THE FIRST RESIDENT

Although there is historic proof that Torremolinos was already a ”town” in 1801 (we even know that Antonio de Montes Díez was its mayor), there are references to residents before that date.

According to the Archives of the Cathedral of Málaga, the guard of the Tower situated in the territory of Torremolinos named Alonso Martin, warned the Corregidor he had seen five Moorish ship in the sea, so he put the soldiers on their guard and went there to avoid the danger.

It was this guard, Alonso Martin , the first person of which there are records in a public document as a resident of this place. His wages amounted to 25 daily maravedis , his job did not allow him to have dogs, or Dormouse, or fishing rod, neither was he allowed to gamble under penalty of two months without wages or expulsion, besides having to pay for the damages produced for his lack of vigilance of the enemy.

Not always did the guards warn on time. In some documents in the Archive of Simancas it is said that in 1522, four Moorish ships took with them 17 men from the boat “La Xabega”; another document states that around 1524 another ship made 40 fishermen prisoners, of whom nothing was ever heard again and they were probably sold as slaves in the market places of Oran or Algiers, where the pirate Barbarian had his refuge.