Any info on Captain Kidds Rhode Island / Connecticut treasure legends?

au-artifax said:
One special note about what "treasure" might mean. Back in the era many things we take for granted today were considered treasure back in Kidd's time. Spices, cloth, certain woods and fibers, chemicals like kno3 and elements like lead and pig iron, art objects, most that would decay and lose their value if buried, probably were NOT buried. Would someone bury silk underground if they wanted to recover something of value...probably not. The only thing that would have been buried was noble metals for sure. This sounds good yes, but also makes you think that the general phrase "treasure" could mean "junk" today. So when looking for treasures recounted from ages of storytelling, consider if the treasure might have been just "junk" as we see it today. Thousands of pounds of treasure ( monetary pounds, not weighted pounds) might just have been some perishable valuables of the time.
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Great points, and one of the types of treasure that Kidd obtained was fine China, the real type made in China and was very costly in his day. It would have brought him a fortune, and while still valuable today, few treasure hunters go looking for it.
 

One thing I have been wondering is what if anything is/was meant back in the 1600-1700s when the word "bale" was used when referring to cargo. Does anyone know if there was a special configuration to a "bale" or was it just a general term for "stuff" secured together by rope or some material?
 

au-artifax said:
One thing I have been wondering is what if anything is/was meant back in the 1600-1700s when the word "bale" was used when referring to cargo. Does anyone know if there was a special configuration to a "bale" or was it just a general term for "stuff" secured together by rope or some material?
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That is a good point too, and unfortunately it means something very different for each commodity being listed. A bale of leather or hides would be very different from a bale of cotton or a bale of tobacco. Each commodity had a standard of sorts, usually judged by weight.
 

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