Stuff on Cocos
I did read on this treasure for a while. I enjoyed several books on it. Didn't find anything current.
Several people tried to discourage me on forums. Odd but some people seem to surf around trying to spoil peoples fun. I call em spoilers. They get off by lieing to people and ruining their dreams, adventures, or attempts to learn. Some said no one was allowed on Cocos Island. Others insisted there was never any treasure there. Others insisted it was moved. This Jeff Davis may be such a person since he posted the same sort of messages on other forums. No treasure exists or did!
Here is somehintg I found in my files.
Cocos Island
Cocos Island off the coast of Costa Rica is the original treasure island. For those who have not heard of it this island is the object of many treasure stories and the location of a huge, suspected wealth in gold, silver, and gems. It was used for many years as a base for pirate operations and also an isolated island to bury pirate treasures. The largest of which was the Treasure of Lima. A treasure of looted gold, silver, gems, and church icons worth an estimated 12 to 60 million in days past. I do not know it's present value. Many of the treasures buried there are well-documented in historical records except for the exact locations on the island.
Over 500 expeditions both large and small have gone to the island but no documented discoveries of the treasure have been made. Well there was one discovery recently by a French team but no large discoveries of the expected fortunes in gems and gold. Three pirates are said to have used the island as a bank to store their loot. Thompson, Bonito, and Davis. If it worked well for them I expect others that were undocumented also used the island as a bank.
The most famous and largest was the Treasure of Lima and a captain Thompson and crew who ran off with the wealth of Peru. Excuse my generalizations since I am writing from memory. At some point in the history of Peru the control of power in the country was changing hands. The current regime wanted to save their wealth so as the invaders progressed into the country the leaders and their wealth retreated. They first retreated to the city of Lima and then to a port city named Callao. At Callao most of their wealth was moved onto a ship named Mary Dear. The Captain and crew then killed the guards and priests and made off with the loot. They were shortly thereafter caught and hanged but the location of the wealth never revealed.
Another pirate Benito Bonito on the ship Relampago operated in the area and is reported to have buried several caches there as well as his crew. One book stated that once when the ship arrived at Cocos the officers were given large shares and each crew member a smaller share. Each person then took off to bury their own cache in secret locations. This is great for the imaginations of the treasure hunters but how did the authors know this? Is it recorded in historical records somewhere or was it part of a work of semi fiction backed up by historical detail. I don't know.
The last pirate, and the best documented as well as the earliest, was Edward Davis. His exploits are very written about. His officers were well educated and published accounts of their days on the pirate ship, Bachelor. In that time a career of freebooting, pirating was allowed, legal, and encouraged by governments as a way to acquire wealth and also to hurt ones enemies. The voyages for treasure were a way for a captain to achieve wealth and a cut was given to the monarchy or political leaders. The king I suspect operated on the premise that all wealth belonged to him, even that which belonged to others. (An interesting parallel exists in our legal and court system but I won't go into it now. Once the plaintiff is labeled as the enemy the courts and lawyers take their money and property. And victimize them further. You ever meet a poor judge?).
No documented finds except a few coins here and there have been reported. Several undocumented rumors and reports were made but no one produced evidence. One report claimed to have found a chest at the end of a chain in an underwater cave MANY years ago. Another a solid gold statue and various jewelry were reportedly sold in New York but no documentation exists. A small bag of gold found but again no evidence. A man named August Gissler who was the original hermit of Cocos did locate and exchange a few gold coins but never found the bulk of the treasure. One treasure hunter Keating of Canada is reported to have returned with many thousands in gold coins but again this is unproven and suspect. A Forbes from California whose family's wealth may have come from Cocos Island went there to dig up additional treasure but no finds were documented. Since an important rule of treasure hunting is to keep your mouth shut god only knows what was found and removed.
