History Main / PirateBooty

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Has nothing to do with]] ''that'' kind of [[PirateGirl "Pirate Booty"]].

The greatest amount of pirate treasure is said to be on the Swedish island Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Though obviously not the Caribbean type of pirates, generations of vikings {{buried treasure}} from their raids to Northern and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea there.

* ''Literature/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'': At one point, Arslan and his men are lured away from the city they're running with the directions to a legendary pirate treasure containing a hundred million gold coins. It's actually a trap so that more modern pirates can sack the city. Which they expected, so they only pretended to buy the story to lure them out. Narsus actually points out that the notion of a treasure of a hundred million coins is absurd to begin with -- assuming that much gold existed in minted currency, it would a man's lifetime to count that many coins, so how could anyone know how much there was?

* ''Series/EnsignO'Toole'': In "Operation Treasure," Ensign O'Toole and his shipmates come across a coded map to buried treasure. [[spoiler: It turns out the treasure is only root beer, part of a publicity stunt for a new brand]]

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', on why there is treasure buried ''everywhere''.

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Before his execution the long dead pirate Capt. Storm buried his famous treasure in a location which would decades later be right by the bandstand at Holliday College.

* ''The Deep'' by Creator/PeterBenchley (made into a film in 1977) has divers discovering a [=WW2=] ship containing a cargo of morphine, which has sunk on top of a Spanish treasure ship that went down in the 18th century holding a priceless royal dowry. When a local drug kingpin takes an interest, the protagonists have to buy him off by salvaging the morphine while concealing what their real area of interest is.

* ''Literature/TheDeep'' by Creator/PeterBenchley (made into a film in 1977) has divers discovering a [=WW2=] ship containing a cargo of morphine, which has sunk on top of a Spanish treasure ship that went down in the 18th century holding a priceless royal dowry. When a local drug kingpin takes an interest, the protagonists have to buy him off by salvaging the morphine while concealing what their real area of interest is.

Pirates sustained themselves and their vessels by using supplies and cargoes plundered from their victims and selling what they had no use for. This provided the coin for obtaining things they couldn't steal, paying their crews and spending a raucous night enjoying the pleasures of a seedy port. Also, given the fact that piracy was a very high-risk career, there also wasn't much point in caching loot for the purpose of digging it up later: most of them would end up sunk, killed in a boarding action, or hung long before the planned time to retrieve the treasure came around, so there was no real incentive to not spend it at the first opportunity.

** Drake was the second of the two known pirates to have buried treasure - he stole ''so much'' treasure from the Spanish that he couldn't fit it all on his ship, so he took the gold and hid the silver. Of course, since the spot where he buried the silver was only a few hundred yards away from the spot where he stole it in the first place (not wanting to haul a lot of very heavy treasure that he wouldn't be able to take with him any further than he absolutely had to), the Spanish were able to find and recover it fairly quickly... Until Drake, or any one else in England's Privateer force, stole it off them again!

