JESUIT TREASURES - ARE THEY REAL?

[Oroblanco]

Igadbois wrote

He also quotes an article from the Tombstone Prospector (from Arizona Republican 5 Mar. 1911) that tells of a cave that was found in the mountains West of the Tumacacori Mission that contained gold and silver plate and old Spanish coins valued at $10,000.

Well that settles the question of finding the treasure, it was found and removed in 1911. We can save our time and energy not hunting for it.

 

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[gollum]

A thank you goes out to those that have enjoyed my postings!

I want to respond to some of the comments that have been made regarding the Tumacacori Mine.

First of all, Roy: I did not say that casting three bells at Tumacacori explained the amount of slag found on the mission grounds. I do believe there was a foundry at Tumacacori during the Franciscan period (1768-1853). As well as bells, there are many other common items made out of copper and silver that were probably made at the mission site during that period. I thought the story of the San Antonio Bell was worth repeating, and made the point that the casting of bells at Tumacacori was done by the Franciscans. There is no evidence that a foundry was in operation there while the Jesuit visita was in operation.

Mike: 1) Thanks for contributing the rest of the Black Veteran story. I knew it, but I tried to condense a lot of information about Camp Loco into something a bit more compact. Those that read this forum may have more information about Camp Loco that they can share.
2)I agree that there doesn't appear to be any mineralization on Tumacacori Mountain. Of course, Javelina Canyon is not on the mountain, but west of it. There are many opinions about the shaft that was dug at Javelina. One geologist commented that there is a large silver belt that runs beneath the area, and comes to surface in Mexico at the discovery sites of the Planchas de Plata and Bolas de Plata. The site may have been mined by native peoples long before the Spanish arrived. Just because you can't find silver ore in the exposed tailing pile, you can not exclude the possibility that this mine was originally a silver producer.
3) The Treasure Search article by Bill Conley,Jr is very interesting. The story of how Manuel V. Ortiz obtained his copy of the Derrotero suggests to me that Mr Molina was not using an original document either. To make things worse, the way he transcribed the document for those who would buy it was very poor. Was it deliberate or just ignorant? I have often wondered how many versions of the document exist. There certainly is more text in Ortiz's version than in some other copies I have seen, but as it is presented in the article it doesn't make much sense to me. Mr Ortiz worked with the Robert Pate group during the middle 1980s in attempts to find the treasure at a place called "Crown Of Thorns Hill." Bill's article in the Treasure Search of November 1989 supports the idea that the Molina describes an area East of Tumacacori, and extending South through Sycamore Canyon (Janos Pass?). He wrote about the Arizona Citizen 10 Jul. 1875 article, "The Old Mine, supposed to be the Old Tumacacori, has recently been discovered by Henry Allen." He also quotes an article from the Tombstone Prospector (from Arizona Republican 5 Mar. 1911) that tells of a cave that was found in the mountains West of the Tumacacori Mission that contained gold and silver plate and old Spanish coins valued at $10,000. Also included in the article was a mention that Manuel Ortiz had located the 12 patios and 12 arrastras near the Bagby Ranch. These are located about one mile from the Patagonia Mine. Conley states (without reference) that this mine was operated by Jesuits in the 1600s using Indian labor. During the Jesuit period, most of the mining in the area was closer to the Guevavi Mission than the Tumacacori Visita. Several of the Molina transcriptions that have been printed in magazines locate the Virgen de Guadalupe at "one league commencing at the door of the Temple to the South and the Eyes of San Roman, measure to the left 1,800 varas to the North." I don't think that a priest would call a mission building a temple.

For those of us interested in the Molina Derrotero, there is much to think about. The map of the mine site in Javelina Canyon could have been created to sell the idea that this location is the mine described in the Molina. The map was supposedly taken off an engraving on a rock near the mine. I have been unable to verify the original source of the map. Is it possible that the Javelina Canyon mine was also the site of an Indian temple? What if the Javelina mine is actually the Old Sopori, and the Virgen de Guadalupe Mine is located one league to the South? Where are the Eyes of San Ramon or Waters of San Ramon? Has anyone found records on Padre Dolas or Padre Gonzales (original writers?)? The document labeled "The Year of 1548 and 1648 - Document of Temecacury" is also signed by Micaela Molina. It deals with the San Isabell, San Pedro, San Ramon Mines. It says that the trail from the Virgen de Guadalupe follows the canyon and decends South one half league to the Eyes of San Ramon Mine.

Someday this puzzle will be solved.

Robert Pate or Bill Paite?

