The Treasure of Cocos Island
 350 miles west of
Costa Rica lies the tiny and uninhabited Cocos Island.
It is believed that a vast treasure was hidden here in
1821 by the mutinous crew of the Mary Dear (or
Mary Deare, depending on source), a British ship
chartered to move gold, silver and jewels from the churches
of Lima, Peru to the safety of Spain.
Shortly after leaving the port of Callao, the gold hungry
crew of the Mary Dear murdered the six soldiers charged with
guarding the treasure, seized control of ship and sailed to
Cocos Island where, it is said, they hid the treasure in a
cave and then set sail for Panama.
Above: President Franklin D.
Roosevelt (aged 27) and friends on Cocos Island searching
for the treasure in 1910. Image courtesy of the
National Archives and
Records Administration
Upon arriving in Panama the mutineers were arrested, most
of the crew were executed, but three were spared after
promising the Spanish authorities that they would assist in
the recovery of the treasure.
Two of the three were taken to Cocos by a detachment of
soldiers, soon after arriving, the two men escaped from
their captors into the dense jungle. The soldiers, unable to
locate the mutineers and believing that the two men would be
unable to escape the island, returned to Panama.
A year later, the two men were picked up by a passing
ship and taken to Costa Rica.
One of the two passed on the location of the treasure, in
the form of a map, to a man named John Keating. Keating,
with the help of the third mutineer, a man named Boag, later
located the treasure on the island but the crew of the ship
that had taken them to Cocos demanded a share, facing a
mutiny, Keating and Boag hid in the jungle until the crew
gave up searching for them and sailed away.
After an unknown period, Keating was picked up from the
island by a passing ship and claimed that Boag had drowned,
although he would later say that he had murdered him and
left his body in the cave with the treasure.
Before his death in 1882, Keating passed the Cocos secret
on to three people (why he did not go back for the bulk of
the treasure himself is not clear), his wife, Fred Hackett
and Nicholas Fitzgerald.
Keating's widow and Fred Hackett teamed up and headed to
Cocos - they found nothing. The third man, Nicholas
Fitzgerald, did not go in search of the treasure but passed
the map Keating had given him to Admiral Henry Palliser -
who also found nothing.
It has been claimed that frequent earthquakes on the
island have destroyed vital landmarks necessary to
accurately interpret the clues on the map.
Many have gone in search of the Cocos Treasure, even
members of Jacques Cousteau's crew made a somewhat half
hearted attempt at locating the treasure with a (now dated)
underwater pulse induction metal detector during a visit to film the island and its
reefs. [Cocos Islands: Sharks of Treasure Island,
documentary film starring Jacques Cousteau and crew. From
Cousteau's Rediscover The World series.] Another notable
to search for the treasure on Cocos was land and water speed
record holder Sir Malcolm Campbell (father of Donald
Campbell). As far as we know, all who have searched for
the treasure of Cocos Island
have come back empty handed. Further Reading
On Buried and Sunken Treasure by Rupert Furneaux, Penguin Books, 1973, Pb. 48pp. no index.
My Greatest Adventure; Searching for Pirate Treasure in Cocos Island by Malcolm Campbell, Butterworth 1931, 260 pp.
Documentary Films
Cocos Islands: Sharks of Treasure Island,
documentary film starring Jacques Cousteau and crew. From
Cousteau's Rediscover The World series. Can be found
on disk 7 of The Ultimate Jacques Cousteau Collection,
a must buy for any diver.
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