This is a fascinating story and there are several good books out on it. My favorite is The Lost Treasure of Cocos Island by Hancock and Weston. Another good on is The voyage of the Herman by Theon Wright. Several good anthologies exist including Dig for Pirate Treasure by Nesmith, and Treasure Islands by Plat and Wright. There are a bunch more. And Cocos Island is not the only treasure island. They all make fascinating reading. But remember when they start fictionalizing about events of the past and say the pirates performed certain actions, divided the loot each sneaking off into the woods, they are using their license as a writer of fiction to entertain. No one really knows what happened in 1832 or before 1700 for that mater. I use EBAY of course and also
www.abebooks.com to locate cheap copies of old books. Actually the web-based used bookstores are usually cheaper than EBAY. Just type in Cocos Island. Cocos Keeling Island is a different place altogether. Make sure it is Costa Rica's Island of Cocos. (Island of palms). There are several websites on Cocos Island too.
There are several people who surf the web and interfere when I chat about Cocos Island. I usually get a virus downloaded to my PC ( several times now) as well as my axx chewed on a bit. I don't know why this is so. Evidently they feel threatened when someone talks about it because they want to go there or else tried and failed. They try to put forth the premise that the treasure was really moved elsewhere. Someone dug it up and re-buried on another island never returning to dig it up again. Right? We all do this from time to time. Bury millions and never return.. They also state no one can visit the island. This is not true but the Island is now a preserve of some sort and access is tightly controlled. It is a state or government park of Costa Rica. Nature walks are allowed but you cannot take a shovel along. I do not know what G. Gordon Liddy's interest in Cocos is but he once mentioned it on the air and also said something about tracking people visiting there by watching passports issued to Costa Rica for Cocos Island treasure hunters. Perhaps he is a sometimes treasure hunter. Don't know.
It is an interesting story and worth a look!
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Just read Sir Malcolm Campbell's (famous race car driver) book on Cocos Island yesterday. It was very well written and interesting. A great read. I was surprised to see many of the same Cocos legends I have seen in other works. Since his book (1932) predated most others I have read (1950s n 60s, n 90s) I suspect they were relying heavily on his work as source material. He wrote detailed accounts of the travels and actions of pirates from the 1700s and early 1800s which I suspect were fictional in nature, relying on the few facts he knew. He was an excellent writer. Then others copied from him.
Campbell, a successful and bright man, relied on the thread of documentation that descended from Keating in Nova Scotia. Keating is supposed to have received his information from one Thompson who was directly involved in caching treasure on the island. Thompson was the pirate. There were two Thompsons involved in Cocos treasures at about the same time, one a captain the other a mate, and they are sometimes confused in writings. I think it was a great book and a good read but Campbell searched based on suspect instructions. While he had some solid directions to follow, the same directions said something about inserting a iron bar into a hole in the center of a rock and it would swing easily away. Another account of the same directions stated the rock was a square rock door built by the Incas and built in such a way it was very hard to see. You need to insert the iron bar to release the mechanism that allowed the door to swing open. Sounds a bit like Indiana Jones and the Search for the Holly Grail. Great to watch but not reality based.
Campbell also mentions consulting two psychics for directions. One mentioned people of another race living on the island and being aware of the location of the treasure and all his actions to recover it. There was a popular legend at that time that the Incas came to the island and lived there after their civilization was destroyed and that they hid from all who went to Cocos. Campbell seemed to believe the psychic was referring to the Incas and offered as proof the fact his dog barked at night when nothing was there. Maybe the dog was just a little crazy. It certainly was not the psychics or Campbell.
The second psychic gave a detailed description on how to find the treasure and where it was. Mentioned a crevice in a high cliff and the treasure was to be found in two piles in two caves one behind the other. The caves were approached through the crevice. The directions were so general it would be hard to prove or disprove since there are high cliffs and crevices all over the island.
I recall the french team from the 60s did find a cache of silver in a cliff face by entering through a crevice. They found two dead men from the 1840s and 2 boxes containing silver. Was this the psychics prediction? This was evidently a cave the two men from the 1840s were using as a temporary home since their personal belongings were there also. The silver was in boxes and of a small quantity and the psychic predicted it was just lying on the floor and not boxed and also of great quantity. Were the french trying to hide the location using the psychic's prediction or was it a coincidence? I think there is some truth in all accounts and perhaps here the truth to learn is that on Cocos the best place to look is in crevices that hide caves or sheltered places within.
Malcolm also had a lot to say about the parts of the island he explored and his accounts do provide some useful information. He talked about observation hill, the iron plates, unexpected holes, landslides, and streams blocked by landslides. All of which figured in the different legends.
It's a great read.
