This post was guest authored by Andy Huse, Florida Studies Curator and Librarian in Special Collections at the Tampa Library
There has been a lot of ink spilled about the authenticity of the Jose Gaspar myth. For the better part of a century, journalists and Tampa boosters insisted the pirate was the “real McCoy” while historians expressed doubts about the dubious tale. In 1980, French anthropologist Marcel d’Ans wrote an article on the history of the myth when its validity was still a subject of debate.[1] The piece was published by Tampa Bay History, a scholarly journal created by faculty of USF’s History Department in 1979, today a joint publication of USF Libraries and the Tampa Bay History Center. Instead of simply skewering the legend as a clumsy fake, d’Ans discussed its development in Tampa and on the written page. The result is illuminating, with some pointed social commentary reserved for the end of the piece.
I have long been fascinated by the Jose “Gasparilla” Gaspar pirate myth. For many years, I found it difficult to resist the urge to use Gaspar as an academic punching bag, debunking the story with earnest research. There has been no shortage of debunkers in the last fifty or sixty years, including the late USF Professor Charles Arnade.[2] Some have gone so far as to claim that the pirate story was a way to whitewash history and recast Tampa’s image using the Deep South’s iconography of knights and faux nobility.[3]
Hand-wringing scholars have not suggested a tale or character that would meet with academic approval as a replacement for the rogue. One must wonder if the public would still respond to an authentic character endorsed by scholars, or if replacing Gaspar with a real-life figure (such as a Seminole chief, native princess, or modern educator) would result in worse distortions of history.
Since its creation in the late 1800s, Gaspar’s legend has been woven into the crazy-quilt of local folk tales that help give localities a sense of place. Just as often as they divert people from Florida’s genuine history, folk tales inspire many to study, or at least to reimagine, the region. Since the pirate legend entered the consciousness, the fiction dedicated to Gaspar has grown steadily. Whatever its historical merits, the Gaspar myth is a wildly successful folk tale. Its accessibility has made Gaspar a popular subject for first-time authors. As a result, there are probably more books written about Jose Gaspar than any other Floridian, real or legendary. However you feel about the would-be pirate, there is currently no better introduction to the myth’s creation than Dr. Marcel d’Ans’s “The Legend of Gasparilla: Myth and History of Florida’s West Coast.”
Learn more:
- Read Dr. André-Marcel d’Ans’s article: “The Legend of Gasparilla: Myth and History on Florida’s West Coast” (1980)
- Explore our Digital Collections for images of Gaspar and Gasparilla
References
[1] d’Ans, André-Marcel (1980) “The Legend of Gasparilla: Myth and History on Florida’s West Coast,” Tampa Bay History: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 3.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/tampabayhistory/vol2/iss2/3
[2] For example, see the Tampa Times, Feb. 12, 1968
[3] Bell, Gregory. 2015. Ye Mystic Krewe of Historical Revisionists: The Origins of Tampa’s Gasparilla Parade. From Theory to Practice 2013: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Anglophone Studies. 191-199.