Church of Santo Domingo

When entering the church of Santo Domingo, immediately to the right of the main door, there is a slab covering the tomb, which is decorated with a cross, to put it mildly, which is rare in Catholic sanctuaries. It is formed from the bones of a person with a skull winking in the middle, as we have always seen them on the Jolly Rogers flag drawn on the mast of pirate ships. In this crypt, Tenerife’s most famous corsair, Amaro Pargo, aka Amaro Rodríguez-Felipe y Tejera Machado, rests. Like many colleagues before and after him, he took a special letter of confirmation or Patente de corso from the king, who at that time was Felipe V in 1719, and the ambassador hijacked ships already by the grace of God and the monarch and undoubtedly for his own benefit. He did it well, because in 1724 he became a hidalgo, or nobleman. How long God’s grace was at that time, and how wide the possibilities of interpreting his commands, is also evident from the fact that Amaro had a pious nun, Mary of Jesus de León y Delgado, as her guardian, with whose blessing she plundered the world’s seas, and when she was in trouble, Mary repented and came to her aid in battle, being at the same time between the walls of the monastery as a physical presence in battle, deflecting bullets and daggers away from Amaro. When the Lord called Mary to himself, her earthly remains did not disintegrate, and they are now in a magnificent sarcophagus made with Amaro’s money, which is also shown to the public every year on February 15th. By the way, Tenerife has been waiting for years for the canonization of Mary as a saint from the Vatican. Amaro died at his home in Tenerife in 1747, leaving the whereabouts of his plundered fortune in mystery. It must have been several good coffins of gold and valuables after donating most of it to the church, and this is probably the main reason why not much remains of his house. Fortune seekers simply knock down the walls in search of treasure. The peace of Amaro’s grave was last disturbed in 2013, when the crypt was opened and DNA samples were taken from the bodies there.