 

[gollum]

The thing that REALLY puts me off about Javelina/Peck Canyon is that damn tailings pile. Neither Spanish nor Jesuits would have left a pile of tailings like that for everyone to see. If the Guadalupe would have been there, then those tailings would have been dropped over in Rock Corral Canyon or on the West Side of Tum Peak.

Mike

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

Just to lighten things up a tad...

Robert Pate or Bill Paite?

View attachment 1008664

I figured out the problem, this is about the wrong religionists!

 

[sailaway]

Here is another version of the Guadalupe mine.

The Secret of the Guadalupes from Coronado's Children
by J. Frank Dobie
THE tradition of gold in the Guadalupes runs back a long, long way. While governor of New Mexico, General Lew Wallace-at least so he claimed in a written article dug out of the basement of the Palace at Santa Fe' an ancient document reciting how a converted Indian of Tabira conducted Captain de Gavilan and thirty other Spaniards to a wonderfully rich gold deposit on the eastern spurs of the Guadalupe Mountains. The Spaniards named the place, on account of volcanic evidences, Sierra de Cenizas-Ashes Mountains- and left loaded down with nuggets and ore in the form of both "wires" and "masses." Then came the great uprising of 1680, in which the Pueblos killed every Spaniard who did not flee from New Mexico. About the same time Tabira, the home of the guide to Sierra de Cenizas, was wiped out. Sierra de Cenizas has for centuries been a lost spot in geography as wcll as a lost mine.
Since the advent of English-speaking prospectors it has been the Apaches who knew the whereabouts of gold in the Guadalupes. Indians have "the best eyes in the world." The wilder they are, the better they can see. Excepting the Yaquis, who still have most of the gold of Sonora under surveillance; the Apaches were the wildest Indians on the North American continent. Their most famous leader, hard, untamable old Geronimo, used to say that the richest gold mines in the western world lay hidden in the Guadalupes.
The setting is worthy of its traditions. Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas, rises 9500 feet above sea level, just below the New Mexico line. It is a beacon from all sides. The long, narrow chain of mountains above which it towers, extends, with gaps, southward clear to the Rio Grande and northward for nearly a hundred miles. Here in the Guadalupes the only mountain sheep left in Texas and a majority of those left in New Mexico are, under the protection of the law, making their last stand, eagles and panthers molesting them more than man, their haunts so wild, rough, and waterless that only occasionally does a human being intrude thither. Here the Apaches made final retreat, and on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation hardly a day's horseback ride from the northwestern spurs of the Guadalupe chain, remnants of that fierce, secretive, and outraged people yet live, their tribal name an inseparable element in the traditions of the whole Southwestern world.
Of all the seekers for the gold of the Guadalupes "Old Ben" Sublett-William Colum Sublett being his correct name was the most picturesque and has become most famous. Like the much besung Joe Bowers he went west from Missouri "yes, all the way from Pike"; to prospect in the Rocky Mountains. He saw other men grow rich from virgin gold, but the pay streak never opened under his pick. He went in rags; at times his wife and children went hungry. Life for them must have been fearfully hard. It killed his wife. Then Sublett with two little girls and an infant son turned south east and, crossing the Guadalupes, made for "civilization."
Civilization was the new Texas and Pacific railroad track a double line of steel that glittered across hundreds of miles of West Texas land too waterless at that date even for the scant population of ranches. Sublett put up a tent beside a section house where the town of Monahans now stands and where a well had been dug. He got odd jobs from the railroad. Other men were coming in and they contributed to the support of "the children in the tent."
In fact, strangers were so charitable that one day Ben Sublett drove away alone in his rickety old buckboard, pulled by a pair of bony horses and carrying a meager supply of frijoles, flour, and coffee. He did not need much. He could, as the saying goes, live on what a hungry coyote would leave. He again took to prospecting - in the nearest mountains of any size, the Guadalupes. This was long before an oil well was dreamed of in West Texas; it was before the Mescalero Apaches had been securely rounded up. Men who packed lead under their skins and could show the scars of arrow wounds warned Sublett that he had better stay away from the Guadalupes and the Apaches. He laughed at them. Trip after trip he made into the mountains, returning only to work long enough to buy a fresh store of supplies and contribute a little to the direst needs of his children.
He moved them over to Odessa, where there were a few saloons but no churches, where women were scarce, and where the click of six-shooters synchronized with the click of spurs. There the oldest child of the family, a girl, made something by taking in washing. The father was freer than ever to prospect. He knew what he was about. Every time he came in, his return was a surprise to the people of the town; they scoffed at his crazy mode of life. Occasionally he brought in a nugget hardly of enough value to keep him in shoe leather. In vain his children begged him to quit the mountains and settle down to some steady-paying job. He was stubborn; he would take advice from no one. He had a "hunch" that he would some day find the gold in the Guadalupes.
