Pirates of the Caribbean Wiki

READ MORE

Pirates of the Caribbean Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Pirates of the Caribbean Wiki
This article is about a deceased person's spirit in visible form.. You may be looking for the non-corporeal essence of a being or entity..
Ghost Captain

The Ghost Captain.

"You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!"
Hector Barbossa[src]

According to traditional belief, a ghost was the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal, taken to be capable of appearing in visible form or otherwise manifesting itself to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions. Ghosts are generally described as solitary essences that haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life, though stories of phantom armies or ghost ships.

History

"'Tis well known that ghosts and spirits of the damned can menace honest mariners, trying to steal their souls."
Lucius Featherstone to Cutler Beckett[src]

When the Spanish conquistador Humbert "El Patron" Diaz forced the inhabitants of Raven's Cove to forge weapons for him, they sealed him, his crew, and his ship, inside his mines in the Cove. When the crew mutinied against him, El Patron and his men were cursed to remain inside the mines as ghosts and haunt them for all eternity.[1]

In the 1720s, when the young adventurer Jack Sparrow and his crew found the legendary Sword of Cortés on Isla Fortuna, they unintentionally summoned the spirit of the conquistador Hernán Cortés, the original owner of the Sword and the man who destroyed the Aztec Empire. The ghostly Spaniard tried to trick Jack Sparrow into doing his bidding for him, so he could make himself ruler of the Seven Seas, but with the few advices from the voodoo witch Tia Dalma, Jack was able to summon the spirit of the Aztec Emperor Montecuhzoma, who attacked and destroyed Cortés.[2]

When Jack Sparrow had to give his report to Cutler Beckett about how he dueled Christophe-Julien de Rapièr on the deck of his ship, the Wicked Wench, he lied that he actually fought against the ghost of his old fencing master from Marseilles.[3]

445px-Wayward ghosts

The ghosts on Raven's Cove.

Shortly after the battle of the Isla de Muerta, a mysterious ghost ship sailed into the Port Royal harbor. The ship's crew of ghosts terrorized the inhabitants of the city until the blacksmith Will Turner made a sword and gave it to the ship's ghostly captain.[4]

During the War of Jolly Roger, when the forces of the East India Trading Company and the undead army of Jolly Roger fought a battle over El Patron's weapons left on Raven's Cove, the entire population of the island was wiped out. However, their ghosts soon began appearing to pirates who came to the island. Some ghosts were friendly, but others were hostile.[1]

When Elizabeth Swann sneaked onboard the Edinburgh Trader as a sailor, she tricked the superstitious crewmen into thinking that her wedding dress was a spirit to force them to sail the ship to Tortuga.[5]

Behind the scenes

Appearances

Sources

External links

Notes and references

Advertisement