Santa Ria : a brief history The island of Santa Ria did not appear on early maps of the Caribbean. This was not only due to its relative insignificance and obscure position – although this fact, resulting in no-one knowing it was there, was contributory. However even when Europeans eventually came upon it, the island still remained unmapped for a considerable time. This resulted from the nature of those first European discoverers. Pablo Gonzales and Isaiah Benbow were basically pirates (1). They had scoured the ports of the Caribbean for a  crew for their rather leaky vessel, the Untamed Pig, with the project of going off and robbing and pillaging anything that came within hailing distance. They had failed to find a real crew, but had landed up with a motley collection of inadequates and psychotics with whom they set sail. (1) Burney mentions them briefly (Burney, James F.R.S. HISTORY OF THE BUCCANEERS OF AMERICA; Containing detailed accounts of those bold and daring freebooters; Chiefly along the Spanish Main, in the West Indies, and in the South Sea, succeeding the civil wars in England. New Edition; With some introductory notices of piracies on the coast of New England, to the year 1724), although he dismisses them as, basically wannabe pirates. Defoe (or at least Defoe as attributed by John Robert Moore (“Defoe in the pillory") – who attributed more or less every book written about pirates to Defoe) mentions a couple of pirates that he spent a drunken night in Port of Spain with whose behaviour is reminiscent of Gonzales and Benbow. “After becoming unconscionably drunk they set about each other over the matter as to who would have the privilege of robbing me: this in plain sight and hearing of myself”