is that?

I see, uh, "W-I...

- Oh, you can read that. - L-L-I-A..."

- William? - William?

Dude, this is super, super rare.

That's a William Pitt Stamp Act button.

Quick history lesson.

The Stamp Act was passed in 1765

by the British Parliament,

who taxed paper goods in the American colonies

to pay for the soldiers that enforced

the laws of the English Crown.

Opposition to the act was swift and loud, and they had an ally

in Parliament, William Pitt, who felt the king had no right

to tax the colonies.

This button and others like it, supporting him,

were an early act of rebellion, which scared Parliament

into repealing the act in 1766.

Incredible.

I mean, do you find a lot of these?

No, this is super, super rare.

I have only heard of one ever being sold at auction.

- It is that rare. - That's amazing.

It's a beautiful piece of history, and it puts us

in an exact year.

- That's right. - 1766.

1766.

You can just imagine an older Anne Bonny,

right? On this plantation.

She certainly would have been an opponent

of the stamp act, right? - Yeah.

I've never seen anything like this.

That is an awesome find.

The button is a piece of vital American history.

We may be searching for pirate loot, but this is treasure

of a different kind.

But then again, if all you care about is gold and silver...

...just wait about 30 seconds, because we're getting hits

left and right.

Great hit.

Activity all over the place here.

In what might actually be Anne Bonny's swamp hideout.

Good hit here.

How far down that is?

It's deep, whatever it is.

What the hell is that?

There you are. Harley!

- What? - Come here!

What you got?

I don't know what I got, but it's shiny.

- See it? - No, where?

Here.

- I don't know what it is. - I don't know.

- Pull it out. - What is that?

- Is that a piece of... - Ooh.

- Wait... dude! - Oh, it's broken!

2 Oh, it's broken!

That's a spoon, man!

That is a spoon. Look at that.

- It's engraved. - Oh, it's engraved.

- It's engraved! - Get out of here!

I'm in a South Carolina field that is believed to have

once been the family home of the infamous female pirate

Anne Bonny.

A longstanding rumor says she buried her treasure here

after narrowly escaping execution.

And now we may have just unearthed a piece of it.

It's engraved. Look at that.

- Is that initials? - Oh, my God.

- It is engraved. - Wow.

It's engraved. "J.B.."

J.B., James Bonny?

- Oh, my gosh. - "B" for Bonny.

"J," I don't know. James Bonny was her husband.

She ran off with James Bonny.

Well, she's not gonna throw silver away?

You know, who's gonna do that?

- Maybe, right? - Incredible.

In my fantasy world, it's something Bonny.

All right, we're looking for forks and knives now.

Forks and knives.

That way, we can eat dinner tonight.

That's right.

We've got to be able to eat.

Dang!

The spoon could have belonged to Anne,

but it's currently one of a kind.

For the next few hours, the team continues to scan

every inch of this area.

We continue to find scrap metal and bricks from a former home,

but no lockbox of loot.

Lucky for me, Harley and Axel are full of surprises.

So these guys are gonna stay here and keep searching.

But I have another spot that I've been dying to get to,

and I'd love to take you.

That's connected to Anne Bonny's treasure?

- Yes. - Hey, but if we're gonna

check that place out,

we better leave right now.

Why now?

- The tide. - The tide?

- The tide. - This place is tide dependent?

- Yes. - Oh, boy.

- Back to the airboat? - Yeah, let's go.

Come on, lead on, let's do it.

- All right. - Good luck, guys.

Thanks.

Let me know if you find, you know, treasury things.

With the clock ticking, we floor the airboat

back to our dock...

and make a mad dash to Beaufort, South Carolina,

where Harley and Axel's research is pointing toward

a new potential site for Anne Bonny's treasure.

OK, so what is this place? Another homestead?

No, this is an old Native American trade outpost.

A trade outpost?

So this is where Natives are trading with colonists?

No, pirates.

Oh, so this is like a black market.

Yes, exactly.

Two groups certain to be excluded from the traditional

economy of the colonies

would be Native Americans and pirates.

Trade outposts, like Harley is describing, would be a place

for Anne Bonny and her crew to fence stolen goods

and stay supplied for the months at sea.

And so, where is this trade outpost?

No one really knows.

Damn, I was hoping it was gonna be easier than that.

- Why is it never easy? - It's never easy.

