When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, the Magic Kingdom didn’t have a Pirates of the
Caribbean ride. Disney figured that central Florida was so close to the real Caribbean,
that guests wouldn’t want the Disneyland attraction. They were wrong. So very quickly
they rushed to add the ride, opening it to the public in 1973. Disney World’s version
of Pirates isn’t the first version of the ride, and it certainly isn’t the best version either.
But it is unique in that it is inspired, in part, by a very real fort in the real Caribbean.
In Disney’s book on the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies,
it’s stated that the fort you walk through in the queue of the attraction and the fort Captain
Barbossa is attacking is inspired by Castillo de San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Now beyond just being inspired by the fort, the actual signage at the attraction matches.
So, depending on how literally you want to take it, you could argue that the town you
ride through on Pirates of the Caribbean is San Juan. So that said, has the actual San
Juan ever been sacked by pirates the way the Caribbean town is being sacked in the ride?
The answer is no but also kind of, but mostly no.
That iffy answer is due to the difference between a pirate and a privateer. To put it simply,
a pirate was lawless. They attacked whoever they wanted and they pillaged and plundered and rifled
and looted. As a result, pirates were pretty much universally hated. A privateer, however,
was essentially a government-sanctioned pirate. They did the same kinds of things pirates did, but
they had a nation’s blessing to do so and focused their efforts on the ships of an enemy country.
So to answer that question more specifically, San Juan was never actually attacked by pirates
the way it is in the ride, but it was attacked by privateers on a few occasions. For the most part,
however, the attacks on the fort and town were carried out by other nations who wanted control
of the island. At that point, Puerto Rico was considered the key to the Caribbean,
and the Caribbean was considered the gateway to Mexico. The Spanish, the French, the English,
the Dutch. You name it, they all at some point had, or at least tried to get, control of Puerto Rico.
The one attempt that perhaps most closely resembled the scenes of the Walt Disney World
attraction happened in 1625 when a Dutch armada of 17 ships, lead by Boudewijn Hendricksz,
attacked San Juan. The fort had actually been recently upgraded at that point
but wasn’t properly staffed, and so Hendricksz and his armada were able
to make their way into the bay with only four casualties. Considering how much both
the fort and Barbossa miss each other in the ride, it probably looked something like that.
The next morning the Dutch stormed the town with 800 men and faced almost no resistance. Seeing the
writing on the wall the night before, the Spanish had retreated to the fort to defend themselves.
Over the next 21 days, the Dutch battered the fort with over 4,000 cannonballs, trying to get
the Spanish to surrender. After a decent defense that levied some heavy losses for the Dutch,
Hendricksz issued an ultimatum. Surrender now, or the Dutch would burn San Juan to the ground.
San Juan’s Governor at the time refused, declaring that “we have enough courage and
wood and stone to build again.” So, following through on their threat,
Henricksz and his men burned 96 buildings to the ground, before packing up and setting sail.
Between the losses and razing the town, it just wasn’t worth it for them anymore.
San Juan essentially had to be rebuilt, but ultimately the Spanish maintained
control of the island. The fort would continue to grow,
and it wouldn’t be the last time it saw action. The English would attack it in 1797
and in 1898 the United States would attack it as a part of the Spanish-American war.
There was one time recently that pirates did show up in Puerto Rico,
and that was in 2010 when Disney filmed a couple of scenes for Pirates of the Caribbean:
On Stranger Tides. The fort itself wasn’t featured, however it did get some screen
time about 13 years earlier when Steven Spielberg used it as a filming location for part of Amistad.
Let’s be honest, Pirates of the Caribbean was never an accurate depiction of piracy
in the Caribbean. It would be silly to look at it as any sort of history lesson. It exists,
like most Disney rides, as a cleaned-up and family-friendly take on the subject.
That said, it’s pretty cool that these attractions draw from real history to do so. It adds a
sense of authenticity to that family-friendly experience that makes the ride more immersive,
and it’s a testament to the talent of the Imagineers, past and present, who make it happen.