appeared on maps drawn long before his supposedly arrival in the 1780s. "Gasparilla Island" appears on Spanish and English maps made in the early 1700s, and contemporary documents suggest that the barrier island was named for Friar Gaspar, a Spanish missionary who visited the native Calusa in the 1600s. While several purported biographies of the pirate state that the nickname "Gasparilla" means "Gaspar, the outlaw" in Spanish, it is actually a feminine diminutive meaning "little Gaspar" or "gentle Gaspar", a moniker more likely to be attached to a pacifist priest than a bloodthirsty buccaneer. Physical evidence There is also no physical evidence to support Gaspar's existence. Gasparilla Island is a barrier island just north of the mouth of Charlotte Harbor that is almost long and less than across at its widest point. All versions of the Gasparilla legend claim that he and his crew constructed a "regal" home base on the island, with some specifying that it consisted of over a dozen buildings plus a tall watchtower perched atop an "ancient Indian mound" filled with gold and bones. However, no trace of this "pirate kingdom" has ever been uncovered despite the fact that the island became a key shipping point for Florida's phosphate industry in the early 20th century and the resort town of Boca Grande now encompasses most of its land area. And while rumors of mysterious maps and gold coins have prompted professional and amateur treasure hunters to conduct many searches for Gaspar's lost cache over the years, there has been no documented recovery of any part of his plunder or the remains of his many alleged victims. However, amateur gold seekers have repeatedly disrupted nearby archeological sites, often in violation of Florida law. As described by the Boca Grande Historical Society, several Calusa and other Native American sites around Charlotte Harbor have suffered "unimaginable damage" at the hands of "looters in search of a non-pirate's non-treasure." Sources of the legend John Gómez John Gómez (also known as Juan Gómez and Panther John) was a real person who has become entangled with the legend of José Gaspar. In the late 1800s, Gómez lived in a shack with his wife on otherwise uninhabited Panther Key, a small spit of land near Marco Island in the Ten Thousand Islands region of Southwest Florida. He was well known along Florida's Gulf coast as an expert hunting and fishing guide, boat pilot,