Story Of Buried Treasure

-With A Difference

Ever since the first Spanish navigators entered the Pacific in the 16th century, stories have been cropping up about fabulous treasures which Spanish seamen are supposed to have buried on various islands.

FOR instance, there’s the story of an enormous treasure which is reputedly hidden on Pinaki atoll in the Gambiers. This is said to comprise four tons of gold and a huge quantity of pearls, diamonds and amethysts—all in metal caskets sealed with lead and bearing the face of Father Combes.

Then there’s the story of the Spanish galleon which is supposed to have left 15 tons of gold bullion in the Tautira district of Tahiti in 1774.

Another story concerns a huge hoard of Spanish-American dollars reputedly buried on Suwarrow atoll in the Cook Group; another con cerns a fortune in loot on Cocos Island, 500-odd miles from Panama; and, as a final example, there’s the age-old tale about another Spanish hoard on an atoll in the Tuamotus.

All these stories have three things in common: (1) No contemporary documents exist to show where the various treasures are hidden, or even that treasure was buried at all. (2) No one can explain why the Spaniards would have left such valuable caches where they reputedly did. (3) Despite numerous expeditions to the various islands, no treasure has ever been found.

Now we have a story of buried Spanish treasure with a difference —the story of the document that Captain Alejandro Malaspina had buried in a bottle at Vavau to prove that he had taken possession of the archipelago for Spain.

Unlike the other stories, there is no doubt that this one is true.

And because no one seems to have bothered about it previously, there is every likelihood that Malaspina’s “treasure” is still where his men buried it 168 years ago.

I believe I know to within a few yards exactly where the bottle was buried. I have been told by a Tongan official who, with the editors of PIM, shares my secret, that no one would think of looking in this particular spot for buried treasure.

In the next few months it is hoped to organise an expedition to search for Malaspina’s “treasure”. If it is found, it will make no one rich, but it will make as interesting a museum piece as the Dirk Hartog plate, left on the coast of Western Australia in the early 17th century and now in a Dutch museum.

According to the journal of Francisco Javier de Viana, the docu ment in Malaspina’s bottle bears the following inscription: “Las Cor betas Descubierta y Atrevida de S.M.C. a las ordenes de los Capitanes de Navio D. Alejandro Malaspina y D. Jph. Bustamente y Guerra estuvieron en este puerto en el mes de Mayo del anode 1793 y reconocido todo el archipelago inmediato de Vavao tomaron posesion de el a nombre de S.M. desplegando la bandera en el parage del observatorio, y correspondiendo a este acto solemne con siete voces de ‘viva el Key’, si tambien los naturales presididos por su Eigui Buna, los cuales repitieron otras tantas veces ‘Vavao toxa Espana’, esto es, ‘Vavao, hijo de Espana’.”

Translated, this reads: “The corvettes Descubierta and Atrevida of His Catholic Majesty, under the orders of Captains Don Alejandro Malaspina and Don Jose Bustamente y Guerra, were in this port in the month of May of the year 1793, and having reconnoitred the whole archipelago around Vavau, they took possession of it in the name of His Majesty, raising the flag at the site of the observatory and accompanying this solemn act with seven cries of ‘Long live the King’, as did the natives presided by their chief Buna. The natives repeated the same number of times, ‘‘Vavao toxa Espana’, which means, ‘Vavau, son of Spain’.”

Robert Langdon.