Authors Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman chart a Gulf Coast odyssey with French adventurers, English colonists, Spanish Dons, American filibusters, Indian warriors, African Maroons, and pirate outlaws .

For centuries, the shoreline between Galveston and Tallahassee was marked by the desperate deeds of men who fought for God, gold, and glory, as well as those who simply wanted to be left alone. Regardless of motive, the Gulf Coast has seen its share of seafaring warriors and miscreants, from the Tattooed Serpent and Osceola to Iberville and Davy Crockett. It harbored privateers and pirates such as William Augustus Bowles and the Brothers Laffite .