Pirate Hunters

by Robert Kurson

  Flip Brophy, my literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic. A writer couldn’t hope for a more loyal and fierce champion. People always tell me I’m lucky when they learn that Flip is my agent, and they’re right. She is like family to me.

  John Chatterton and John Mattera spent more than two years answering all my questions—in person, on the phone, in airplanes, on boats, standing knee-deep in Samaná Bay, wearing scuba gear, on the L trains in Chicago, sneaking in for free breakfast buffets at my budget hotels, crammed into Chatterton’s Mini Cooper in Florida, on treacherous roads in the Dominican Republic, inside the homes of legendary treasure hunters. I’d known Chatterton to be a great storyteller from working with him on Shadow Divers; Mattera was a revelation. He spoke cinematically, painting pictures as much as recounting events, and his instinct for story structure is excellent. It didn’t surprise me to discover that Mattera is a terrific writer. It’s been a privilege to read his work, and to know both of these stand-up guys.

  Carla Chatterton and Carolina Garcia de Mattera were always gracious to me in sharing memories of their husbands’ pirate hunt. It takes a special kind of person to support an explorer’s journey.

  Victor Francisco Garcia-Alecont, former vice admiral and chief of staff of the Dominican Navy, answered my questions with insight, patience, and good humor. In Santo Domingo, he and his wife, Lcda. Francisca Perez de Garcia, made me feel like part of the family.

  Captain Tracy Bowden welcomed me into his home in Florida, where he described his life as a shipwreck diver, treasure hunter, and explorer. Since time began, it seems, men have set out in search of treasure; almost none of them succeeds, and of those who do, few have succeeded like Bowden. His stories of salvaging treasure are gripping, but even better is when he talks about the life of a treasure hunter—how lonely it can be, the strain it puts on one’s life, the voices a person hears at night eighty miles offshore when anchored over a mass grave. Bowden was a pioneer, and I was lucky to hear him tell me about his odyssey.

  Howard Ehrenberg is one of the smartest guys I’ve met. Even better, he’s an adventurer, and his curiosity is an inspiration. It’s hard to imagine the search for the Golden Fleece being possible without Howard’s mastery of the cutting-edge technology and equipment—or his easygoing nature. It’s equally hard to imagine how I would have filled in the details of the story without him. No matter how many times I called, Howard was available to explain things to me. Thanks, too, to Howard’s wife, Megan Ehrenberg, an excellent diver (and very nice person) in her own right.

  Heiko Kretschmer met with me in Santo Domingo and in Samaná. I’d heard about his tireless work ethic and ability to fix nearly anything, but what I didn’t fully appreciate until meeting him was his fine mind. He added nuance and specifics about the search for Bannister’s wreck that no one else could. His own story, of fleeing East Germany at age eighteen aboard a train for a better life in the West, is worthy of its own telling. As with Ehrenberg, the successful pirate search wouldn’t have happened without him.

  I don’t know that I’ve ever met a better storyteller, or a nicer man, than treasure hunter Carl Fismer. He opened his home to me, showed me good breakfast places in the Florida Keys, and took two years’ worth of my phone calls. Whenever I talked to Fizz, he made it feel like I was doing him a favor, rather than the other way around.

  Robert Marx met with me at both his home and office in Florida. By then, I’d read several of his books, but nothing prepared me for meeting the famed treasure hunter. (For starters, he told me not to use the term treasure hunter: “Lots of guys hunt for treasure, but how many find it? I’m a treasure finder.”) And it got better from there. I stayed for an entire day and didn’t have a boring moment. Jenifer Marx, Bob’s wife, was delightful. I’d read her excellent book The Magic of Gold, published by Doubleday, and was honored to meet her.

  These men sat down with me and brought the world of treasure hunting and wreck diving to life: Dave Crooks, president of the Sunken Treasures Book Club; Joe Porter, publisher of Wreck Diving Magazine; Kim Fisher and Sean Fisher at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West; and (by phone) David P. Horan of Horan, Wallace & Higgins LLP.

  I can’t offer enough thanks to Professor David Buisseret, senior research fellow at the Newberry Library, for the help he gave me in researching Joseph Bannister and the Golden Fleece. I think it’s safe to say that without Buisseret’s work, little would be known about the pirate captain and his ship. By a stroke of good luck I found Professor Buisseret living near me in Chicago; even better, he made himself available to me, at his home, in coffee shops, by phone, whenever I needed him, and always with grace and warmth. It’s been a pleasure watching him work and a privilege knowing such a fine man.