So Axel, where is this place supposed to be?

So from the research we've done, we think it's

where the Pocotaligo River meets with the King's Highway,

because it's the furthest inland that you can get by boat

from the open ocean.

And the King's Highway was, like, the road

back then, right?

It was the main road and trading route.

And, in fact, you're actually driving on it right now.

- Wow, amazing. - Yeah.

- Yeah, this is like the OG interstate. - Yeah.

The old King's Highway runs from Boston, Massachusetts

all the way here to South Carolina,

just south of Charleston.

It crosses the Pocotaligo River, a tributary which runs out

to the Atlantic Coast.

It's at this vital crossroads that Harley believes the outpost

was located along with Anne Bonny's treasure.

This trading outpost...

Do we know that this place existed, or it's a legend?

We have a lot of indications that this was a real place,

but no one's been able to find it.

We know the Natives were routed out of this area in 1716.

So that trade outpost gets abandoned.

Yes, and the story is that she used that as a hideout.

Got it.

So find the trade outpost, find the treasure.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- Simple as that. - Simple as that.

It sounds so easy. OK.

So along with her treasure, finding this trade outpost

would be a big deal.

Oh, a huge deal, even for the state, because no one

has ever been able to find this.

And you think you know where this place is?

I've done a lot of research.

I think I know exactly where it is.

- Axel? - I'm with Harley on this one.

- We got it. - All right, let's find it.

We cruise down this historic road

to Harley and Axel's coordinates

at the intersection of the Pocotaligo River.

Proving the existence of a trade outpost near here

would be a major discovery, turning centuries of rumor

into cold, hard fact.

OK.

- This is it? - Yeah, we're here.

We're here, all right. Now, I do not see

a Native American pirate trade outpost here.

You're gonna have to use your imagination.

All right, I'm using my imagination.

Paint me a picture.

Yeah, so right here is the Pocotaligo River.

- Uh-huh. - And it comes up

and winds around this bank, and then it meets

the King's Highway right here.

- Where we came in on. - Yes.

So the highway's right there, river ends right here.

- Yes. - OK.

The ships would have had to have a place

where they needed to dock.

They dropped stuff over, so we think

that main docking place was right over here

on what now is an island from all the erosion.

OK, so if you think if that trade outpost were here,

it would be somewhere right in the water here.

Yeah, I think it hits right where the river bank is.

And that's where this ticking clock comes in?

Yes-- so right now, because of the full moon, it's known

as a king tide, which is also known as negative tide.

A negative, or minus tide, occurs

when the moon's gravitational pull causes a low tide

that is below zero on the tide scale.

The river here is fed by the Atlantic Ocean,

and in less than two hours, the water level should drop

to its lowest point all year.

And also, we have these series of floodgates that are

underneath the King's Highway, and they've been closed

for like 200 years.

They've just been recently opened, and they're causing

a whole lot of erosion from the fast flow of water

coming out of them, and we're hoping

that it's going to reveal a lot more artifacts.

OK, so the tide's gonna start dropping.

Should we get out there and see what we can find?

- Let's do it. - Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it, come on, guys.

Right on schedule, the water starts to go down,

dropping steadily minute by minute.

We grab our metal detectors and make our way to where Axel

believes pirate ships once docked to trade.

All right, looks like we got a land bridge

to this island now. Let's see if we can cross.

Really muddy.

OK, let's see what's up here.

OK, tide's still dropping.

Let's see what we can find up here.

OK.

We are down in that mud now.

Yeah.

Something here in the mud.

Sounds like a big iron object, probably.

Like a lockbox full of treasure?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- Yes, yes, yes. - It's a big iron object.

Come on now.

It's down there.

Get out of here.

All of that for a can of Mello Yello.

Well, that's just-- that's just unfortunate.

That's treasure hunting.

OK, it's not the most promising start,

but we continue undaunted and determined.

- That's good. - There you go.

- Yeah, I dig that. - It's diggable, but we're in

Mello Yello territory. - Whoa, jeeze.

Whoa!

Oh, my God, we almost lost him.

Y'all didn't fill in your holes.

Not yet.

That's the number one relic hunting rule.

Always fill in your holes.

What a way to go.

Oh, man! Oh, Harley?

- Yeah, he was a hell of a guy. - Agh.

Fell in a Mello Yello hole.

