Cocos Island history

Discovery

Found by Spain, drawn on the old maps

1526 to the 1600s

There is no evidence that anyone lived on Cocos before Europeans arrived (UNESCO). The Spanish pilot Juan Cabezas is credited with finding it in 1526, though other names and dates are also given (Wikipedia; Cortés 2008).

The island first appears by name on a world map of 1542, as “Isle de Coques”. For the next century and a half, mapmakers could not agree where it was: a 1556 planisphere put it about 1.5° north of the Equator, a 1590 map at 2°30′ north, and Blaeu’s Grand Atlas of 1662 right on the Equator (Wikipedia).

Pirates and legends

Treasure island

The 1600s to the 1820s

In the 17th and 18th centuries the island was a refuge for pirates and privateers, who came for fresh water, wood and coconuts. Henry Morgan, Edward Davis and William Thompson are among those said to have stayed here (Wikipedia (ES); UNESCO).

Three treasure stories grew up around Cocos. One is the treasure of William Davies, said to have been hidden in 1684 (Wikipedia (ES)). Another belongs to the Portuguese pirate Benito Bonito, who raided the coast of the Americas from about 1818 and whose loot was never found (Wikipedia (ES); Wikipedia). The most famous is the Treasure of Lima: in 1820, with revolution coming to Peru, the story goes that the Viceroy, José de la Serna, entrusted the treasure of Lima to Captain William Thompson for safekeeping. Thompson is said to have sailed for Cocos and buried it there; he and his first mate later escaped Spanish custody and were never caught (Wikipedia; Wikipedia (ES)).

Sailors and whalers

Names carved in Chatham Bay

The 1790s to the 1860s

In 1793 James Colnett stopped at the island, took about 2,000 coconuts and left a boar, a sow and two goats, an early record of the animals people brought to the island (Wikipedia; UNESCO). In 1795 George Vancouver anchored his ships Discovery and Chatham in the bay now called Chatham Bay and had the date and the ships’ names carved on a rock; Edward Belcher added his own ship’s name in 1838 (Wikipedia). In 2002 the island was also declared part of Costa Rica’s historic architectural heritage (Wikipedia (ES); Cortés 2008).

Through the 1830s and 1840s whalers used the island for water and wood, until whaling moved to other parts of the Pacific (Wikipedia). In October 1863 the ship Adelante abandoned 426 Tongans on the island, people taken as slaves and sick with smallpox. When the ship Tumbes arrived a month later, only 38 were still alive (Wikipedia).

Costa Rica

A flag, a prison and a treasure-hunting governor

1832 to 1970

The island first appears in Costa Rican law in 1832, in a decree of the Constituent Assembly (Wikipedia; Cortés 2008). On 15 September 1869 an expedition sent by President Jesús Jiménez Zamora raised the Costa Rican flag on the island for the first time (Wikipedia (ES); Cortés 2008). From 1879 to 1881 the island held a prison (Cortés 2008); like every other attempt to settle Cocos, it did not last (UNESCO).

The German adventurer August Gissler arrived in 1889 and spent most of the next two decades on Cocos looking for the Treasure of Lima, finding only a few gold coins (Wikipedia). The Costa Rican government named him governor of the island and let him start a small farming colony, which also failed (Wikipedia; Cortés 2008). In 1970 the island became a district of the canton of Puntarenas (Wikipedia).

Science

The expeditions

1888 to 1941

Scientific visits began with Alexander Agassiz aboard the Albatross in 1888, and Henri Pittier led the first Costa Rican scientific expedition in 1898 (Cortés 2008). In May 1925 William Beebe’s Arcturus Oceanographic Expedition spent ten days collecting around the island. The Allan Hancock expeditions on the Velero III came in 1932, 1933 and 1938, and the Templeton Crocker Expedition in 1932 (Cortés 2008). In August 1938 Waldo Schmitt collected specimens here during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential cruise (Cortés 2008).

Jacques Cousteau visited several times and called Cocos “the most beautiful island in the world” (Wikipedia).

Protection

From national park to World Heritage

1978 to today

Cocos was declared a national park in 1978, under President Rodrigo Carazo (Cortés 2008). UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1997, and in 2002 the listing was extended to the surrounding sea (UNESCO; Wikipedia). It has also been a Ramsar wetland of international importance since 1998 (Wikipedia). On 17 December 2021 Costa Rica added about 53,000 km² of fully protected water, bringing the park to about 55,000 km² (Mission Blue).

Today the only people living on Cocos are park rangers, at the stations in Wafer Bay and Chatham Bay (Wikipedia). In 2006 they voted in a national election on the island for the first time (Wikipedia; Wikipedia (ES)).

Timeline

Cocos at a glance

Five centuries in one table