  Naval historians Sam Willis, Jonathan Dull, and Frank L. Fox all spoke to me by phone and helped me understand the subject of seventeenth-century naval warfare, ships, weapons, and tactics. I leaned especially hard on Fox, who astonished me with his vast working knowledge of these subjects, and his ability to answer whatever question, no matter how obscure, I put to him. Whenever I reached out to Fox, he was always there, and for that, and his warm demeanor, I’m grateful.

  In the Dominican Republic, thanks to the minister of culture, José Antonio Rodríguez; the vice minister, Luís O. Brea Franco; and the director of the ministerial cabinet, Carlos Salcedo.

  Many thanks to these people for their feedback on chapters and ideas, and for talking writing with me: Dick Babcock, Andy Cichon, Kevin Davis, Ivan Dee, Katelynd Duncan, Jonathan Eig, Joseph Epstein, Robert Feder, Brad and Jane Ginsberg, the Glover family, Ken Goldin, Elliott Harris, Miles Harvey, Ryan Holiday, Len and Pam Kasper, the Kurson family, David Shapson, Joe Tighe, Randi and Rob Valerious, and Bill Zehme.

  Mitch Lopata of Lopata Design in Skokie, Illinois, did beautiful work on illustrations, photos, and charts. Carolina Garcia de Mattera, Celia Reyes, and Virginia Reyes provided fast and sharp assistance with Spanish translation.

  I was aided in some of my research by the superb work of Av Brown of Your Man in the Stacks, and Dr. Andrew Lewis of Andrew Lewis Historical Research. Copy editor Michelle Daniel did fine work with my manuscript. Todd Ehrhardt, a great guy, supplied photos of Samaná Bay and helped me dig for treasure there.

  Dr. Steven Tureff means the world to our family. We couldn’t hope to know a kinder or more caring man.

  A special thanks goes to “Superman” Sam Sommer. He was one of the first people to whom I told the pirate story. The look on his face helped me believe. He will be missed.

  Thanks, also, to Ken Andre, Stuart Berman, Mitch Cassman, Pat Croce, Dr. Michael Davidson, Dr. Samuel Goldman, David Granger, Peter Griffin, Rich Hanus, Jordan Heller, John Jacobs, Richie Kohler, Jeff Lescher, Jon Liebman, Ann Marie Mattera, Dana Loren Mattera, Robert Neiman, Gil Netter, Scott Novoselsky, John Packel, Tracey Patis, Scott Rosenzweig, Dr. Dan Schwartz, Chris Seger, Jaynie Smeerin, Jason Steigman, Gary Taubes, Mark Warren, Dan Warsh, Dr. Phillip Werner, Victor and Sally Reyes, and Virginia Reyes.

  My family has supported my writing since I quit law and took the leap onto the page. Much love to Jane, Larry, Sam, and Mike Glover; and to Ken, Becky, Steve, Carrie, and Chaya Kurson. My mom, Annette Kurson, died while I was writing this book, but I always felt her with me. She and my father, Jack D. Kurson, were the two best storytellers I’ve known. I wish they were here.

  A special thanks to my brother, Ken Kurson. He was never too busy to read my drafts or talk to me about writing, baseball, or life.

  Finally, my deepest thanks to Amy, Nate, and Will Kurson. They are my world and my truest loves. Both boys edited my work, and I (mostly) took their suggestions. They also stayed up late with me, even on school nights, allowing me to structure the story aloud for them, helping me see Bannister and the Golden Fleece through their wide eyes. Amy is my best friend, editor, confidante, and soul mate. When I need her, she drives with me to the place that hangs over the road to get snacks and talk, even at five in the morning.
I can’t imagine a book, or a life, without her.

  NOTE ON SOURCES

  This project began over late-night burgers at a steak house in New Jersey, where divers John Chatterton and John Mattera told me of their quest to find a pirate ship—and a pirate captain—unlike any history had known. Over the next two and a half years, I spent hundreds of hours interviewing the men, in person and on the phone.

  I also made two trips to the Dominican Republic with the men. In Santo Domingo, I handled piles of treasure and priceless artifacts, interviewed experts in archaeology and nautical history, and read books in buildings that dated to the sixteenth century. In Samaná, on the country’s north coast, I saw Bannister come to life. It was there that the divers took me by boat to search the bay and investigate islands, hike into treacherous jungle, and wade into shipwreck-laden waters, all as they had done in their search for the pirate captain and his ship, the Golden Fleece. “You’ve gotta know the place to know the pirate,” they told me, and they were right.

