Isla de Muerta

**Isla de Muerta** (Spanish: **Island of the Dead**) is a location from the film *Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl*.

## Description

Isla de Muerta is a black and barren island in the Caribbean Sea which is covered in stony terrain and filled with flooded caverns. The surrounding waters of the island are misty, treacherous and shark infested while containing a large number of shipwrecks. The island had mysterious connections to the supernatural, only being able to be found by those who already knew where it was.

## History

### Background

Due to many parallels but also contradicting lore elements, the intersection between Pirates of the Caribbean film continuity and ride continuity remains a mystery.

#### Film Continuity

In the early 16th century, Spanish colonist Hernán Cortés used the island to a collect a large sum of blood money from the natives of South and Central America. However, one chest given to him contained 882 identical Aztec gold medallions which had been cursed by the Aztec gods. As a result, whomever took a medallion from the chest would be cursed to be an unfeeling, undead monster until all who took the gold returned the treasure along with spilled blood.

The island remained uninhabited by all but the dead for centuries until around 1710 when it was sought after by pirate Captain Jack Sparrow. Sparrow had an enchanted compass which he received from the sea goddess Calypso that pointed to whatever the user wanted most in the world. Thanks to this, Jack Sparrow navigated his ship *The Black Pearl* to the island of the dead but not before being mutinied by his first-mate Hector Barbossa and marooned Jack on a small island to die.

Barbossa and his crew however became victims of the island's curse and could not satisfy their blood debt due to having strapped crew-mate Bootstrap Bill to a cannon and cast him into the ocean. As a result, the crew of the Black Pearl remained undead for ten years with the Black Pearl earning the status of a ghost ship which many doubted even existed. 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

Isla de Muerta was a legendary cursed island which could only be found by those who already knew where it was. At some point in the 18th century, the island sunk to the bottom of the ocean and brought its treasure with it. Around the turn-of-the-century, the isle was tracked down by S.E.A. member Captain Mary Oceaneer aboard her vessel the *RV Oceaneer Lab*. Using similar techniques for the handling of hazardous materials, Mary managed to excavate the isle's cursed gold for archaeological purposes.

### Development history

Isla de Muerta was created for the Pirates of the Caribbean films to serve as an analogue for Isla Tesoro from the attraction, namely Isla Tesoro's *Dead Man's Cove*. In the ride, the grotto was used by the crew of the Wicked Wench to stash away the cursed treasure which they ransacked from the isle's colony of Puerto Dorado. To further confuse continuity, Cortez's chest of Aztec gold is shown to be amongst the Wench's stolen goods.

## Appearances and allusions

### 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 the utilization of prongs to avoid the treasure's curse.

## Connections

### Tom Sawyer Island

Three undead pirates in Dead Man's Grotto show apparent signs of the Aztec gold's curse though it is possible they received this from Isla Tesoro's cursed gold.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2495370/a-disneyland-myth-has-been-confirmed-thanks-to-new-disney-series
2. ↑ http://www.fromscreentotheme.com/FunFindFridayDisneyMagic1.aspx