January marks the 120th anniversary of “Gasparilla,” a simulated pirate invasion of Tampa, Florida, held (almost) every year since 1904. The flotilla, parade, and street festival celebrate the fictional exploits of José Gaspar, a Spanish marauder who, according to city lore, terrorized the Gulf Coast in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In his final sea battle, he is said to have wrapped himself in a ship’s anchor chain and jumped overboard shouting, “Only I will choose my destiny!” rather than be taken alive.
There is no evidence that Gaspar actually existed, but piracy was all too real and none too pleasant for those who encountered it. Many tales of rape, pillage, and murder in the Caribbean are not apocryphal, even if the event “commemorated” by Tampa’s pirate festival is.
Today, with such lawlessness safely in the past, hundreds of thousands of attendees join Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, the group that sponsors the festivities, to demand that Tampa’s mayor turn over the keys of the city to the invading hordes for one weekend each winter. Thus, human creativity has made what would probably have been a harrowing experience into a source of fun and entertainment: “Tampa’s most prized tradition.”
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