Although buried treasures are part of the popular imagination when discussing piracy, the reality is that pirates rarely practiced this. The notion of storing goods in a chest, hiding it in a secret location, and recording the location on a map for later retrieval is largely a product of fiction.
For pirates, there was little reason to stockpile or hide their spoils. The primary purpose of robbery was to quickly convert the goods into wealth, whether by dividing among the crew, buying provisions, spending in ports, trading merchandise, or selling for money.
There are at least two notable exceptions to the rule. The first involves the British privateer Francis Drake. In 1573, after attacking a Spanish caravan transporting gold and silver in Panama, he and his crew temporarily buried the loot because they could not transport everything onto the ships. They left men responsible for guarding it and returned shortly thereafter to retrieve it; therefore, it was a temporary logistical measure, not a permanent hiding place.
The second case, more well-known and controversial, refers to the pirate William Kidd. In 1699, he allegedly buried a significant amount of treasure on Gardiner Island, New York, before traveling to Boston. Kidd was accused of piracy and murder, and he knew his assets could be confiscated.
The treasure was discovered by authorities at the time (although it is unknown if completely or partially) and used as evidence against Kidd during his trial in London. Subsequent searches in Gardiner yielded no further finds. This case is considered controversial because there is a high probability that the treasure was never actually buried.
All available information about Kidd in this episode comes from two accounts: that of John Gardiner, the island mansion owner, and Kidd himself in his legal proceedings. Neither testimony mentions the act of burying the treasure; instead, they indicate that Kidd entrusted the goods to Gardiner to manage them. It is plausible that during the trial, the narrative was exaggerated to discredit the figure of the pirate, given that the case caused a great scandal at the time.
Regardless, it was Kidd and his supposed treasure that fueled the creation of various Victorian fictional narratives, in which buried treasures were central elements of the plot, elevating the spirit of adventure. This includes Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Gold-Bug,' published in 1843.
However, it was in the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century that the theme of piracy gained strength in popular culture with the release of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' in 1883. This work was responsible for immortalizing several genre clichés, such as maps, buried treasures, talking parrots, wooden legs, and the punishment of walking on a plank. Another fundamental book in solidifying this myth was James M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan,' released in 1904.