Piratas Berberiscos...

The Turkish destroy the village of Cangas

In 1617, it took place the most dramatic events known by Cangas along its history. On 4th December the inhabitants of the Ria of Vigo saw terrified how eleven Turkish-Berber corsair vessels dropped anchor near Cies Islands. Their purpose could not be bloodiest: causing as much harm as possible in the possessions of the Spanish kingdom and practising the robbery and pillage.

The first settlement attacked was the village of Bouzas, that they totally destroyed leaving more than 1000 casualties. Afterwards, they tried to disembark in Vigo through several points, but the stubborn resistance they found made them give up their main objective. And due to this on 8th December they made up their mind to set a course for the north bank of the ria, much more defenceless. In the Domaio beach (Moaña) a defence as heroic as unsuccessful left seven corpses on the sand and it was followed by a pillaging in this little parish. The pirates even tried again to invade Vigo, unsuccessfully, before heading to Cangas, which at that time was a totally defenceless humble fishing village. The very scarce militias had neither fortress where to resist nor artillery. First hour in the morning, after an intense bombardment, about 1000 men disembarked in Rodeira and in Punta de Balea, before the frightened local people. To the depleted army jointed numerous bad-armed inhabitants fighting desperately in spite of the crushing numerical inferiority. The biggest heroism of that people was that their sense of honour prevented them to leave their homes before the invader, because in these conditions the victory was unthinkable.

 Some hours later, the people who succeeded in escaping to the nearby mounts saw a terrific spectacle: the village was burning through and through, including the collegiate church and the Hospital, and dozens of corpses lay on the streets. And Turkish even dedicated to sack for three days (when they also burnt the church of Darbo) before going out leaving a trace of death. They took a big booty, but also tens of people to the serfdom in Algiers.

The village of Cangas took a long time to recover from that disaster. Its population was decimated and its economy, destroyed. A new scourge, the hunger, hit on the least-favoured people, what would be worse due to bad crops during the following years.

Those terrible events left in the collective memory of Cangas deep scars of pain and fear that finally get immortalized by the oral tradition. This is the case of a famous anonym poem from that time that says in one of its verse:

…Vinieron los moros renegados
allá de muy lejos, lejos, lejos
Todo arrasaron y estaba él
Allá lejos, lejos, lejos
¡Quien fuera galgo,
quien fuera pájaro,
quien fuera viento...

“Came the renegade Moors
from very far, far, far.
They all destroyed and he was
There very far, far, far
Who were greyhound,
Who were bird,
Who were wind!”