Sometimes he tinkered on the ranch windmills that were dotting the country. Other times he trapped quail and killed antelopes to ship to Chicago. A catch he made of ninety-seven quail together in a net is still remembered. One while, it seems, he trapped in the White Mountains of Arizona. This must have been before he came to Texas. After he had been prospecting for years, he admitted that an Apache whom he met in the White Mountains had told him a story of gold in the Guadalupes.
"Old Ben, the crazy prospector," became the jest of the country. Then one day, after having been gone for an un- usually long time, he drove his rickety rig up to the Mollie Williams saloon in Odessa, strode-despite his habitual limp, caused by an old bullet wound-boldly to the bar, in a hearty voice invited everybody present to join him, and called for drinks all around. The bar-keeper hesitated, the men snickered. But when Old Ben threw a buckskin pouch full of nuggets on the bar, the crowd went wild.
"Boys," he said, "I have been poor, but I ain't poor no longer. I can buy out this town and have plenty left. Drink." They drank. They cheered. They drank again. Then between drinks Old Ben went out to his buckboard and brought in a small canvas sack filled with gold "so pure that a jeweler could have hammered it out."
"My friends," urged the crazy prospector, "drink all you want. Drink all you can hold. I have at last found the richest gold mine in the world. I can build a palace of California marble and buy up, the whole state of Texas as a back yard for my children to play in. Let's celebrate."
Old Ben never built the palace, it' seems, or encumbered himself with leagues of land. In reality he had no desire for estates or cushioned halls. His wants were few and elemental. He was not greedy for riches. The golden secret that he bore in his breast like the hidden light of the "Lantern Bearers" and the notoriety that the secret brought meant more to him than any amount of taxable properties. He had a kind of hunger for fame. Human chicanery and the mad grasping for property perplexed him, and thus he came to distrust all "prosperity friends." After he struck it rich, he was never known to work at all. Every few months he would slip out to the mountains alone, "and he generally would bring back around a thousand dollars' worth of gold." The chief pleasure he derived from it seemed to be in displaying it. As may be imagined, many men tried to get Sublett to show them the location of his gold. "If anybody wants my mine," he would say, "let him go out and hunt for it like I did. People have laughed at me and called me a fool. The plains of the Pecos and the peaks of the Guadalupes have been my only friends. They are my home. When I die, I want to be buried with the Guadalupes in sight of my grave on one side and the Pecos on the other. I am going to carry this secret with me so that for years and years after I am gone people will remember me and talk about 'the rich gold mine old man Sublett found.' I will leave something behind me to talk about."
Sublett was trailed, spied upon, "laid for," but no lobo wolf was ever more wily in avoiding traps than was Sublett in avoiding detection. His habit was to leave town at some unexpected time, camp on the Pecos a day or two, and then strike out from camp during the night. He might be gone only a few days; he might be gone for months. It is said that he at one time kept his money in W. E. Connell's bank at Midland, which is about twenty miles east of Odessa. Where Sublett turned his raw gold into cash nobody has ex- plained, but the banker came to observe that when the mysterious old prospector's deposit ran low he invariably made a trip and not long after returning invariably banked "hard money." Of course, there are people who say that Sublett never owned a check book in his life; some people will talk. Anyhow, as the best of the talkers tell it, banker Connell a cowman by the name of George Gray offered Sublett ten thousand dollars if he would show them the source of his cash. Sublett just laughed at them. "Why," he replied, "I could go out and dig up that much in less than a week's time.
After this conversation Gray and Connell engaged Jim Flannigan to follow Sublett on the next trip. Sublett's funds in the bank were running low and he was due to "pull out" any hour. For two weeks Lee Driver, who was then keeping a livery stable in Midland, fed a horse for Flannigan. Then one day word came that Sublett had left Odessa in a hack pulled by two burros. Flannigan followed his tracks through the sand for fifty miles west along the railroad to Pecos on the Pecos River, and then for twenty-five miles on up the river. There the trail played out-stopped-quit-just disappeared. How any West Texan could lose the plain trail of a hack in soft soil uncut by other tracks is almost inconceivable, but lose the trail Flannigan did. He was not the first or the last man to lose it.
He was still riding around trying to pick it up when he happened to meet a man who had just seen Sublett traveling down the river towards Pecos. He turned back, but before he reached Odessa the cunning old prospector had already arrived. He had been gone from town "only four days," and had in that time traveled at least a hundred and fifty miles. Very good traveling for a pair of burros pulling a hack through sand dunes! Evidently Sublett had not got even into the foothills of the Guadalupes on this trip. He must have had a cache on the Pecos, for, as usual, he brought in a sack of gold.
But, despite his secretive ways, Sublett occasionally relented, and before he died took several people more or less into his confidence. Once when he was coming out of the Guadalupes he met an old crony named Mike Wilson; he must have been feeling almost insanely generous, for he gave his friend such minute directions for reaching the mine that Wilson actually got to it. There he emptied provisions out of a tow-sack and crammed into it as much ore as he could carry home. The trip wore him out, and as soon as he reached town he went on a spree that lasted for three weeks. When he sobered up and tried to go to the mine a second time, he found himself utterly bewildered. Old Sublett just laughed at him and refused to direct him again. "If anybody wants that mine," he said, "let him go out and hunt for it like I did." Years ago Mike Wilson died in a hut within sight of the Guadalupes, trying vainly until the end to recall the way to Sublett's lost gold.
