From Captain Kidd’s Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism

Abstract

There is very little in Captain William Kidd's actual career that would explain his peculiar notoriety. Some of it, to be sure, must derive from the fact that he had initially set out, armed with a commission from King William III of England to fight the pirates. But it was the rumor of an enormous treasure trove buried somewhere, or scuttled along with the mysteriously missing Qedah, which did most to immortalize the man. Thus, Kidd's treasure became the most vigorously sought pirate's prize of all. For Mormons, the fact that the pirate was hanged for crimes allegedly committed in the vicinity of Moroni on Grand Comoro is significant because the hunt for his treasure came to play a part in the story of Moroni on Comorah. Here, Huggins examines Captain Kidd's treasure.