Yeah.

It's tragic what happened to him.

- Man. - I never saw him again.

Where were we?

That sounds really good.

It's deep, too.

Ooh, here we go. Ooh.

Ooh, you got it in your hand.

Is that a nail? What is that?

- That's too good to be a nail. - Oh, wait...

- Ooh! - There's a hole in it.

What is that? It's like a sawtooth.

Oh, my gosh, dude, that's a trade piece to a musket.

- It's from a musket? - A side piece.

Oh, this is from the side of a musket?

- Yes. - That is a side plate!

Trade muskets were ornately decorated weapons made

for trade with Native American tribes.

This brass side plate may be all that remains of a relic

that is as much a work of art as a weapon of war.

Oh, my word. Look at this.

- That looks like... - Looks like a cannon.

It looks like a piece to a cannon.

It does, it's a cannon design, yeah.

- It is a cannon. - Is that a sword right there?

- Yes, yes. - Whoa.

- That's so beautiful. - I've never seen one like that.

We're trying to find a pirate's treasure.

Look what we're holding.

First of all, it's part of a musket, right?

And look what's on it. Cannons, swords.

- Yeah. - This is, like, pirates,

through and through.

- Yes. - That's incredible.

And I love the fact that this is probably

from a trade musket.

- 100% - And what are we looking for here?

- A trade outpost. - I mean, that's an amazing clue.

- That's killer. - That's awesome.

All right, well, I think we're living here now, right?

Let's keep looking around this bank,

see what else is eroded out here.

- Let's do it. - Look at that!

- Oh. - Incredible.

The tide keeps dropping, exposing more of the land

that was, until an hour ago, a riverbed.

I'm amazed by our access to the normally submerged

shoreline, until I'm struck by a potential downside.

You got gators in this part of the river?

Definitely, big ones.

Big enough to withstand that current, too.

- No. - Yeah.

- No. - Just keep an eye out

and try to listen for splashing behind you.

It's all splashing!

The tide's going out.

You'll be all right.

- Just keep your eyes open. - "You'll be all right."

- You'll be all right. - "You'll be all right.

You'll be all right." You don't know.

You don't know that!

Will you let me know if you see a giant alligator behind me?

We're close to bottom tide.

This will only be a safe place to be for another hour,

so we step up the urgency to find more artifacts

while we still have land beneath our feet

and no gators at our backs.

Whoo! Guys, come look at this!

- What do you got? - Whoa!

Look!

2 Rule number one of searching for pirate treasure,

never skimp on self-care.

Spa day!

Hey, the gold's not going anywhere.

- Are we exfoliating right now? - We're exfoliating.

Dead skin cells tell no tales.

That's a pirate exfoliating joke.

In case you're following along at home,

What kind of mask is this?

This is a seaweed mask.

Of course.

I told her, I said, "Girl, you need to get rid of that man,

looking for buried treasure... He needs to get a real job."

Am I right?

We're officially doing this every week.

Argh.

2

Whoo! Guys, come look at this!

- What do you got? - Woah!

Look!

This rock! This rock!

- This rock? - Right here!

- What is it? - Look at them all!

- This stuff? - Yes!

- Those, yes. - Ooh, this isn't rock.

- No, it's coral. - This is coral.

Wait, why are there huge blocks of coral here?

In a temporarily drained South Carolina riverbed,

treasure hunters Harley Houston and Axel Macon are looking

for evidence of an 18th century black market trading post

for pirates sailing in from the Atlantic.

The search appears to have taken a major step forward.

Guys, look at this, look at this piece.

- Ooh. - Dude, that's coral!

- That is the best example, - This is, like,

- from the Caribbean. - Yeah, no doubt.

What is this doing 10, 12 miles up a river?

- This is a ballast stone. - This is ballast stone.

- Yeah. - This is ballast stone.

It must be from a ship!

And these other big rocks, these proper rocks,

are these local?

No, there's no native stone around here.

- So these are stones. - Yes.

But these are non-native.

So this is like a stone from England,

from an English ship. - Yes.

- Thousands of miles away. - Wow.

That means that this is, like, a done deal.

Yes.

This must have been a trading outpost.

- That proves it. - I mean, ballast is being dropped off.

It's being used here, I think, to shore up this embankment.

- Yeah. - And goods must have

been going out in its place.