  Captain Tracy Bowden, and crewmen Howard Ehrenberg and Heiko Kretschmer, granted me interviews, both in person and by phone. Victor Francisco Garcia-Alecont spoke to me in cafés and at his home in Santo Domingo. Carla Chatterton and Carolina Garcia de Mattera met with me to share memories and give insight into their husbands’ adventure.

  The business of treasure hunting, along with its rich history, legend, and lore, were explained to me in Florida by Carl Fismer, Robert Marx, Sean Fisher, Kim Fisher, and Dave Crooks. I am convinced that treasure hunters are the best storytellers.

  The fast-changing state of international maritime, admiralty, and salvage law was laid out for me by attorney David P. Horan of Miami, who prevailed in the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of Mel Fisher, the treasure hunter who discovered and salvaged the Atocha, the richest shipwreck ever found.

  Much of the historical research that appears in this book was done originally by John Mattera as part of his team’s search for the Golden Fleece. I consulted all of his sources, along with my own (including interviews with experts), to confirm Mattera’s work and to fill in details where necessary.

  Much of what is known about Joseph Bannister comes from the correspondence of the governors of Jamaica in the 1680s, contained in the Calendar of State Papers, American and West Indies, now at the British National Archives in England, and in the manuscript collections at Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia. Many of the relevant letters, along with other details on the English government’s pursuit of Bannister, can be found in two stellar books by historian David Buisseret: Port Royal Jamaica (written with Michael Pawson) and published by University of the West Indies Press; and Jamaica in 1687, from the same publisher. It was the latter book that provided the eyewitness drawing and account of the battle between Bannister and Royal Navy frigates, and which confirms the discovery of the shipwreck at Cayo Vigia to be that of the Golden Fleece. Professor Buisseret also spent dozens of hours with me, in person and by phone, answering questions, assisting me with research, and pointing me in good directions. His assistance was invaluable.

  (A note on spelling: Sources contemporary to Bannister often spelled the pirate captain’s name “Banister.” Modern sources, including those written by historians David Buisseret and Peter Earle, almost always spell it “Bannister.” The reason, as explained to me by Buisseret, is that seventeenth-century spelling was quite random, and that the latter spelling has become more conventional and more readily familiar to modern readers.)

  On the Golden Age of Piracy, The Buccaneers of America by Alexandre Exquemelin, originally published in 1678 (and later published by Penguin Books), was essential reading, an eyewitness account of pirate life by a man who sailed with Henry Morgan, and it’s a page turner. Peter Earle’s The Pirate Wars, published by Thomas Dunne Books, gave a first-rate and highly readable account of how and why navies did battle with the buccaneers. The Invisible Hook, by Peter T. Leeson and published by Princeton University Press, provided a compelling look at the economics of pirate life, and shed new light on why, beyond the obvious reasons, pirates might have chosen such risky lives. As a general primer, David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag, published by Random House, was indispensable and a pleasure to read. Two fun and useful books about pirate language, terms, and sayings added color to an understanding of the era: The Pirate Primer by George Choundas, published by Writer’s Digest Books, and The Pirate Dictionary by Terry Breverton, published by Pelican. Also useful were The History of Piracy by Philip Gosse (published by Burt Franklin); Pirates of the Caribbean by Cruz Apestegui (Chartwell Books); Pirates: Predators of the Seas by Angus Konstam (Skyhorse); Villains of All Nations by Marcus Rediker (Beacon Press); and Pirate Hunting by Benerson Little (Potomac Books).

  Seventeenth-century naval warfare, weapons, ships, and tactics is a rich and exciting subject. Much was learned by reading Jonathan Dull’s The Age of the Ship of the Line, published by the University of Nebraska Press. Mr. Dull was also kind enough to grant me a telephone interview, which was very helpful. I referred often to The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy, edited by J. R. Hill and published by Oxford University Press; The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship 1650–1840, edited by Robert Gardiner and published by the Naval Institute Press; The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815, by N.A.M. Rodger, published by Norton; and a small pamphlet by Albert Manucy titled Artillery Through the Ages, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. In addition to Mr. Dull, two other experts granted me interviews: I spoke via Skype to British maritime historian Sam Willis, and by phone on several occasions to naval researcher Frank L. Fox, whose vivid and cinematic descriptions helped me envision the kind of fighting that took place between Bannister’s pirates and the Royal Navy. Fox, also an expert in the work of Dutch marine painters Willem van de Velde the Elder, and his son Willem van de Velde the Younger, directed me to copies of drawings done by these men of the navy frigates Falcon and Drake. After months of reading about these great ships, it felt like a small miracle to be given illustrations drawn by men who had actually seen them.

