n 1720, while sailing to Port Royal, Jamaica, aboard the HMS Dauntless, Governor Weatherby Swann's crew encounters a shipwreck and recovers a boy, Will Turner. Swann's daughter, Elizabeth, discovers a golden pirate medallion around Will's neck, and takes it. Eight years later, Captain James Norrington is promoted to commodore and proposes to Elizabeth. Her corset makes her faint and fall into the sea, causing the medallion to emit a pulse. Captain Jack Sparrow, having just arrived in Port Royal to commandeer a ship, rescues Elizabeth. Norrington identifies Jack as a pirate, and a chase ensues. Jack encounters Will, now a blacksmith. They duel, and Jack is imprisoned.

That night, the crew of the Black Pearl attacks Port Royal, searching for the medallion. The pirates capture Elizabeth, taking her to meet Captain Barbossa. Elizabeth claims her last name is Turner, to conceal her identity as the governor's daughter. Barbossa explains that the medallion is the last of 882 gold pieces his crew took from a lost treasure of Hernán Cortés on Isla de Muerta. Cortés had accepted the treasure as payment to prevent the Fall of Tenochtitlan, but did not fulfill his part of the bargain. The Aztec gods cursed the treasure; Barbossa and any members of his crew who took the coins were cursed by extension, and became immortals whose true, skeletal forms are revealed in moonlight. To lift the curse, they must return the treasure, each coin stained with the either its taker's blood or the blood of the taker's direct relative. Assuming Elizabeth is the daughter of Bill Turner (Will's father, whom Barbossa tried to drown after discovering he sent the medallion to his child)^[a], Barbossa decides to use her blood on the medallion.

To save Elizabeth, whom he loves, Will frees Jack, who was the previous captain of the Black Pearl before Barbossa staged a mutiny. The two commandeer the HMS Interceptor, a small sloop-of-war, and head for Tortuga. There, Jack enlists his friend Joshamee Gibbs to help them assemble a crew. Chasing the Pearl to the Isla de Muerta, Will and Jack witness Barbossa cut Elizabeth's hand, stain the coin, and return it to the chest. As she is not Bill Turner's relative, the curse does not lift. Will rescues Elizabeth and brings her to the Interceptor, while Jack is captured by Barbossa and locked in the brig of the Pearl. The Pearl pursues the Interceptor, destroying it and taking Jack's crew hostage. Will makes a deal with Barbossa to release Elizabeth in exchange for his blood, but Barbossa exploits a loophole in the agreement, marooning Jack and Elizabeth on an island. Elizabeth makes a smoke signal, and Norrington brings the Dauntless to rescue Elizabeth and arrest Jack. Elizabeth promises to marry Norrington if he will pursue the Pearl and save Will.