Roberto Cofresí in popular culture

During the late 19th and early 20th century, the abundant oral tradition led to a subgenre of folk hero literature which depicted Cofresí as a benevolent force and contradicted the other pirate-related works of the time, including the well known Treasure Island and Peter Pan.

[nb 1] This made him one of the few pirates that are implied to have kept a hidden cache, a rare occurrence despite its prominence in popular culture due to their tendency to divide and misspend the earnings, and fueled legends of buried treasures waiting to be found.

Figures such as Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, Luis Lloréns Torres, Rafael Hernández Marín and Juan Emilio Viguié worked to adapt the legends to other mediums, including plays, popular music and films.

According to historian Enriquez Ramírez Brau's Cofresí: historia y genealogía de un pirata, 1791-1825, the siblings went to private school in their hometown of Cabo Rojo, where the young Roberto was mentored by Ignacio Venero.

[34] In reality, little is known about the interactions between Cofresí and other pirate groups, but a folktale claims that when another captain named Hermenegildo "El Tuerto" López attempted to plunder the Ana, he defeated them and adopted the survivors into his own crew.

[48] Some excavations have met moderate success near these places, with people retrieving a small quantities of silver and gold coins in Guaniquilla (part of southern Cabo Rojo), which further fueled the idea that a larger treasure could be nearby.

[57] According to this legend, the treasure was guarded by a school of fish that would constantly swim around it to keep it disguised under the murky water and were also capable of transforming into sharks, devouring any one that approached it when there was no moonlight and taking their souls to Davy Jones' Locker.

[60] Another claimed that at Poza Clara in Isabela there was a large loot, but that the only way to reach it was to sacrifice a newborn at the site, an action that would cause the water to part and allow access to the area without interacting with its guardian soul.

Among the places listed are Gran Estero in Santo Domingo, where he is supposed to have hidden a large amount of loot, Bahía Escocesa, Río San Juan, Sosúa, Cabarete, Puerto Plata and Maimión.

[75] Folklore also lists the Bioluminescent Bay of the adjacent La Parguera as a favored route of escape, citing that he would sail into the illuminated waters while his pursuers would disengage, fearing some sort of supernatural influence in what they believed to be a cursed area.

[18] Despite these inclinations, Hunt notes that Cofresí was well educated and describes him as possessing an "eye of remarkable brilliancy", which was reflected in an "intelligent countenance", who even expressed disdain in the lack of bravery that the average member of his crew exhibited.

[91] In the only copycat crime dedicated to his name, Antulio Ramírez Ortíz adopted the pseudonym "Elpirata Cofresí" when he seized control of National Airlines' Flight 337 and redirected it to Cuba by holding the pilot hostage with a knife.

In La gloria llamó dos veces, author Julio González Herrera offers a tale that links the pirate with one of that country's most iconic figures, Juan Pablo Duarte, which serves as a reflection of the impact that he retained throughout the Caribbean.

[103] In a similar context, fellow Dominican Francisco Carlos Ortea published El tesoro de Cofresí, which follows a modern family that travels to Mona and finds a hidden treasure.

[104] However, this influence has expanded beyond Latin American countries, reaching Europe in the form of Germany, where Angelika Mechtel published Das Kurze Heldenhafte Leben Des Don Roberto Cofresí.

David K. Stone and Lee Cooper wrote a book titled The Pirate of Puerto Rico, which offers a fictional account that was aimed to portray the Cofresí as a positive role model to English-speaking children.

[107] Roberto, because you are a symbol of our race, and through its veins all sort of romantic madness is baked, my romance feeds off your legend and fame, and in assonant rhymes I served it laid in pages so that one day, my people can drink it ... And it reaches their soul.

[112] Directed by Roselin Pabón, the play was recorded live by the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra for an eponymous album produced by Julio Bagué along Gerardo Lopez, Alfonso Ordoñez, Juan Cristobal Losada and Michael Bishop.

[114] The play featured talent from the campus' drama department and was headlined by Gustavo Rodríguez, Marcos Garay, Sonia Gándia, Julio Augusto Cintrón, Tony Váldes, Víctor Corrian and Miguel Morales, with scenography by Cheko Cuevas and wardrobe by Gloria Sáez.

Citing a source from the United States as support for this theory, Juan Antonio Corretjer noted how he believed that under these circumstances, Cofresí's own interest influenced him to join this revolution by working as privateer for Bolívar.

[96] In a study discussing the transition of Puerto Rico's society from mostly rural to predominantly urban, sociologist Ángel Quintero Rivera notes that Cofresí's capture put a symbolic end to the era of the marronage.

[123] In Piracy, Globalization and Marginal Identities: Navigating Gender and Nationality in Contemporary Hispanic Fiction, Alana B. Reid notes how the narratives based on Cofresí differ from the mainstream format seen in other Spanish work.

[37] Social historian Alice M. del Toro Ruiz agrees with Reid's assessment in an essay titled La narrativa fundacional: Cofresí de Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (1876).

Ultimately, this version of Cofresí portrays a "champion of the Puerto Rican cause" that faces off against the Imperial powers of the era, with the virtue of valor being represented as fundamental beyond social classes, a symbol of Del Toro's desire to promote a collective alliance.

Márquez concludes that both authors used their books to argue for a solution to Puerto Rico's status as a colony of Spain, but that Tapia's work inclined towards negotiating while Del Toro emphasized the need for resistance.

[97] Janice Hume studied a different tendency in a paper titled The Buccaneer as Cultural Metaphor: Pirate Mythology in Nineteenth-Century American Periodicals, which was presented at the 84th Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication held in 2001.

[127] In it, Hume notes how Hezekiah Niles' Weekly Register adopted a hard-line approach when it came to piracy, actively lobbying to promote the death sentence as its only punishment and opposing a resolution that was proposed in the United States Senate that would modify this custom.

[130] Ron Kofresí was distributed in Puerto Rico and was merchandised in a bottle that depicted a stereotypical pirate, wearing a large black hat, belts, and wielding a sword and a gun around his waist.

[131] The conclusion of the story depicts the pirates escaping from the authorities and taking control of a galleon full of gold, the location of which was purportedly hidden and the map to it given to the friar before they boarded a schooner and left Spain with the Armada in pursuit.

The name holds such notoriety, that Enrique Laguerre once considered writing a book based on his life but intended to rename the protagonist "Roberto Caribe", to avoid exploiting Cofresí's reputation.