The island was discovered in 1526 by Juan Cabeazas, a navigator from Portugal. There it was possible to replenish water and food supplies. The island got on the nautical charts. In the 17th century, it was chosen by pirates. The island became for them a kind of safe deposit box and a military base at the same time. From a tiny island, pirates controlled the movement of gold from the New World to Spain. The first successful pirate raid on the American coast was the robbery of the town of Lane in 1685. The gold taken by the pirates ended up on Coconut.
Captain Thomson's treasure
In 1820, Captain Thomson, aboard the schooner Dear Mary, removed from the besieged city of Lima tremendous treasures that could fall into the hands of General San Martin's rebel army. But Thomson failed to escape with the prey: he was overtaken by a Spanish frigate. The entire Dear Mary crew died in the battle, except for the captain and navigator. The navigator died from a fever while sailing. And Thomson managed to escape and settle in Newfoundland. But he dreamed of returning for treasure. He revealed the secret to another captain, Kitting, made a map of the treasure island, and both adventurers went for gold. What happened on the island is unknown. But Thomson died, and Kitting's crew mutinied and left the captain for dead on Cocos Island. After a month, the exhausted and insane Captain Kitting was picked up by a whaling ship. The madman's pockets were filled with diamonds. Before his death, Kitting entrusted his secret and the pirate map to a friend. But he did not have the means to equip the expedition to the island.
Another curious figure related to Coconut was a certain Bonito. He allegedly was a captain and even went to the West Indies to fight piracy, but on the way he changed his mind and became a pirate himself. Bonito grabbed a cargo from five Spanish galleons and hid it on Cocos Island. And then he sent all the loot to a secret cave on the island. But the Spaniards soon succeeded in defeating the Bonito pirates. Before his death, a pirate named Blood Sword allegedly revealed to his mistress Mary, where the treasures were hidden, and gave her a map. Mary went to jail, and after her release she began to tell Bonito's story. She even managed to set up a treasure hunt syndicate. Alas, the syndicate never found gold.
However, not only pirates used the island to store treasures. According to legend, the Incas, defeated by the Spanish conquistadors, did the same: they hid the gold of their ancestors on the island. The Incas themselves did not leave information about the treasures. But in 1894, a certain August Gissler appeared in Costa Rica. The German even signed an agreement with the government to search for the missing treasure. He not only visited the island, but moved his family to Cocos, built a house and lived on the island for about 20 years. But I didn't find anything …
Following the example of Robinson Crusoe
Treasure hunters were gripped by real madness in the 20th century. Who has not looked for treasures on Coconut! Race driver Malcolm Campbell, multimillionaire William Vanderbilt, US President Franklin Roosevelt … Some seekers found their death on Coconut. Of the well-equipped French group, which included a speleologist, journalist and writer, only the speleologist Robert Verne survived. He repeated the fate of Robinson Crusoe and lived on an uninhabited island for two months, until a passing ship took the exhausted gold seeker on board …
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 10, Daniil Romashin
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