Another time, some men at Pecos finally, after much per- suasion, "ribbed up" Sublett to show them the mine. They felt so gay and prosperous that they loaded a big assortment of fancy canned goods into their chuck wagon to supplement the regular camp supplies. The first night out a tin of pine- apple gave Sublett a case of ptomaine poisoning. He was probably already sick from having promised to give away his secret. At any rate, he claimed that someone had tried to poison him, became as stubborn as a government mule, and refused to go a step farther.
Perhaps, though, unknown to Sublett, there was an independent sharer of his secret. Or maybe Sublett discovered the sharer and acted as his jealousy might have prompted him to act out in the wild loneliness of the Guadalupes. Every man is entitled to his own conclusion from the testimony offered by F. H. Hardesty, who used to ranch in El Paso County.
One evening along in the eighties a fellow by the name of Lucius Arthur, known better as Frenchy, rode up to Hardesty's ranch, watered, and accepted the invitation to unsaddle and stay all night. While the two men were talking after supper, Frenchy confided to his host that he was trailing two Mexicans who had left Ysleta, on the Rio Grande, the preceding night He said that he had started to follow them once before but that his grub and water had played out. He knew that they were bound for a gold mine somewhere in the Guadalupes to the east.
Frenchy had been keeping his eye on these Mexicans for a long time. One of them, according to him, belonged to a wealthy old family of rancheros down in Mexico. Perhaps, as he suggested, some Mexican had found out about the gold back in the days when gente from below the Rio Grande used to come up and get salt from the great beds west of the Guadalupe Mountains. A gringo's attempt to control this salt resulted in what is still referred to as the Salt War. Any- way, a member of the rancher's family made a trip to the Guadalupe gold mine each year and brought out a supply of ore. The Mexican now after it had come to Ysleta to meet his brother-in-law and together they had left that place in the dead of night.
"After hearing all this," Hardesty related, "I told Frenchy he ought to go better equipped. I told him he might have to stay out for weeks trailing the Mexicans and waiting for them to clear out from the gold mine before he could get into it. Then I offered to stake him with everything he needed. Well, we went in partners, and when he left my place he had as good an outfit as any man could want and was carrying enough supplies to last two months. Six weeks later he was back. He had gold quartz to show.
"According to his story, he had trailed the Mexicans and from a place of concealment had watched them climb a rope ladder into a chasm. He saw them haul up sacks of ore and water for their horses, which were staked on the rim. But he himself had to depend on water so far away that he couldn't keep regular watch. After he had hung around several days, the Mexicans left and then he made a closer inspection. The chasm, from the way he described it, must have varied in width from forty to a hundred feet and was all of sixty feet deep. Down at the bottom he could see the entrance to a cave with freshly broken rock in front of it. He claimed that he didn't go down into the chasm because he was short on rope for a ladder. I thought he might have been a little more resourceful, but I said nothing. The chunks of quartz he brought in had been dropped by the Mexicans, so he said.
"Frenchy rested up a few days, took a fresh pack of supplies, including enough rope to picket out a whole caballada, and left again for the Guadalupes. He never came back. I have never heard of him since. That's all I know about the gold of the Guadalupes."
As we shall see presently, Frenchy's description of the Mexican mine jibes perfectly with that which has come down of the place where Sublett resorted. Let us get back to Sublett.
About 1895 a jack-leg carpenter by the name of Stewart was roofing a house for Judge J.J. Walker, of Barstow. He had been a guide over the Butterfield route to California; he could many a tale unfold, and one very hot day while he rested in the shade he unfolded this one to his employer.
Along in the late eighties several officials of the Texas and Pacific Railroad engaged Stewart to guide them into the Pecos country on a hunt. Camp was made in some trackless hills east of the river. A rumor racing over the range had it that the Apaches had broken out and were back on their old stomping grounds. Stewart was naturally uneasy lest they foray down from the mountains and either kill some of his party or drive off their horses. He had his son, a mere child, with him.
One evening about sundown he saw a wagon coming towards camp. It was a light spring wagon drawn by a single horse; a very large horse. When it reached camp, the driver alighted. He was Ben Sublett and he was alone. Stewart had known him for years. Of course he was invited to stay all night, and he unhitched. After the hunters and Stewart's boy had settled to sleep, Sublett told Stewart that he was going to his gold mine at the point of the Guadalupes. He said that while riding along that day he had realized as never before how old he was and that he had decided positively never to make another trip after gold. "I have always dec- dared that the secret would die with me," he said, "but now that I have met up with you out here I somehow want to take you with me and show you the mine.
