Your adventures in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii focus on finding the legendary Lost Treasure of the Esperanza, with the team looking for a pirate ship with a cargo rumoured to be worth billions, including not only Incan gold but, more importantly, an elixir of eternal life.
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The highly sought-after haul is a legend among would-be treasure hunters in Pirate Yakuza, but is the same true of the real world and did the game take inspiration from a real lost treasure? Here’s what you need to know.
The Real Esperanza Legend
The Esperanza legend is real, that is to say, the legend itself exists in the real world, but we may never know for certain whether the ship or its related treasure were ever truly real.
Rumours of this treasure haul seem to have begun circulating in the 19th and 20th centuries, with details emerging of a large haul of gold and silver bullion that had been looted from the Viceroyalty of Peru and loaded aboard the Spanish ship Esperanza in 1816. It is said to have been damaged in a storm, boarded by pirates, and eventually wrecked.
As with most legends, details differ depending on who’s telling the tale, and most accounts of the events are hearsay or have never been corroborated or proven.
According to palmyraarchive.org, it’s unclear whether the Esperanza treasure was moved to the pirate ship with the Esperanza sunk, or the attacking pirates then took control of the Esperanza and continued their journey, only to later wreck on the coral reefs of the Palmyra Atoll. It is believed the treasure was safely removed from the wrecked ship and stowed away on the island.
Much of the information we have about the Esperanza comes from a reported survivor called James Hines (or James Edwards depending on where you read it), who wrote about the events and treasure in various letters. While there are different versions of events on different sites, the general timeline suggests that eventually, these letters ended up in the hands of Captain William Foster who began sharing the information with newspapers in 1923 in the hopes someone would put together an expedition.
Has Any Of The Treasure Ever Been Found?
None of the fabled Esperanza treasure has ever been found, which is largely why this remains a legend. However, the treasure could still be out there, buried beneath the sands.
It’s believed to be somewhere in the Palmyra Atoll, with palmyraarchive.org explaining, “All accounts agree the Esperanza wrecked in the center of a 3 mile reef, with “hillocks of land” one mile to the east. From that location, the easiest islets to reach on the Western end, would have been Home and Paradise Islands.”
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