* At one point in ''Literature/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'', Arslan and his men are lured away from the city they're running with the directions to a legendary pirate treasure containing a hundred million gold coins. It's actually a trap so that more modern pirates can sack the city. Which they expected, so they only pretended to buy the story to lure them out. Narsus actually points out that the notion of a treasure of a hundred million coins is absurd to begin with -- assuming that much gold existed in minted currency, it would a man's lifetime to count that many coins, so how could anyone know how much there was?
* The title of ''Manga/OnePiece'' actually refers to the fortune of legendary Pirate Gold Roger.
** Though the exact nature of this "fortune" is arguably the greatest mystery in the series. It's merely the prestige of having been the only one since Roger to make it to the end of the world that will make whoever finds it the pirate king. In all likelihood, the actual TREASURE as in silver and gold aspect of the One Piece is probably rather meagre. For a long time, speculations on what it could be ranged from a single piece of eight (It is ONE piece, after all) to an item that Roger was fond of.
*** "Arguably", nothing. Oda has gone on record saying that the real meaning behind the name "One Piece" is his best-kept secret. The only real hints we get about what it actually is come from two times he said that it definiely is a physical reward, and [[ItsTheJourneyThatCounts not the whole journey]] as he does not like that kind of endings. And Whitebeard seems to imply that it does have genuine importance, as "The world will be shaken to the core", but it is probably not the "silver and gold" kind of treasure either (at least not completely). [[spoiler:Indeed, as of Wano Arc, we know that the treasure actually belonged to Joy Boy, and Roger, upon seeing it, just laughed (hence the name of the island is ''Laugh Tale'') and even lamented about not being a contemporary of Joy Boy. Supporting Whitebeard's statement, Roger also learned about the Will of the D., the Void Century, and the Ancient Weapons, implying the treasure will definitely turn the world upside down.]]
*** There are, however, other instances of Pirate booty that more fit into the cliche. Nami spent ten years collecting booty stolen from pirates to try and buy back her village from the pirates who had occupied it, only to have it taken by corrupt marines when she almost had enough.

*** Note that this was [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything the first time the Straw Hats committed anything resembling a real act of piracy]].

* An episode of ''Anime/TransformersHeadmasters'' revolved around the Autobots and Decepticons trying to get a massive stockpile of energy hidden on a SpacePirate [[PlanetOfHats Planet]].

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Vriska Serket uses a pirate-based persona modeled after a real piratical ancestor of hers when engaging in Alternia's high-stakes and often deadly LARPing culture. Over years of battles and adventures on the seas, she's amassed a considerable stash of gold, gems and other treasure that she hoards beneath her home.

* Averted in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. While visiting a theoretically uninhabited planet, the exploratory squad finds [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-06-17 what Nick thinks is a treasure map]] carved into a rock. It turns out that the local species has cross-shaped ribcages, and since symbols develop in context rather than being connected to some universal meaning, the X doesn't mean "buried treasure" but "likely death, stay away".

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Subverted in the case of the notorious Freeboota (ork SpacePirate) Kaptin Badrukk, who is said to have buried vast amounts of wealth on remote asteroids. Subverted because orks use their own teeth as currency (they grow back), which end up desintegrating over time to prevent inflation, making them useless to humans ''and'' orks alike.

See also InexplicableTreasureChests what be buried on a DesertIsland in [[WelcomeToTheCaribbeanMon The Spanish Main]].

* ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars''. Although he's a ProfessionalKiller rather than a pirate, we're introduced to Gelt sitting on a luxurious throne surrounded by overflowing chests of jewels. The irony is that he's living in poverty, as he can't risk going to a civilized planet to spend his wealth, [[ContractOnTheHitman having made so many enemies]].

* Come TheGreatDepression, and with gold seizures taking place across the West, especially in the USA and to a lesser extent in Europe, people began burying their gold coins and other gold objects to ensure the metal couldn't be requisitioned by the government. Some of these hoards weren't buried in the ground, but hidden in more unexpected places; in 2017, a huge hoard of Gold Full and Half Sovereigns (pre-Decimal Pound and half pound coins used in the UK and elsewhere in the British Empire) was discovered [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-39655769 sewn into purses and hidden underneath the keys of a piano donated to a college]].

* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter Tri'' one of the items found in the best treasure location is literally PirateBooty, it sells for as much as a golden egg though.

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* Shows up on ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'', when Lucius accidently digs it up.

* WesternAnimation/YosemiteSam (this time as a pirate) is burying his chest full of booty in the ground on an island ("Buccaneer Bunny"), only Bugs has plundered it himself.
* WesternAnimation/HeckleAndJeckle make off with a pirate's loot in "Pirate's Gold," only to have all but one coin glomped by [[TaxmanTakesTheWinnings a tax collector.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Hitman}}'' had an arc centered on finding a coffin full of wealth in an unmarked grave in a huge cemetary. [[spoiler: Subverted rather cruelly when it turns out the dollar bills didn't survive, leaving only a green-tinted pile of papery mush in the coffin]].

