Explore the California bay’s colorful history with pirates.
The age of pirates spanned nearly two hundred years and was considered a plague on the high seas. Even the far reaches of what was then Alta California weren’t safe, and a surprising number of unexpected visitors sailed into Monterey Bay. Argentinian Hippolyte Bouchard, spurred by revolutionary fervor, attacked Monterey, the then Spanish capital of Alta California, using pirating tactics that left their mark centuries later, and privateers like Sir Francis Drake prowled the Pacific, leaving possible traces of their journey on the beaches of California. The foggy coastline of Monterey even inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write his famous Treasure Island. Join author Todd Cook as he explores the Monterey Peninsula’s eclectic pirating history.
Todd Cook is a writer and historian who’s lived on the Monterey Peninsula for more than twenty-five years. An avid numismatist, he wrote five articles for COINS magazine from 1990 to 2006. His published books include the historical novels Madame, The Bleeding Door and Nueva California, as well as the nonfiction book Uncovered: The Lost Coins of Early America. He has also identified and catalogued several early California artifacts in his work with the Carmel Mission Arts and Artifact Inventory Team.