This week several people have brought up pirate movies or the buried treasure associated with pirates. In all the pirate movies, the pirates seek silver coins called “pieces of eight.” A piece of eight was an actual Spanish silver coin. Several of them have been found in Columbus and along the Tombigbee. You also hear people counting them at football games.

The Spanish silver dollar minted in Mexico and South America from the 1600s to the early 1800s was called an 8 real coin. The term real (re al) coin referred to the silver coin being a royal coin. At first it was one large coin that could be cut into 8 pie-shaped wedges to make change. Later smaller coins of 1/2, 1, 2 and 4 reales began to be minted in Spain and its new world colonies.

These “pieces of 8” were called bits. This was evidence of the mixing of cultures as “bit” was a term that originated in England during the 1700s. It was slang for a small silver coin. The 1 real coin or 1 bit was worth 12 1/2 cents and so 2 bits was 25 cents. A 4 real or 4 bit coin was thus worth a half dollar. The U.S. silver dollar was based on the Spanish 8 real. This evolved into the old football cheer “2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar.”

A half-real coin was worth 6 1/4 cents and known as a picayune. The word picayune came from the French provincial word “picaioun” which was used during the 1700s along the Gulf Coast to mean a small or insignificant coin.

Holes were often punched into the coins so that they could either be worn as jewelry or pinned inside of a coat for safe keeping when traveling. In the early 1800s, these coins were sometimes melted or flattened to be made into spoons, forks, goblets and other serving pieces which were then called “coin silver.” If George Washington skipped a silver dollar across the Potomac, as legend says, it would have been a Spanish 8 real coin.

Spanish silver coins were declared legal tender, or money, in the U.S. by a Congressional act in 1793. In the early 1800s many people in the South did not trust the silver content of U S coins and preferred Spanish silver coins over American coins. They trusted the silver in coins from Mexico and South America because of the stories and history of silver mines there. Many early contracts in Lowndes and Monroe counties, specified payment in Spanish silver or mentioned denominations such as 6 1/4 or 12 1/2 cents indicating the use of Spanish reales rather than U.S. coins.

One such document is in the Billups-Garth Archives at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library and is a business document related to Capt. E. Kewen. It shows commercial transactions in the then frontier town of Columbus. The document is from 1829 and concerns the purchase of hides (probably deer) from a Chickasaw by the name of Underwood.

“Capt E. Kewin

There is due to the bearer Underwood a Chickasaw on account of hides 1.06 1/4

June 14, 1829”

One dollar and 6 1/4 cents indicates the payment was in Spanish or Mexican silver as 6 1/4 cents reflects a silver 1/2-bit coin.

There are accounts that the Confederate treasury reserve at the end of the Civil War possessed 39 kegs of Mexican 8 real silver coins. The coins disappeared after leaving Richmond in wagons shortly before the city fell. For years treasure hunters, including on a television program, searched for the missing Confederate silver but never found it. That was because Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston realizing the war was over decided to use the Confederate government’s silver to provide some long overdue pay to its soldiers. The mystery of the missing Confederate silver turns out to be no great mystery at all as it had simply become overdue pay for Johnston’s troops. Gen. S.D. Lee received one of those coins and the 1857 silver Mexican 8 real coin he received is on display at the S.D. Lee Home and Museum in Columbus.

It was not until 1857 that Spanish, or at that time, Mexican silver coins, were declared to no longer be legal tender in the U.S. It is not unusual for Spanish reales to be found at early historic period archaeological sites in the South. A Spanish 8 real coin was found during an archaeological dig near Barton’s Ferry on the Tombigbee above Columbus, and I have even found a Spanish 1790 1/2 real coin at the site of an 1820s house in downtown Columbus.

Because the coins were so popular they are fairly common and many of the small denominations depending on condition can be purchased from coin dealers for ten to forty dollars. The one I found had a value of less than $10.

However, its historical value is far greater for it helps show the history of the Tombigbee Valley as a cultural mix of Spanish, French, English, African American and Native American people. From many many years ago, I still recall hearing at high school football games 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar, all for Lee High stand up and holler. I had no idea that was counting Spanish colonial money.

Rufus Ward is a local historian.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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