[[folder:FanWorks]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* In ''Film/TheGoonies'', Mikey finds a TreasureMap leading to the "rich stuff" of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy.
* Played with in Disney's 1954 ''Film/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea''. During the extended diving scene, Ned Land and Conseil find a chest full of treasure in a sunken ship and try to take it before they are almost attacked by a shark. When Ned complains about it afterward Nemo angrily tells him that the purpose of the dive was to collect ''food'', and then proceeds to reveal that he does in fact collect treasure... because he uses it for ballasts.
* ''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars''. Although he's a ProfessionalKiller rather than a pirate, we're introduced to Gelt sitting on a luxurious throne surrounded by overflowing chests of jewels. The irony is that he's living in poverty, as he can't risk going to a civilized planet to spend his wealth, [[ContractOnTheHitman having made so many enemies]].
* The pirates in ''Film/TheBlackPirate'' have plenty of it, some of which they bury.
* In ''Film/CaptainBlood'', Capt. Peter Blood shows Arabella all of his Pirate Booty in an effort to impress her. It fails.

* Possibly the TropeMaker (in fiction at least) in the 1824 short story "Wolfert Webber" by Creator/WashingtonIrving which - like Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "The Gold Bug" - is about Kidd's buried treasure. Robert Louis Stevenson acknowledged "Wolfert Webber" as the primary inspiration for ''Literature/TreasureIsland''.

* The most famous story of PirateBooty, and indeed Pirates in general, is of course ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' by Robert Louis Stevenson.
* ''Literature/GhostInTheNoondaySun:'' Both Captain Scratch's former boss and Billy Bombay have treasure buried on the island and the pirates want to dig it up.

* ''Literature/TheDeep'' by Creator/PeterBenchley (made into a film in 1977) has divers discovering a [=WW2=] ship containing a cargo of morphine, which has sunk on top of a Spanish treasure ship that went down in the 18th century holding a priceless royal dowry. When a local drug kingpin takes an interest, the protagonists have to buy him off by salvaging the morphine while concealing what their real area of interest is.

* ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'' depicts Captain Nemo as salvaging sunken treasure. He justified it by saying that the treasure's former owners had been dead for centuries.
* In the splendid Creator/TimPowers novel, ''Literature/OnStrangerTides'', Blackbeard is doing this so that he can unearth it after he's killed and [[spoiler: he uses the resurrection ritual he learned at the Fountain of Youth to return to life minus his criminal record]].

* ''Literature/TheCrownerJohnMysteries'': The search for a buried Saxon hoard forms a major subplot in ''Crowner's Quest'' as, by law, all buried treasure belongs to the Crown and one of John's duties as coroner is to secure it.
* In Creator/LJagiLamplighter's ''[[Literature/RachelGriffin Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland]]'', Rachel is directed to pirate treasure when she needs some. However, this is not buried treasure; their ship was wrecked.
* In the Literature/LordPeterWimsey story "The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head", Lord Peter and his nephew track down the treasure of "Cut-Throat" Conyers, who was widely believed to have been a pirate and sailed with Blackbeard. Conyers hid the treasure many years after he'd retired from piracy and settled down as a country landowner.
* ''Literature/PartnersInCrime'': In story "The Clergyman's Daughter/The Red House", the detectives suspect that the deceased old lady whose niece hired them to solve the mystery of her house may have buried her missing fortune in the garden, or more likely got the gardener to do it for her. When they question the gardener, however, he tells them he never buried anything. [[spoiler: This is because he never buried anything ''unusual''; the tins he was told contained potatoes were a perfectly normal thing to bury. The lady even left a sort of treasure map in the form of a rebus.]]

