The ruins of the house of the famous Spanish corsair Amaro Pargo on the island of Tenerife

@ElentirENG ES 12·08·2023 · 22:36 0

In history there have been such famous corsairs as the Englishman Francis Drake, the Dutchman Pieter van der Does and the Turkish Barbarossa.

A tour of little-known places in Tenerife, with the Patrulla Águila as a guest
The Gordejuela Water Elevator, one of the most beautiful ruined buildings in Spain

However, Spain was also a country with famous privateers, and the most famous of all was Amaro Rodríguez Felipe de Varrios Machado Lorenzo de Castro y Núñez de Villavicencio, better known as Amaro Pargo. This Spanish privateer was born in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, on the island of Tenerife, in 1678, a town where he died in 1747. In addition to obtaining the patent of privateering from the King of Spain to attack enemy ships, this great The sailor went on to obtain a title of nobility, accumulating a great fortune that he dedicated, in part, to works of charity, given his status as a fervent Catholic.

Amaro Pargo's farm was in the town of El Rosario, on his native island. Today this house is in ruins, a situation aggravated by the legend that this privateer carries, of which it is said - like others - that he hid a fabulous treasure. These legends about treasures are always unfounded (no treasure of any corsair, pirate or buccaneer has ever been found), but what has caused in the case of Pargo is the looting of the ruins of his house, by people who believe the legend and who think that there may be some treasure in those ruins, something completely improbable.

This Wednesday, Aventuras Entresierras (my favorite YouTube channel and which I encourage you to subscribe) published an interesting video exploring the ruins of Amaro Pargo's house in El Rosario (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

As this is a relatively short video, today I will only put two screenshots as a preview. In the first we see the Hermitage of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, located 135 meters from Amaro Pargo's house. It is unknown what year this hermitage was built, but it is considered one of the oldest buildings on the island, since some documents from the 16th century already talked about it. Given the proximity between the hermitage and the corsair's house and his status as a fervent Catholic, Amaro Pargo surely spent many times here.

The ruins of the Spanish corsair's house, seen as you go up from the aforementioned hermitage. The Aventuras Entresierras video takes a complete tour of these ruins and also a good review of the history of this privateer. Due to the poor condition of the ruins, it is easy for them to go unnoticed.