This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star

and the American people.

Samuel Bellamy was a pirate who operated off the coast of New England and throughout the

Caribbean. Later known as Black Sam, he became one of the wealthiest pirates before his untimely

death in 1717. Here to tell the story is Ashley Lubinsky.

She's the former co-host of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms,

and she's a frequent contributor here on Our American Stories.

Take it away, Ashley.

When one thinks of pirates,

images of Johnny Depp and eyeliner and dreadlocks tend to come to mind, but the

history is far more complicated than that. In fact, one pirate from the early 1700s is considered

far more Robin Hood than Jack Sparrow, but perhaps that too is romanticized lore. This story actually

begins at the end.

In 1984, an American underwater archaeologist named Barry Clifford

discovered a shipwreck not too far from the Massachusetts coastline.

There was a story here that was much more valuable than any of the artifacts.

You know, of all the treasures in the world, it's the only documented pirate treasure, period.

All of the treasures that we've heard about,

you know, in the Caribbean,

it's not pirate treasure, Spanish galleons.

This is real pirate treasure.

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