* Justified in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Curse of the Black Spot" -- the pirate in question was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Every Henry Every]], one of the very few pirates to actually get his hands on a cargo of gold and jewels (and the episode even specified that it was the Mughal's treasure).
** Every's ([[SpellMyNameWithAnS or Avery's]]) treasure had previously also been the McGuffin in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E1TheSmugglers The Smugglers]]".
* The ''Series/{{Bones}}'' episode "The Man with the Bone" was based on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island Oak Island Money Pit]], rumoured to be a burial place of some of Captain Kidd's treasure (or maybe Blackbeard's, or possibly the lost Templar fleet, or maybe...).

* Scottish pirate-metal band Alestorm.
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Chest Dead Man’s Chest]]''/''Derelict''. “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
** Recorded by SteamPunk band Music/AbneyPark as ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F14L7piSUGk The Derelict]]''

* A scenario in a tavern where someone sells you a map leading to a treasure the seller knows about but "can't" recover, similar to Alestorm's ''Over The Seas'' and ''Nancy's Harbour Cafe'', is discussed repeatedly in ''TabletopGames/{{Fifty Fathoms}}''. These could be completely made-up maps of nonsense geography, lead to islands which no longer exist, or to traps, or simply nothing. Often the best you might find is a chest, empty but for a note saying the 17th-century equivalent of "haha FU u n00b, ive run off with yer money".
* Predictably enough in a game about salvaging sunken treasures, ''VideoGame/SalvageHiddenTreasures'' features the pirate Blackbeard's Treasure as one of the many possible loots.

* In ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', some can be seen in [[FirstTown Pirate's Isle]].
** Later subverted. [[spoiler:The great Air Pirate Daccat's treasure, hidden at the end of a cave of traps that requires at least two people to get through, turns out to amount to a single coin minted by him and a note to the effect that whoever found it already has the greatest treasure of all: ThePowerOfFriendship. As Vyse puts it, "He probably spent it all while he was alive. You can't take it with you, you know."]] Ironically, you can sell [[spoiler: [[DoubleSubversion the coin]]]] for quite a bit of money.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersPirates'', where you mainly raid for cargo, especially sugar, for later resale in ports. However, the other "Top 10 Pirates" all have buried treasures hidden throughout the Caribbean. The manual [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] and discusses this: an excerpt from "Captain Sydney"'s memoirs points out the problems with burying treasure ("Seems to me that every time they buried their treasure, along'd come some blasted thief to dig it up and steal it."), while another sidebar discusses the historical accuracy, or lack thereof, of buried treasure. The latter sidebar is even titled "Robert Louis Stevenson Has a Lot to Answer For".
* ''VideoGame/SkullAndCrossbones'', a pirate-themed arcade BeatEmUp, have areas in-game marked with crosses, which is the location where treasure and booty is buried. After clearing an area of enemies, you can stand on the cross and press the "attack" button to dig up those treasure, gaining yourself a higher score in the process, but be warned that you'll need to stay on the spot even as more enemies comes at you.
* The ''Age of Pirates'' series averts the trope in the same way. While you can certainly find treasure hordes and ships with substantial sums of gold and silver aboard, the majority of your income will be from the regular cargo aboard your targets--as well as from selling the ships themselves if you're able to take them as prizes in combat. Also, this will likewise be a good source for obtaining vital supplies like food, repair materials, and [[Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean rum. Especially rum.]]
* ''VideoGame/PiratesNIX'' have you playing as a buccaneer in search for an ancient treasure hoard, while battling entire legions of pirate mooks throughout. Complete the final stage and you're treated to a cutscene where you sail away with a ship filled with chests of gold.
* ''VideoGame/PuzzlePirates'' has pieces of eight as the main currency, which is also dispensed as treasure following pillage. On the other hand, winning shipboard fights also entitles you to cannonballs, rum, and even pineapples and other produce. A little bit of trope, a little bit of truth.

