The Pirates Caesar: Excerpt 1. An Intro by W.T. Howard

(Author’s note: The Following, and everything in the The Pirates Caesar series of blogs is entirely fictional. The book does not really exist. However, within the world of The Junior Rangers Investigative Club, the book does, and some of the stories which follow are based on history and historical legend. Stay tuned for clarification about the actual history, but know that everything below, until the final book link, is entirely a product of my imagination.

Or, put shorter. Everything you are about to read is fiction. Don’t cite it in your history classes.)

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction in the new edition of The Pirates Caesar, written by the Author William T. Howard:

Pirates:

That word conjures images of swashbuckling men, and sometimes women, sailing the seven seas, Jolly Rodger raised, cannons loaded, and hordes of treasure in the hulls of their wooden ships. That was how I imagined pirates as a boy. My family can trace their legacy back to Blackbeard. An ancestor of mine, not actually Blackbeard himself, was imprisoned and prosecuted as part of Blackbeard’s crew. So, I’ve grown up with romanticized versions of these free men sailing up and down the coast, besieging ships, capturing wealth, and spreading that wealth as they celebrated their freedom in the West Indies and early colonies.

There are, of course, pirate stories from around the world: The famous Ching Shih, a woman who lead an entire flotilla of pirates in China and forced the government to let her retire with her wealth. Henry Avery the legendary ‘Pirate King’ is rumored to have amassed more wealth than most before escaping back to England in secret and dodging conviction by disappearing from history. Frances Drake, more famous for his circumnavigation of the globe, than his piracy. The Barbary Pirates which early America went to war against in the Mediterranean. Still, I’ve always been more interested in the pirates of the Caribbean, Americas and West Indies.

Perhaps I am a little biased. My ancestor, accused of being a part of Blackbeard’s crew, was able to fight a legal battle for his freedom, and even sued for wrongful imprisonment. He won that lawsuit because the accusal and imprisonment came after he had already been pardoned of piracy by the King of England. My ancestor used his legal winnings to start a shipping and import company which endures in our family today. So, my family has passed down stories of his exploits with Blackbeard, and we have collected other pirate legends, always spinning more positive yarns about the free-sailing men and women from the golden age of pirate life in early Florida, and the rest of the Caribbean.

In our family’s collected tales of the pirates, corsairs, and privateers of the New World, I’ve learned of many pirates who helped to shape the history of the early Americas. Some were legends. Some were misunderstood, and others were dangerous and violent. There was one series of stories which always stood out to me, even as a child. (Other than the story of my ancestor.) It was a tale spanning either two or three centuries, and it involved another man often traced within the legacy of Blackbeard. A man who bore the torch of a name and Legacy surpassing his own: Black Caesar.

His story is remarkable in and of itself, but, when looking into the records it seems that the legacy of pirates named Caesar was a shared one. Amongst the stories of pirates preying upon the waters around Florida, the name Caesar appears twice, at least, if not three times, and can be consolidated as the legends of at least two, and possibly, three distinct men.

The tales of theses pirates is remarkable for many reasons, and the name Caesar has left its mark on southern Florida, not in commemoration of the Roman leaders of the ancient world, but instead as a result of these legendary men whose stories left an impression on a young boy growing up with the weight of family history in the era of modern safe shipping and watery egress.

Horatio Caesar was purported to sail beneath a secret Black Flag, a pirate hidden amongst Spain’s ancient treasure fleets. Black Caesar was rumored to have amassed a fortune and legacy rivaling Blackbeard’s before teaming up with the more historically renowned pirate. And Henri Caesar, a captain freedom fighter in the waning years of piracy managed to instill his own legacy in the shadow of a growing American Republic.

I learned first of Black Caesar, whose story was passed down through family legacy. But quickly began to gather tales of the other pirates who shared his name or title. I found each to have a striking and unique story. But it was not the stories alone which interested me in the men, it was the rumor passed along with them, a rumor of Treasure.

Treasure

Of course, one of the reasons we all find ourselves interested in pirates, is because of the many stories about the treasures which they left behind: buried treasures hidden from prowling navy ships, secret caches left behind before last battles, long lost maps rediscovered, and vast wealth sunken with ships lost at sea.

Most of these stories are probably legends, tall tales told by the pirates themselves to boost their legacy, or stories spun in their wake to raise the intrigue of pirates to the general public. But there is a kernel of truth within any story, and so when we step onto a tropical coast, we are left to imagine the treasure waiting for us under the tipping coconut tree, beneath the strangely shaped rock, or just beyond the edge of the next horizon.

Stories of lost pirate treasure captivate us. I understand that.

There is an old family story about a shipwreck somewhere off the coast of the Florida Keys, a treasure hull sunken in waters too deep to recover. Supposedly, it was a vessel packed with gold, silver, and gems pillaged from another wrecked treasure ship. Its sinking was witnessed by our ancestor while he sailed with Blackbeard, (before his pardon,) but its exact coordinates have been forgotten. When I was younger, I used to daydream of searching the waters east of the Florida Keys and re-discovering this semi-apocryphal bounty.

My family nurtured my interest in finding hidden treasures. My mother used to set up scavenger hunts for us every Easter, and in keeping with the pirate theme, she would often include seemingly old maps or riddles. (This is a legacy I’ve continued with my own children and grandchildren.) My father would take us with him to estate sales and auctions to acquire valuables and antiquities. Antiquities were a particular fascination for him. Eventually, he set up his own antiques shop and asked me to run it. He was always more interested in the history of the objects, but I was always more fascinated by the search, and the process of uncovering something of unknown, but surprising, value.

Which is why, when I came across an ancient map, supposedly of pirate origin, while helping to run my father’s antique shop, I had to jump at the opportunity. The map purportedly belonged to one of my favorite legendary pirates. Pirate Henri Caesar! At first I doubted its origin, but I soon became convinced of its authenticity, and equally convinced that I could solve it’s confounding riddles.

I was wrong, of course, and the treasure of Pirate Henri Ceasar has, as yet, eluded me, but that map became key to my entry into an even deeper interest in the pirate legacy of southern Florida, and a crucial pivot leading me to learn more about the two, and potentially three Pirates Caesar.

This book is a collection of my trials and tribulations, my early attempt to solve the treasure map and find the treasure, and everything I discovered about The Pirates Caesar along the way. For this edition, I’ve included the original manuscript and everything I’ve discovered in the recent decades, including the most recent reports of treasure off the coast of . . .

(Author’s Back! Ok. Everything above was fiction, but I want to leave you with one last note. The Pirates Caesar is a book that Justin, Lucy, and Rudy first come across in my novel Treasure off the Coast, a mystery set in Dry Tortugas National Park. They will find the book again in the upcoming novel Treasure of Biscayne Bay. You do not need to read these blogs to understand those stories. This is just extra information. However, if anything above interests you, and if you have not yet read Treasure off the Coast, check out the link below, look for it in Amazon, or in book stores run by the Southern Florida Parks association in the Dry Tortugas or the Everglades.

Stay tuned also, for the continuation of this series of Excerpts from The Pirates Caesar, and a clarification of the actual history behind the real world Pirates Caesar. Thanks for reading all of this and take care!)

Click on link to buy Treasure off the Coast. The first Junior Rangers Investigative Club Novel.