Sir Thomas Cavendish (1560[1] –
May 1592) was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe.
His richest prize was the captured 600-ton sailing ship the Manila Galleon Santa Ana (also called Santa Anna). No doubt his exploits gained broad attention, especially since Queen Elizabeth knighted him.
It is probable that Cavendish sailed near Hawaii on his first journey to circumnavigate the globe.
While in the Philippines (1587), Cavendish heard of ships that were to arrive with treasure from Mexico and South America.
The Manila galleons were restricted by the Spanish Monarch to one or two ships/year and typically carried all the goods accumulated in the Philippines in a year's worth of trading silver, from the Mints in Peru and Mexico, with the Chinese and others, for spices, silk, gold and other expensive goods.
Whether Cavendish was able to intercept these galleons is up to debate. But certainly, this could be the origin of the treasure stories at Palemano Point.
Palemano Point, a reef off Hawaii’s Big Island, is thought to be the location of over $5 million
in pirate treasure. Captain Thomas Cavendish -a 16th-century English privateer- had a career that may have eventually led him to bury some of his extensive silver and gold riches at the Point.
Today, explorers have tried to locate the hidden treasures. The wreckage of the captain’s ship and the treasure remain a mystery.
Sometimes the treasure is the life of a pirate. For a great read on Cavendish, see
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