Gasparilla Pirate Festival

Categories: Events
    • First Festival: May 1904
    • Gasparilla Children's Parade: January 19, 2008
    • Gasparilla Pirate Festival: January 26, 2008
  • The Gasparilla Pirate Festival is an annual celebration held in Tampa, Florida. The Festival is hosted by the Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and the City of Tampa and celebrates the legend of pirate Jose Gaspar.

    The festival consists of a pirate "invasion," parade and children's festival.

  • History of Jose Gasper

    Nicknamed "Gasparilla," Jose Gasper was the legendary "last of the Buccaneers." A Spanish pirate who is claimed to have raided the Florida's Gulf Cost in the late 18th century, Gasper remains a popular figure in regional folklore.

    During his 38 year rule of the Florida coast, Gasparilla sacked passing ships and amassed an enormous fortune, which he kept in his den on Gasparilla Island. The captured men were put to death and recruited as pirates. The women were sent to nearby Captiva Island to be held as concubines or for ransom.

    Gasparilla supposedly retired when Florida was sold from Spain to the United States in 1821. Legend has it that, while dividing up his fortune on the deck of his ship for the last time, Gasparilla was attacked by a U.S. pirate hunting schooner. Rather than surrender, Gasparilla tied himself to an anchor and leapt from the bow of his ship shouting, "Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy's!"

About this page

  • Page Views
    0
What is this?
No one is currently managing this page.
What is this?
This page currently has no vertical manager.