  In learning about the rarity of finding and identifying sunken pirate ships, I relied on an April 2005 article from the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, “ ‘Ruling Theories Linger’: Questioning the Identity of the Beaufort Inlet Shipwreck,” by Bradley A. Rodgers, Nathan Richards, and Wayne R. Lusardi. I also read Barry Clifford’s Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World’s First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her, published by HarperCollins; X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy, edited by Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen, published by University Press of Florida; and a review of the Skowronek and Ewen book by Michael Jarvis in the journal Caribbean Studies, volume 36, number 2, July–December 2008. (During the writing of Pirate Hunters, I checked media for reports of new pirate ship finds. As expected, there were almost none. In 2011, researchers at Texas State University discovered cannons and wreckage in Panama they thought might belong to one of Henry Morgan’s ships, but, like almost all suspected pirate wreck finds, no conclusive evidence of the ship’s identity was uncovered.)

  On the subject of amputations at sea in the seventeenth century, there is an excellent website: The Pirate Surgeon’s Journals (piratesurgeon.com). The author of that page cites several Golden Age sea-surgeon texts, which a research assistant helped me access via Gale’s Eighteenth Century Collections Online and Google Books. They were The Navy Surgeon; or, Practical System of Surgery by John Atkins, London, printed for Henry Woodgate and Samuel Brooks, at the Golden Ball in Pater-Noster-Row, 1758; A Course of Chirurgical Operations, Demonstrated in the Royal Garden at Paris by Pierre Dionis, London, printed for Jacob Tonson, within Gray’s-Inn Gate next Gray’s-Inn Lane, 1710; Chyrurgic Memoirs: Being an Account of Many Extraordinary Cures Which Occurred in the Series of the Author’s Practice, Especially at Sea, by John Moyle, London, 1708; Chirurgus Marinus: Or, the Sea-Chirurgion. Being Instructions
to Junior Chirurgic Practitioners, who Design to Serve at Sea in this Imploy, by John Moyle, London, Three Bibles on London-Bridge, 1702. More recent texts, also useful, were John R. Kirkup’s A History of Limb Amputation, published by Springer; and John Ashhurst’s The International Encyclopaedia of Surgery: A Systematic Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Surgery, volume 6, published by W. Wood, 1886.

  To learn the history and lore of Samaná, I consulted Encyclopedia Britannica online, and History of the Panama Canal—Its Construction and Builders by Ira E. Bennett, published by Historical Publishing Company. I also read “Historical Synthesis of Biophysical Information of Samaná Region, Dominican Republic,” by Dr. Alejandro Herrera-Moreno, Center for the Conservation and Ecodevelopment of Samaná Bay and Its Surroundings, 2005. (This paper notes that 34 percent of fishermen in the Dominican Republic operate in Samaná, the majority of whom work from wooden rowboats or kayaks. It is these fishermen who often know more about the location of old shipwrecks than archaeologists, historians, and treasure hunters combined.) Finally, I referenced an obscure book, Samaná, Pasado y Porvenir, by Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, published by Sociedad Dominicana de Geografia, second edition (1973). Mattera discovered the volume in a small Dominican hotel; despite the warning stamped inside, “Por favor no retirar de esta area”—Please do not remove from this area—he borrowed the volume and later gave it to me. Written mostly in Spanish, it mentions Bannister and makes some interesting claims, few of which Mattera or I could substantiate in the historical record. For more information, please visit my website at robertkurson.com/piratehunters.

  For information on Port Royal, Jamaica, the “Wickedest City on Earth,” I relied on the book by Pawson and Buisseret, Port Royal Jamaica; Buisseret’s Jamaica in 1687; Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag; Breverton’s The Pirate Dictionary; Earle’s The Pirate Wars; and Buisseret’s Historic Jamaica from the Air, published by Ian Randle. Robert Marx was kind enough to talk to me in Florida about the historic excavation he did at Port Royal in the 1960s. I also watched a useful documentary produced by National Geographic, Sin City Jamaica, from 1998.