Pieces of eight
Pieces of eight was a slang term for Spanish or Mexican silver dollars (also called pesos), which had a value of 8 reales.
These dollar coins were often physically cut into eight "bits", or sometimes four quarters, to make smaller change. Long tied to the lore of piracy, they were among the most widely circulating coins of the colonial period in the Americas. This was thanks, at least partially, to the vast silver deposits that were found in Mexico (for example, at Taxco and Zacatecas). As these coins were manufactured and transported back to Spain (to pay for wars and various other things) they made a tempting target for pirates. Some pirates were among the richest people in the world.
Pieces of eight circulated widely in the United States until the mid-19th century, and were very important to the economy of the US colonial period. They had a value of one dollar when circulating in the United States, and this is the origin of the term "two bits" meaning twenty five cents.
Mints in Spain and Mexico struck millions of these coins over a period of several centuries.
In fiction, such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, pirates' parrots are commonly represented as being trained to cry out, "Pieces of eight!"
This article is a stub. You can help BambooWeb by .