Stewart replied that he would not think of leaving the men who were depending on him for guidance in that wild country and that even if he were willing to leave them he would never take his own child on into Apache range. In reply to this argument Sublett remarked that no man accompanying him would ever be in danger from Indians. Nevertheless, Stewart did not go.
When Sublett set out next morning, however, Stewart did accompany him "as far as the top of a blue mound towards the west." Here Sublett halted and, while Stewart looked through a long spy glass, tried to show him where the mine was located, asserting at the same time that such long-range directions would never be of any use. He said that he would be back in three days.
The third day, just after dark, he drove into camp. As soon as supper was over and the hunters had bedded down, Stewart asked, "What luck did you have?"
For answer Sublett picked up a dried deer hide and put it, flesh side up, on the ground where the low fire cast a light over it and also where some boxes of provisions hid it from the eyes of any man who might be awake on his pallet. Then he poured on it a Bull Durham tobacco sack, of the fifteen cent size as full of gold nuggets as it would hold. Stewart ran his hand through them and scattered them over the hide. "You do not seem to have any small nuggets," he observed. "What," Sublett rejoined, "would be the use of picking when with one more rake in the gravel I could bring up a big one?"
In the morning Sublett left. He had gathered his last nuggets. The next that Stewart heard of him he was dead. Stewart soon afterwards attempted to find the mine but failed. What has become of him or what "point of the Guadalupes" he gazed at through the long spyglass while from an unidentified "blue mound" Sublett pointed towards the gold, are unknown. It turned out as Sublett had predicted.
"Come with me and I will show you the gold," he had said, "but if you go alone, even after I have pointed out its general location, you will never be able to find it."
So far as is known, Sublett never wavered again in his de- termination to hold fast the secret. When he was dying, his son-in-law, Sid Pitts, of Roswell, New Mexico, tried to persuade him to hand over the golden key he had clutched so long. Apparently the old man, he was eighty-started to tell him how to go to the mine. First," he began, "you cross the Pecos at. . . ." Then he broke off with, "Hell, it ain't no use. They'd beat you out of it even if you found it." Evidently it was not the philanthropic desire to save his kin from the worries of wealth but his tenacious determination to keep "the damned human race" from sharing it and from learning what he had spent so many happily contrary years in withholding that caused old Sublett to keep silent to the end.
Sublett's death occurred in 1892. He was buried in Odessa, a little too far away from the Guadalupes to realize his wish for a grave within sight of them. Certainly, how- ever, he left behind him "something to talk about." In the wide, wide lands of the Pecos, from its mouth far down on the Rio Grande to old Fort Sumner in New Mexico, there is hardly a town, a squatter's cabin, or a rancher's home in which the story of Sublett's Mine has not been told. Prospectors by the score have looked for it, and prospectors as well as many men who are not prospectors are still looking for it.
Among the most constant seekers has been Subletts son Ross. In fact, Ross has been as constant as grubstakings from strangers would allow him to be; he has even on occasions grubstaked himself. This constancy is logical for Ross Sublett probably knows more concerning the whereabouts of the mine than any other living man. When he was a little past his ninth birthday his father took him to it. That was the only time he saw it, but see it he did. Five years later when the secretive old prospector lay on his death-bed, Ross, of sufficient age by that time to feel responsibility, tried to get him to describe the way to the gold. The dying man a little gentler to him than he was to the son-in-law- merely mumbled: "It's too late. Any description would be useless. You'll just have to go out and hunt it down like I did."
An accommodating disposition on the part of Ross Sublett to recount his childhood memories has not dimmed them. Like the annular rings of a tree, his memories increase in both number and compass. He lives at Carlsbad, New Mexico, is easy of access, and should you interview him, he would re- spond in this wise: "Yes, I have a distinct recollection of how the mine looked. The last stage to it, going west from the Pecos, was always made on horseback or with pack burros. It was down in a crevice, and the only way to get to it was by a rope ladder that my father always removed as soon as he came up with the gold. I played around while he got the ore out of a kind of cave. I seem to remember, too, that pieces of ore were in plain sight right in front of the cave. I am confident the mine is within six miles of a spring in the Rustler Hills."
The Rustler Hills are a good forty miles east of Guadalupe Peak, but more than one tradition has made them the site of Sublett's gold. Not long after Sublett died, a New Mexico sheriff familiarly known as Cicero, while prospecting in these hills, met a cowboy called Grizzly Bill.
"You'd as well pull in your horns, Cicero," bawled out Grizzly as soon as the two men, both on horseback, came within hailing distance of each other. "I've done found Suhlett's gold and I'm on my way to spend it."
Grizzly went on to Pecos, Texas. He rode into town shooting his six-shooter at the sky and yelling, "Hide out, little ones, yer daddy's come home." He got on a high lonesome, displayed his gold, and, while trying to "show off" on a wild horse, was thrown in such a way as to have his neck broken. Nobody who knows anything about the matter, however, has ever supposed that Grizzly Bill found the Lost Sublett Mine. In fact, all he found was a nugget near a spring-where more than likely Sublett had camped and lost it.