Yes, exactly.

To counterweight the ship, right?

Yeah.

This legend about this Native pirate trading post right here...

- Yes. - ...where pirates were coming up, goods were going back

- and forth, that's true. - It's true.

- That proves it right there. - Unbelievable.

Let me tell you something. Treasure comes in many forms.

This is treasure.

Honestly, this is history changing.

This is putting this place on the map, a place that had

only been legend, now exists in the real world.

- You found it. - We found it.

And by the way, if the story of this trading post is true,

maybe this story about Anne Bonny's treasure

is true, right?

- Awesome. - Dude, this is awesome.

- Dude, amazing. - Yes.

All right, now we just need Anne Bonny's loot.

- Does that get a "Whoo"? - Definitely.

- Whoo-hoo! - Come on.

- Here we go. - Let's go.

For the first time since we arrived, the water begins

to rise a bit at our feet.

Sensing the surging tide, we climb above the embankment.

Proving the existence of the trading post gives us

cause to believe Anne Bonny's treasure may be here as well.

We scan with new urgency.

The tide is coming back up, and the sun is going down.

- A lot of iron in here. - Yeah.

I feel like we might be up on the main site here now.

Yeah.

Hmm, got a pretty good signal here.

- You got a signal? - Yeah.

OK, can I get a light? Thanks.

Man, there's a lot of roots right here.

There we go.

Pull that back.

Let's dig that out.

All right.

That tide's starting to come back in.

Let's see what it is.

- So small. - Yeah.

Oh, hold on, whoa.

- Wait, what the hell is that? - Dude, hold on.

Is that lead?

No, it's kind of a silver color.

- Oh, y'all! - What is that?

- This is a ring. - No!

Yes! Look at that.

- Oh, it is silver. - That is a ring.

- There's something on it. - What is it?

- Oh, it's a ring! - It's a coin!

- Oh, my god. - Dude.

- You gotta be kidding me. - Whoo!

- Yes! - That is a ring made out of a coin?

That is a Spanish coin.

That's, like, what, like a half-real?

The real was the official currency

of the Kingdom of Spain.

The silver was mined in South America to mint the coins,

which then became the frequent target of,

you guessed it, pirates.

Somebody took a half-real Spanish coin and turned it

into jewelry. - Yes.

Have you ever found one of these?

No, never, that is awesome. - This is absolutely incredible.

- Is there a date on this ring? - Under the globe.

See the one-seven? It's 17-something.

- I can't really tell. - So 17-something.

- Early 1700s. - Yeah.

That is a 300 year-old piece of jewelry

made out of a Spanish coin.

Who would make a half-real and put it on the ring?

I can think of one person who would-- Anne Bonny.

Yeah, very well.

That is jewelry for a pirate right there.

That is awesome.

I wish we could prove that was hers, but I have to say,

it is insane to find something like this.

It just reinforces how special this site is.

- Yeah. - We have a trading outpost here.

I think that's for sure.

And we have treasures coming out of the ground.

- 100% - Confirmed.

Confirmed.

Whoo!

- Did it again! - That's how you do it.

All right.

With our pockets full of historic artifacts,

the tide swallows Anne Bonny's trade outpost once more.

Unbelievable.

Pirates say, "Dead men tell no tales,"

but they never said anything about women.

Well, Anne Bonny's lips may be sealed,

but her story lives on even three centuries later.

As for the mystery of what happened to Anne after

she slipped the noose, there may be some news.

New evidence has come to light of a long-lost death record

from 1733 in Jamaica for one Anne Bonny.

That's 13 years after her trial.

It could be a coincidence, or it could be a breakthrough.

Perhaps Anne fled the gallows, left the high seas behind,

living out her last days peacefully in Jamaica.

But something tells me that Anne Bonny

would not be so contained.

I like to believe, and there's compelling evidence

that shows, that she could have escaped back to South Carolina.

We uncovered stunning period artifacts

at a long-lost homestead deeded to her father,

and rediscovered a historic trade outpost

where she may have hidden her ill-gotten booty.

One thing I know for sure is that the most dedicated group

of history buffs south of the Mason-Dixon line

will continue to scour the swamps

for more definitive proof.

In the end, I hope that Anne eventually went back to sea

and set sail to freedom, forever moving toward

the one place that calls to all adventurers.

The horizon.