* ''VideoGame/CrimsonSkies'' has the first few missions centering around SkyPirate Nathan Zachary attempting to retrieve the lost treasure of Sir Francis Drake. He and his crew end up having to battle a rival pirate gang, the Medusas, and the British Royal Navy who also want the treasure for themselves.
* Most of treasure in ''VideoGame/{{Dubloon}}'' can be found by digging, [[GuideDangIt with varying levels of invisibility]].

* Parodied in ''Caribbean Hideaway'', where the following exchange takes place in the text intro to Chapter 3.
-->'''Dewey''': Why do pirates always hide their treasures in caves? I'm glad Captain Caninbahl is smart enough t' invest a percentage of our swag.\\
'''Planky''': Squawk! Diversify yer portfolio! Squawk!
* Pirate Treasure is one of the unique treasures that can be found in the second ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'' game. You find it in the ''Antarctic'' of all places, where the pirate captain had to dump it overboard to stay afloat.
* [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIV Edward Kenway]] can attack other ships on the high seas and plunder them for booty. Subverted in that only the largest ships (or heavily-guarded convoys) will actually have any ''gold'' on them. Instead, most of the profit comes from the mundane cargo of sugar and rum that Edward can sell, or from plundered wood, metal, and cloth that while can also be sold, is far more valuable in upgrading his own ship, the ''Jackdaw''.
* In ''VideoGame/AtlantisUnderwaterTycoon'', treasure chests are frequently present on the ocean floor alongside the wrecks of old sailing ships. They can be plundered for treasure that can be sold to humans and Atlanteans for various prices.
* In ''Royal Envoy'' the king's laughably incompetent accountant comments during the Pirate Island stage that said pirates tasked him with coming up with a new place to keep their treasure due to burying it being "so out of date these days." To which Tippi Long-Boots replies that burying it isn't the problem so much as ''finding'' it again years afterwards.
* In ''VideoGame/CaptainMorganeAndTheGoldenTurtle'', the titular Golden Turtle is generally assumed to be either an example of this. [[spoiler:It's actually... a turtle. Well, a spirit in the form of one.]]

* Discussed in ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'': Captain Brinebeard's game over message has him compare your skills to his buried treasure - "just a myth!"

* Averted in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. While visiting a theoretically uninhabited planet, the exploratory squad finds [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-06-17 what Nick thinks is a treasure map]] carved into a rock. It turns out that the local species has cross-shaped ribcages, and since symbols develop in context rather than being connected to some universal meaning, the X doesn't mean "buried treasure" but "likely death, stay away".

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has a gag with Bender stealing a chest of swag from a pirate-themed parallel universe.
* One episode of the ''WesternAnimation/DonkeyKongCountry'' cartoon brought Scurvy and his crew into the plot by having them trying to find some treasure they buried on Kongo Bongo's beaches. It turns out burying treasure is part of the code, article and section and everything.
* Shows up on ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'', when Lucius accidently digs it up.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Animation/TreasureOfSwampCastle'', the MacGuffin of the film is the treasure.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet'', obviously central to the plot.
* Parodied in ''[[WesternAnimation/ThePiratesInAnAdventureWithScientists The Pirates: Band of Misfits]]'', with a montage in which [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the Pirate Captain]] ''tries'' to plunder ships for their gold, only to discover that the ship in question is not worth stealing from (among them he runs into a plague boat and ghost ship).

* In the ''Literature/TommyAndTuppence'' story "The Clergyman's Daughter/The Red House", the detectives suspect that the deceased old lady whose neice hired them to solve the mystery of her house may have buried her missing fortune in the garden, or more likely got the gardener to do it for her. When they question the gardener, however, he tells them he never buried anything. [[spoiler: This is because he never buried anything ''unusual''; the tins he was told contained potatoes were a perfectly normal thing to bury. The lady even left a sort of treasure map in the form of a rebus.]]