How a City’s Modest May Day Parade Became Legend
Hang on to your tricornes, the invasion is upon us! Gasparilla has been going strong for 119 years, bringing with it a combined economic impact of over $40M annually. Historian Rodney Kite Powell reveals the surprising origins of Gasparilla, and how one woman sought to shape the identity of Tampa. Mission accomplished, Louise.
Whose came up with the idea for Gasparilla?
In 1903, Tampa’s May Day parade was losing steam. Enter Louise Francis Dodge, society page editor for the Tampa Morning Tribune. She approached New Orleans-born engineer George Hardee with ideas for making the annual festival a little more lively. Together they cooked up a Mardi Gras-style event with participants dressed as pirates.
Hardee gathered 50 young men and formed the social club Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, a merry band of marauders.
On April 23, 1904, the Tribune ran a story on the return of an ancient band of pirates. On May 4th, the eve of the May Day Festival, the krewe’s pirate ship was sighted about 40 miles down the coast. A word of warning accompanied it: “Anyone sitting up to see the arrival will be summarily shot by order of the Pirate Chief.”
The pirates made their appearance on horseback a day later, “invading” the May Day festival. Rather than pillaging and plundering, they joined the May Day parade bedecked in costumes fashioned in New Orleans. The rest is history.
Why do we still celebrate it?
With a few exceptions, the city has celebrated the pirate invasion every year since 1904, and Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla is still the parade’s sponsoring krewe.
The scope of the parade has vastly increased over the years, with elaborate parties, more krewes and additional parades, but the original idea remains. It has also become a way to celebrate the diverse and interesting history of the area, since there are now 70+ krewes with ties to cultural heritage, historic events and local figures.
Who was the Pirate Chief Gasparilla?
Dodge and Hardee get credit for creating the event, but the legend of the pirate named Gaspar goes way back, with the name “Gasparilla” first appearing on Florida maps in the 1770s.
There are conflicting theories regarding the infamous buccaneer. Some say he was a Spanish priest who made his home on what is now Gasparilla Island, going by the name Gaspar and making the apparent leap from priest to pirate.
There was also an 18th century Indian Ocean pirate by the name José Gaspar, but scarce evidence exists that he made the 11,500-mile move to the waters of Florida.
Another hypothesis is that Juan “John” Gomez, rumored to have lived a life spanning three centuries, may himself have been the pirate Gaspar. A 1918 postcard featuring Gomez’s image bears this inscription: “Generally known as Panther Key John, a brother-in-law of the Pirate Chief Gasparilla and a member of his crew, who died at the age of one hundred and twenty years, at Panther Key.”
What’s the deal with the pirate ship moored on Bayshore?
Usually docked near downtown Tampa, the José Gasparilla II is an iconic part of Gasparilla and a year-round reminder of Tampa's biggest party.
From 1904-1910, the city was invaded on horseback. The first shipborne invasion came in 1911 by way of the pirate ship Octopus, cannons blazing to clear the way.
For nearly 20 years, Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla borrowed the boats they used for each year’s invasion. The aptly named José Gasparilla, an old wooden merchant sloop, was finally purchased exclusively for the event and christened in 1937. The JGI served faithfully until 1954, when construction began on the José Gasparilla II, a fully-rigged, cannon-ready brig built in the likeness of an 18th-century West Indiaman merchant sailing ship. The 165-foot sloop has led the annual invasion ever since.
A luxury liner she is not: The ship’s amenities are pretty basic. But though she be sparse in creature comforts, the JGII is always well stocked with “necessities.”
Why do pirates throw beads and coins from the floats?
Coins have been part of Gasparilla since the 1920s. The idea is that the pirates are celebrating their capture of the city by marauding through the streets. They have stolen so much treasure they are now sharing it with the citizens.
Until the 1990s, many members of Ye Mystic Krewe would fire six-shooters loaded with blanks into the air and toss the empty shells to the crowd as souvenirs. When a halt was put to this tradition, beads quickly became a popular replacement.
Buccaneers still fire the cannons during the annual cross-bay voyage and from atop several specialized floats during the parade.
Fire the cannons!
The pirate motif has shaped Tampa’s brand perhaps more than any other. One hundred nineteen years after the inaugural invasion, children still jockey for the best position to catch beads and coins, and crowds still throng to the waterfront to catch a glimpse of the José Gasparilla II and its accompanying flotilla. And each year, the city and its citizens relinquish the city to a salty band of pirates, if only for a day.