 

[lgadbois]

The name "Guadalupe" is attached to many places throughout North and South America. The story of Ben Sublett and the Guadalupe Mountains has attracted many to find the source of Ben's gold. We don't know that his gold had anything to do with the Jesuits, and the story has nothing to do with the Molina Derrotero.

I don't know why, but there are those people that want to mix these legends together, and to misplace the geographic locations. There are postings that place Tayopa in the Superstition Mountains, or in Utah. Some people have said the Molina refers to an area in the Superstition Mountains. Others have claimed that the Lost Adams Diggings are the same as Jacob Waltz's Lost Mine. There is also the tendency to mix stories associated with the Jesuits to activities by the Franciscans. The periods each of these missionary groups were active in various geographical locations is well documented in history.

The postings in this forum have done a good job of sharing diverse opinions of the Jesuit's role in mining. It is my opinion that the Jesuit Missionaries' focus in the New World was on building the Church and educating the indigenous peoples. Everywhere that missions and visitas were started, the villages became centers of local commerce. You can not have commerce without a medium of exchange. The Spanish army and nationals had gold and silver for purchasing goods and services, and the mission locations prospered because they filled the demands for food, clothing, etc. Was the Jesuit organization involved in mining? Yes! They had some of the best schools in Europe, and they brought the knowledge of mining technology with them wherever they went. Did the mission accumulate wealth? Yes! Much of that wealth was reinvested in the local communities in building mission infrastructure. And while shiploads of billions of dollars in gold and silver were sent back to Spain, the comparative amount of Jesuit treasure that has actually found has been next to nothing. We know that the rich ornamentation of some of the mission churches was taken and hidden by the people from the village. Whatever large caches that may have been made by the Jesuit priests, almost none have been found.

 

[lgadbois]

Igadbois wrote


Well that settles the question of finding the treasure, it was found and removed in 1911. We can save our time and energy not hunting for it.

The description of the find does not agree with the inventory of items of the Molina Derrotero. The items that were found in 1911 may have been the Tumacacori Mission fixtures. The dates on the Spanish coins would have told us a lot about the who and when questions.

 

[gollum]

The description of the find does not agree with the inventory of items of the Molina Derrotero. The items that were found in 1911 may have been the Tumacacori Mission fixtures. The dates on the Spanish coins would have told us a lot about the who and when questions.

Larry,

I think Roy was beng facetious.

Mike

 

[lgadbois]

Larry,

I think Roy was beng facetious.

Mike

Mike is right.

Yes, you were Roy. But I prefer looking at the facts rather than responding to the tone of your comments. You seem a little overly defensive about your opinions. Just because you believe something, it doesn't mean that we should all share your opinion. And that's my olpinion!

