In ancient times the territory now occupied by the village of Santiago de la Ribera was within the Roman region called Contestania southeast peninsula in the Roman province of Tarragona and after the administrative reorganization of the Emperor Diocletian in 298 AD was included in the Carthaginense.

It was a Almarjal area on the banks of the lagoon of Mar Menor, so enjoyed coming saline fishery resources and is available in a area where the rabbits became more frequent and other animals between crops were spelled, the albardín, the barilla, appearing more inward first plantings of cereal.

If we look at the existing standard practice in the Roman Empire, probably in the area would be a large settlement of soldier-settlers who used to settle land near the coast, with a dual mission to cultivate and protect them from pirate attacks hypothetical.

These military introduced agricultural advances to improve sanitation work by making plots of land and starting a rudimentary drainage system relieved the flatness of the huge load of salt from underground.

During the Muslim invasion the area was virtually deserted, as the Arabs settled preferably in the hinterland of the Region of Murcia and the Segura River valley, occupying the coastal area with lookout towers, along with other buildings of rest and recreation as they did in the town of Los Alcazares where Arabs took advantage of the spa left by the Romans to build their palaces.

Under the Treaty of Almizra (1244) the territory of the parish joined the Kingdom of Castile. The territory was conquered in 1266 by the troops of King James I of Aragon after the Moorish Kingdom of Murcia to rebel against King Alfonso X the Wise who were vassals. The Castilian king tried to repopulate the area with families of Castile, Aragon and Catalonia offering the lands abandoned by Muslims.

Families rooted in the banks of the Mar Menor, were growing around its headquarters, villages and neighborhood organizations. In these places stood a chapel, from the beginning to be distributed and drawn the neighborhood and their peaceful coexistence.

The appearance of pirates from North Africa in the Murcian coast during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, break the tranquility in the life of coastal fishermen and laborers, whose work and determination had been converted into fertile land surrounded them.