There’s no evidence of pirates making treasure maps.
When we think of pirates, some instantly recognizable iconography comes to mind: eye patches, peg legs, treasure maps, parrots. As it turns out, only some of these ideas are grounded in truth. As far as we know, pirates did not, in fact, make treasure maps. Though they are believed to have buried treasure on occasion — those ill-gotten gains had to go somewhere — there are few documented cases of them doing so, and even fewer (read: none) of them creating a map where "X" marks the spot. Treasure maps are a double-edged cutlass, after all: For as much help as they might be to the pirate in question, they could also fall into the wrong hands.
It’s difficult to separate truth from legend when it comes to pirates, who have long occupied an outsized place in our collective imagination. Novels like Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1881–1882 Treasure Island helped popularize the idea of buried treasure in general and treasure maps in particular, and thus many of our ideas about pirates come more from novelists (and, of course, screenwriters) than historians. There is some good news, though: It seems likely that some pirates really did have parrots — among other exotic pets.
With 1,800 ships and 70,000 men under her command, Zheng Yi Sao — better known as Madame Cheng — is in many regards the most successful pirate in history. A former prostitute who married into the business, she took over her husband’s Red Flags Fleet after his death in 1807. After surviving multiple assassination attempts by the Chinese government, she struck a deal that allowed her to retire peacefully in 1810.