 

[markmar]

I believe the Tumacacori ( Molina ) map , shows the first mission of Tumacacori , half mile north from the present mission .

 

[sailaway]

lgadbois said:

The story of Ben Sublett and the Guadalupe Mountains - has nothing to do with the Molina Derrotero.

In the story it talks about Ross Sublett accompanying his father when he was nine. He recounts that "It was down in a crevice, and the only way to get to it was by a rope ladder that my father always removed as soon as he came up with the gold. I played around while he got the ore out of a kind of cave. I seem to remember, too, that pieces of ore were in plain sight right in front of the cave".
then there is Frenchy that had trailed the Mexicans and from a place of concealment had watched them climb a rope ladder into a chasm. He saw them haul up sacks of ore.
In my version of the Molina Map it says "Stones Throw Rope to mouth of Mine" in Spanish where the Virgen de Gaudelupe is.
To me this sounds like the same and being as it has not been proven to be found we can not rule out the Jesuits or anyone else as of yet.
The original spot for Tumacacori has not been found yet, and could be anywhere in the southwest.
As you said though there may be three or more of all the sites.

 

[sailaway]

l

Could this be your EYES of San Ramon? Down the creek a little way on the other side is another set of "EYES" that are carved in the cliff side.

I recommend this read for anyone wanting to know about 14th century Spanish in Arizona.

Full text of "The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542"
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924104080886/cu31924104080886_djvu.txt

 

[deducer]

Was the Jesuit organization involved in mining? Yes! They had some of the best schools in Europe, and they brought the knowledge of mining technology with them wherever they went. Did the mission accumulate wealth? Yes! Much of that wealth was reinvested in the local communities in building mission infrastructure. And while shiploads of billions of dollars in gold and silver were sent back to Spain, the comparative amount of Jesuit treasure that has actually found has been next to nothing. We know that the rich ornamentation of some of the mission churches was taken and hidden by the people from the village. Whatever large caches that may have been made by the Jesuit priests, almost none have been found.

But I prefer looking at the facts rather than responding to the tone of your comments. You seem a little overly defensive about your opinions. Just because you believe something, it doesn't mean that we should all share your opinion. And that's my opinion!

Roy has backed up his arguments with solid research, namely historical facts and testimony. In that regard, what he presents isn't really opinion.

Would you care to share with us the research that you did, that led you to the conclusions you have formed in the first passage quoted above?

 

[lgadbois]

Roy has backed up his arguments with solid research, namely historical facts and testimony. In that regard, what he presents isn't really opinion.

Would you care to share with us the research that you did, that led you to the conclusions you have formed in the first passage quoted above?

These questions have been discussed and answered by almost everyone on this forum. I have no interest in changing anyone's opinion on anything. A great deal can be learned by studying the information that has already been posted here by Roy, Cactus, Mike, and many others.

 

[lgadbois]

I have several different maps of the Tumacacori Mine. Some of you may have never seen this version:

 

[lgadbois]

Robert Pate or Bill Paite?

View attachment 1008664

In January of 1989, partners by the names of Robert W. Pate, Ronald C. Love, and Jay Hudson started their hunt for treasure in Peck Canyon. In October on 1989 they applied for a Special Use Permit with Mark South of the Forest Service. In March of 1990, William Conley,Jr. and Ron Quinn visited the site to find out if any progress had been made. Ron Quinn had visited Mr Workman in the 1960s and was interested to know if anything had been found. This search may have been the result of research done by Raymond M. Deere of Arivaca. The site was an old claim that was filed by a Mr William K. Workman in 1949. Mr Workman lived in a stone shelter that was built on a concrete slab on the claim. He believed that a Spanish treasure was located in the area. An old cross had been carved into a tree at the site. Another contributor was Manuel V. Ortiz. Mr Ortiz was one of the purchasers of a copy of the Molina Derroteo and was also interested in the progress. Manuel Ortiz visited the site, and he made a pencil drawing of the tree with the cross. Mr Ortiz is an internationally known artist. He also designed and built a deep seeking locater which was used at the site. Nothing was found and the group restored the disturbed area before returning home.

 

[deducer]

These questions have been discussed and answered by almost everyone on this forum. I have no interest in changing anyone's opinion on anything. A great deal can be learned by studying the information that has already been posted here by Roy, Cactus, Mike, and many others.

You don't seem to understand that your statement:

Just because you believe something, it doesn't mean that we should all share your opinion.

is quite callous, and dismissive of the amount of research that Roy has done.

