Captain Barbossa

**Captain Hector Barbossa** or simply **Barbossa** is a villainous character from the *Pirates of the Caribbean* franchise.

## History

It is likely that cannon is different between the movies and the ride continuities given parallels with differing details.

### Background

Hector Barbossa was an Anglo-Irishman born in West Country, England into intense poverty as a result of British imperialism over Ireland and its people. Hector wished to live a life of comfort and wealth and believed he could achieve this through the life of an honest sailor, only to later come to the realization that doing so legally would be impossible due to British xenophobia, classism and capitalism. This lead to Barbossa taking up a life of piracy, serving as captain of a pirate schooner called *The Cobra*.

### Films

Around the mid-1710s, Barbossa met up with the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow on the pirate haven of Tortuga where he became employed as the first-mate of Sparrow's ship, *The Black Pearl*. Jack was taking the ship and its crew to the mythical island of Isla de Muerta, an island which held the legendary blood-money paid to the genocidal colonist Hernan Cortés which could only be found by those who already knew where it was. Barbossa tricked Jack into revealing the island's coordinates before leading a mutiny against Jack and marooning him on a small desert island with nothing but his compass, a cutlass and a flintlock with but a single shot for Jack to commit suicide.

Barbossa took over as captain of the Black Pearl and lead the crew to Isla de Muerta where they stole all 882 identical gold Aztec medallions from a stone chest, supposedly cursed by the Aztec gods. The Pearl took to using Isla de Muerta as their port but over time came to realize that they were cursed, being unable to feel any sensations, unable to die, and to be horrific undead skeletal corpses in the moonlight; neither living nor dead. Barbossa became fixated on relieving this curse, hunting down all 882 gold medallions and repaying the blood owed to the gods though they were hindered by the crew-mate William "Bootstrap Bill" Turner having been thrown overboard before they could take his blood. During this time, Barbossa acquired a piece of wood which was one of nine pieces of eight used to bind the pirate Calypso by the first Brethren Court, in turn making Barbossa pirate-lord of the Caspian Sea. His piece of eight would be given to his crew-mate Ragetti, being used as a wooden eyeball following Ragetti's losing of his right eye.

This pursuit lasted for ten years with Barbossa coming to be known as, "A captain so evil that Hell itself spat him back out" and becoming a figure of myth in the Caribbean. Eventually the crew located the final medallion in Port Royal, Jamaica under the possession of the governor's daughter Elizabeth Swann who was in-love with Bootstrap Bill's son William Turner and tricked the pirates into believing she was a Turner herself to avoid being held ransom as the governor's daughter. This resulted in Barbossa kidnapping Elizabeth, believing her to be a blood-relative of Bootstrap Bill and the owner of the blood which Barbossa needed to relieve his curse. This however resulted in William and his ally-of-circumstance, the still-alive Jack Sparrow to hunt down Barbossa with Jack intending on using William as a bargaining chip to win back his beloved Black Pearl and kill Barbossa with the single shot he'd been carrying since his marooning.

This mission eventually lead to Jack sympathizing with Will and Elizabeth and choosing to truly aid them from Barbossa with this alliance leading to William using his blood to free the pirates from their curse so that Jack could shoot Barbossa in the heart, killing him. When Jack was arrested again by the British, Will and Elizabeth freed him and he set off as captain of the Black Pearl once more.

Barbossa's corpse would be left on Isla de Muerta with the island later being swallowed up by the sea and the pirate's corpse coming into the possession of the sea-goddess Calypso, then bound in the human form of priestess Tia Dalma on Cuba. In subsequent films, Barbossa was resurrected by Calypso for the function of assembling the Brethren Court to perform the ritual that would successfully free the goddess before she abandoned Barbossa.

### Disney Parks

Captain Barbossa was the captain of the Spanish-made pirate ship *The Wicked Wench* and was a rival pirate of Captain Jack Sparrow. At some point in the Golden Age of Piracy, Barbossa competed with Sparrow to hunt down the cursed treasure of Isla Tesoro, located in the Spanish colony of Puerto Dorado. Sparrow got to the island first though on his own and without any real fire-power on his side while Barbossa arrived with the Wench, opening fire on the town and leading his crew to raid the colony. During the raid, the crew of the Wicked Wench burned town Puerto Dorado, tortured several town officials and ransacked everything on the island they could find.

Through his cunning, Jack Sparrow would arrive at the treasure first but would lose possession of it to the Wench's crew. Subsequently, Barbossa and the crew stashed the gold away within Dead Man's Cove in the caverns of Isla Tesoro where they made a lair while the burned ruins of Puerto Dorado were made into something of a pirate-haven. For some reason, Barbossa lost his captainship of the Wicked Wench and was replaced by another pirate though he would remain on Isla Tesoro. Barbossa and the crew however was cursed by their stolen treasure, killed and left as undead spirits and corpses for their greed.

## Appearances and allusions

### Pirates of the Caribbean

Barbossa appears in this attraction as the captain of the Wicked Wench, leading the assault on Puerto Dorado to obtain its treasure and Captain Jack Sparrow. He is seen aboard the Wench's quarterdeck, shouting at the captain of the Spanish fortress while opening fire on the fort and making his demands. Additionally, in Disneyland there is a mural of him in the Royal Street Gallery of New Orleans alongside other famous pirates.

#### Disneyland Paris

In Disneyland Paris, the Wicked Wench is seen under the command of Blackbeard but Barbossa still makes an appearance. Within the subterranean Dead Man's Cove of Isla Tesoro, Barbossa is seen on the deck of a beached ship on the border of Hurricane Lagoon. As guests pass by he transforms into a skeletal corpse, cackles maniacally and attempts to swipe at them with his cutlas.

### A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas

Barbossa is one of the antagonists in this attraction, competing for treasure with Captain Jack Sparrow.

### Treasure Cove

The restaurant *Barbossa's Bounty* is themed to having been operated by Hector Barbossa. It is located adjacent to the waters of the Caves of Misfortune which holds the *Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure* attraction.

### Other

* Barbossa is a common character to be portrayed by live cast-members at Disney Parks. Noticeably this involves him being played within the Pirates of the Caribbean ride itself during Halloween, leading the burning of Puerto Dorado while threatening passing-by guests.

## Connections

### Jungle Cruise

In the interactive game A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas, guests play as the crew of Captain Jack Sparrow competing for treasure with his enemies. One quest involves competing for the *Treasure of the Pacific* with Barbossa, trying to steal it from the tribe of headhunters from the Jungle Cruise. Barbossa can be presumed as leading the Wench's crew in this attraction given Jack representing the Black Pearl, Blackbeard being active and presumably captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge, and the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction being located nearby where Barbossa is captain of the Wench.

#### Trader Sam's

Both *Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar* and *Trader Sam's Grog Grotto* have bottled ships in the likeness of Barbossa's vessel *The Wicked Wench*. The bottled Wench here being shown to come to life and sink (a borrowed effect from the Adventurers Club).

### Oceaneer Lab

There is a crate aboard the RV Oceaneer Lab which is labelled as containing excavated goods from Isla de Muerta, namely the cursed Aztec gold. It mentions Captain Oceaneer's utilization of prongs to avoid the treasure's curse.

## Trivia

* Hector Barbossa likely takes his name from historic 16th century pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa.
* Barbossa was made the captain of the Wench in 2006, replacing the original pirate captain who was Blackbeard. Barbossa in the films was however inspired by this captain, particularly in older scripts where he was referred to as, "**Blackheart**" and where the Black Pearl was called *The Wicked Wench*.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.fromscreentotheme.com/FunFindFridayDisneyMagic1.aspx