The golden age of piracy-the time when notorious cutthroats like Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, and Bartholomew Roberts sailed-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 shaped modern-day ideas of pirates.

David Head is an associate lecturer of history at the University of Central Florida. He has published four books, including Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic, The Golden Age of Piracy: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates, and A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution, which was a finalist for the 2020 George Washington Book Prize.

Funding for this Florida Talks program is provided in part by Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and in partnership with the Florida Remembered Society. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.