Tampa is known for its yearly Gasparilla Pirate Festival, one of the biggest annual celebrations in the Bay Area. In January, this event brings people from Tampa together for a pirate-themed celebration with a huge parade, live music, kid-friendly festivities, and more. But why celebrate Gasparilla? To find out, let’s look at Gasparilla’s history.
The name Gasparilla started with Jose Gaspar, a pirate who terrorized the coastal waters of West Florida during the early 19th century. He called himself “Gasparilla,” his group of pirates lived a life of taking and robbing merchant ships off the Gulf Coast until 1821. Once they were ready to live a life of luxury, Gaspar and his crew decided to seize one last boat. Little did they know, this ship was a United States Navy warship in disguise. The U.S. Navy ship crew reigned victoriously in a bloody battle, finally ending Jose Gaspar’s thieving career.
The story of Gaspar circulated around the Tampa area. In 1904, city officials and civic leaders finally celebrated this victory by making Gaspar the patron of this new, citywide celebration. But the history of Gasparilla doesn’t end there.
Secret meetings led to Gasparilla Krewe’s first development, which would make Gasparilla history by surprising Tampa residents with a mock pirate attack on the city known as the Pirate Invasion now a days. The invasion was much different back then. In the first few years of Gasparilla, the invasion comprised masked Krewe members on horseback instead of the pirate ship we see on Gasparilla.
The mock invasion was so successful that city officials decided to turn Gasparilla into a huge annual event. Today’s pirate invasion involved the world’s only fully rigged pirate ship, which creeps into the festival to “attack” Tampa Bay. So now you know why we celebrate Gasparilla.
Click here for more history on Gasparilla:
https://ymkg.com/the-history-of-gasparilla/