Sunday Favorites: The Mystery of Juan Gomez

Who was Juan Gomez?

Juan Gomez, or John, as he was known locally, was a famous pirate rumored to have lived to be over a century He was reportedly the right-hand-man of JosŽ Gaspar, the pirate for which the Gasparilla Parade in Tampa is named.

Gomez is memorialized in several historical texts, which seem to validate his claim that he was 120 years old at his time of death. However there are many discrepancies in the stories, including his year of birth.

While Gomez is often associated with Panther Key, one of the Ten Thousand Islands located off the west coast of the Florida Everglades, there is conflicting information about where he was buried. While most books and documents place his death on July 12, 1900 and his grave site at his homestead at Panther Key, others say he died in 1910 and was buried in Knight Cemetery just three miles north of Myakka.

Were there two Juan Gomezes, or was he living a double life?

According to my research, there was another man named Juan Gomez who lived in Myakka (we’ll call him M-Gomez). M-Gomez matched the same description as P-Gomez (Panther Key Gomez), had the same Spanish accent and boasted the same connections to piracy. According to a research paper written by historians Pam Gibson and Joe Warner entitled ”The Legend of Juan Gomez: The Last Pirate Fact or Fiction,“ M-Gomez was slightly elusive but lived a relatively normal life. He had a wife and two sons who participated in normal activities such as attending school and church.

Rumor had it that M-Gomez only settled down in Myakka after becoming a wanted man in Charlotte Harbor; he escaped death during a fight and fled up the Myakka River until he found a place he could lay low and go unnoticed. The family man often fueled those rumors by discussing buried treasure, Gaspar’s treasure and how he believed it to be cursed.

While Gibson and Warner’s research suggests otherwise, Gomez’s great, great, great granddaughter believes that M-Gomez and P-Gomez were in fact the same person.

The relative, Chanoce Deal, also thinks he may have been living double life, according to a recent interview. Her theory has merit. Several documents state that P-Gomez used to disappear for long stints, leaving his wife on Panther Key alone. Many assumed he was hunting for Gaspar’s buried treasure, which he claimed was hidden in six places. Bu,t he could have been traveling back and forth from Panther Key to Myakka, where he had an entirely different family.

When broaching the subject of his gravesite at Knight’s Cemetery, Deal thinks he could have been exhumed and moved to Panther Key. There’s no way to validate her theory, since Knight’s Cemetery was destroyed several years ago by farmers. All grave markers, including M-Gomez’s, were destroyed. Summers says her next step is having P-Gomez’s body exhumed on Panther Key to conduct a DNA test.

Was Juan Gomez actually JosŽ Gaspar?

Most historians, including myself, seem to agree that it was Juan Gomez who probably came up with the legend of Gaspar to promote his touring business. According to Gibson and Warner, P-Gomez had a successful business taking people on tours aboard his schooner Red Jack. He was actually the first person to promote Pass-A-Grille as a tourist destination.

In his 120 years on this earth, P-Gomez had many professions. He was a political activist, a soldier in several wars, a blockade runner, a harbor pilot and a fisherman. He also claimed to have been a pirate.

As an old man, P-Gomez was intriguing, personable and kind. But he often described a very dark pasta where he had murdered at least 100 people. Many believe that Gaspar was a persona P-Gomez took on during his pirating days to separate himself from the immoral decisions he made in his youth.

P-Gomez had grave conversations with visitors on Panther Key at the end of his life that seemed to be confessions, according to ”The Story of Juan Gomez,“ by Corinne White Lamme in the Florida Encyclopedia. One such story involved the abduction of a young Spanish princess. P-Gomez blamed Gaspar for her brutal murder. He told a trusted friend and confidant, Oliver Parker, of a shallow grave at the bottom of a shell mound. Parker found the girl’s skeleton there, her head lying beside her body.

What about the treasure?

If P-Gomez was actually Gaspar, then what happened to gold that was supposed to be buried in several locations around the Tampa Bay area?

P-Gomez died nearly penniless, basically living in squalor on a tropical island. So destitute were he and his wife that a prominent citizen convinced the Lee County Commission to provide them with a monthly supplement of $8 so they could afford to buy basic necessities.

P-Gomez was known to draw maps ”to Gaspar’s treasure“ and sell them to tourists. Of course, none of them ever led to anything of substance. Deal said the only treasure that she knew of that was ever recovered was done so by Parker with the assistance of P-Gomez. She said another treasure was recovered from Asa Pillsbury’s property in Bradenton.

What does it all mean?

From all these many hours of research the only truth I can say with confidence is that there was an old man named Juan Gomez who lived the better part of his later years on Panther Key with his wife. This man was a lovable character who garnered a lot of attention from people from all over the state because of his talent for telling stories. Some of these stories might have been based on truth, others could have been completely fabricated, but all were so interesting and intriguing that they garnered interest for generations to come. It doesn’t matter what Gomez did or didn’t do in his lifetime, the fact that his stories and characters have garnered interest for generations after his death is priceless.