Captain Tracy Bowden’s historic work on three Spanish galleons was chronicled in two National Geographic articles. The first, “Graveyard of the Quicksilver Galleons,” was written by Mendel Peterson and published in the December 1979 issue. The second, “Gleaning Treasure from the Silver Bank,” was written by Bowden himself in the July 1996 issue. Bowden was kind enough to answer questions about these wrecks for me in person, too.
On the history of shipwreck and treasure hunting, I was helped by Joe Porter, Dave Crooks, Robert Marx, and Carl Fismer. I also read The Devils Gold by Ted Falcon-Barker, by Nautical; Pieces of Eight: Recovering the Riches of a Lost Spanish Treasure Fleet, by Kip Wagner as told to L. B. Taylor, Jr., published by Dutton; and two books by Robert F. Marx, The Lure of Sunken Treasure, published by David McKay, and Shipwrecks in the Americas, published by Dover.
These excellent books helped me understand the wreck of the Spanish galleon Concepción and the generations of treasure hunters, including William Phips, who searched for her: The Hispaniola Treasure by Cyrus H. Karraker, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press; The Treasure of the Concepción by Peter Earle, published by the Viking Press; and The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651–1695 by Emerson W. Baker and John G. Reid, published by the University of Toronto Press.
For the life of shipwreck historian and researcher Jack Haskins, I relied on the memories of his closest friend, Carl Fismer. Everyone should have a friend who remembers him like Fizz remembers Jack.
Many of the events in the book were recounted to me by the participants from their memories. If there was doubt about the order of things, I used my best efforts.
Mattera continued to research Joseph Bannister and the Golden Fleece even after the discovery of the pirate captain’s wreck. Among his finds were logbooks from Captain Talbot and Lieutenant Smith of the Falcon for the dates that Royal Navy ship did battle with Bannister; letters by English officials and others noting the fight and its aftermath; even a log entry reporting word of Bannister’s hanging off the shores of Port Royal. All of it added bits of detail and color, and was consistent with what Mattera had learned during his search for the Golden Fleece. For details and illustrations, please visit my website at robertkurson.com/piratehunters.
Finally, during my trips to the Dominican Republic, I saw and handled artifacts from the wreck of the Golden Fleece. Those I did not observe in person I saw in excellent photographs taken by Mattera and Ehrenberg. Mattera’s collection of old maps and charts of Hispaniola and Samaná Bay, which hang on the wall of his apartment in Santo Domingo, also helped take me back in time to the era and place described in the book.
I even did a little treasure hunting of my own.
On a steamy spring morning, Chatterton, Mattera, Kretschmer, and another accomplished wreck diver, Todd Ehrhardt, hiked with me through dense jungle at Cayo Vigia, then up the island’s steep eastern tip, where Bannister’s pirates had dug in for their fight with the Royal Navy. We hung on to branches to keep from plunging to the rocky shore below. At the top of the island, we saw the channel just as Bannister would have seen it. With cannons and muskets, we could have hit any target in any direction. Kretschmer unpacked an Aqua Pulse AQ1B metal detector and began sweeping it back and forth over the mud. Moments later we were digging, with a hatchet and small shovel and ax. I don’t know how long we worked. I don’t know who did what. I just know that I didn’t fear falling anymore, and that when we reached the bottom, we had four or five cannonballs between us. As a writer, you can do research and ask questions and make notes. But nothing puts you inside a story like finding your own cannonball from a pirate fight.
By ROBERT KURSON
Shadow Divers
Crashing Through
Pirate Hunters
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ROBERT KURSON earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, then a law degree from Harvard Law School. His award-winning stories have appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and Esquire, where he was a contributing editor. He is the author of the 2005 American Booksellers Association’s nonfiction Book Sense Book of the Year Shadow Divers, and Crashing Through, based on Kurson’s 2006 National Magazine Award–winning profile in Esquire. He lives in Chicago.
www.robertkurson.com
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