Roy has made arguments that are backed by research he has done and has taken time to share with us in detail, so that we are able to learn more or at least verify on our own.

 

[lgadbois]

I believe the Tumacacori ( Molina ) map , shows the first mission of Tumacacori , half mile north from the present mission .

Marius,

That is a very good question. The history of Tumacacori is somewhat clouded. The Pima settlement and visita during Kino's time was on the East side of the Santa Cruz (Santa Maria) River. It was near a wide place in the river that could be easily crossed. A mission building was built in 1732 by Padre Johann Grazhofer, but we know little about it's design or size. San Cayetano del Tumacacori only became important after the Presidio was built in Tubac in 1752. The current San Jose del Tumacacori building was started in 1773 by the Franciscans and was built on the West side of the river at a different location. The contruction was never finished due to lack of funds, and the Mission was abandoned in the late 1840s.

Some believe that the door of the temple mentioned in the Molina is the mission door, and some believe it refers to the site of an Aztec or Indian temple. Milton Rose wrote that the reference was to an "Upper Mission", but I do not remember if he ever identified the location of said place.

There are many questions that remain unanswered. Is the Molina Derrotero a true waybill? Does the map belong to the Molina, or is it something that was created much later? Was the cache of items done during the Jesuit period, or was it done in the 1840s? Do the directions pertain to the Javelina site, or a site East of the river? Quien sabe?

 

[lgadbois]

You don't seem to understand that your statement:




is quite callous, and dismissive of the amount of research that Roy has done.

Roy has made arguments that are backed by research he has done and has taken time to share with us in detail, so that we are able to learn more or at least verify on our own.

I respect Roy and his research. I think he is big enough to stick up for himself. Roy sometimes goes on the offensive in putting down the opinion of others on this board. He may made have his facetious comment in humor, but I can read between the lines.

Meanwhile, I don't have to prove anything to you or anyone else.

 

[Oroblanco]

Hola amigos, this is another long one of necessity so I must ask your indulgence again, thank you in advance;

Igadbois wrote

Mike is right.

Yes, you were Roy. But I prefer looking at the facts rather than responding to the tone of your comments. You seem a little overly defensive about your opinions. Just because you believe something, it doesn't mean that we should all share your opinion. And that's my opinion!

I certainly don't wish to tell you, or anyone, that they are not entitled to your own opinion. The written word never seems to give the impression desired, which would be plain if spoken thanks to subtle things. I had added a smiley, thinking that would make it clear that it was intended as a joke, but did not add several more which would come across as ridicule. However, there is a conundrum in your reply.

To point it up, have to re-post several messages to show it:

Originally Posted by Oroblanco

Well that settles the question of finding the treasure, it was found and removed in 1911. We can save our time and energy not hunting for it.

Igadbois replied,

The description of the find does not agree with the inventory of items of the Molina Derrotero. The items that were found in 1911 may have been the Tumacacori Mission fixtures. The dates on the Spanish coins would have told us a lot about the who and when questions.

The Molina document would either have to be dismissed, so this found treasure very well COULD have been the total treasure of the Franciscan Tumacacori, OR if you wish to use the Molina document to compare against this found treasure, then you are admitting that the Jesuits were fairly active miners and Tumacacori an important spot in their mining activities.

Igadbois wrote earlier,

It is my opinion that the Jesuit Missionaries' focus in the New World was on building the Church and educating the indigenous peoples. Everywhere that missions and visitas were started, the villages became centers of local commerce. You can not have commerce without a medium of exchange. The Spanish army and nationals had gold and silver for purchasing goods and services, and the mission locations prospered because they filled the demands for food, clothing, etc. Was the Jesuit organization involved in mining? Yes! They had some of the best schools in Europe, and they brought the knowledge of mining technology with them wherever they went. Did the mission accumulate wealth? Yes! Much of that wealth was reinvested in the local communities in building mission infrastructure. And while shiploads of billions of dollars in gold and silver were sent back to Spain, the comparative amount of Jesuit treasure that has actually found has been next to nothing. We know that the rich ornamentation of some of the mission churches was taken and hidden by the people from the village. Whatever large caches that may have been made by the Jesuit priests, almost none have been found.

So you have concluded that the Jesuits were not mining in Pimeria Alta, they were there mainly to educate the natives and build the Church; by this reasoning then, the Molina document must be rejected as a fraud, OR assigned to Franciscans, and at a time period when there were NO Franciscans in Pimeria Alta. See the problem there?

I would also point out that while very little treasure has been found around the Arizona missions, quite a few of the MINES were found and worked, though more remain un-discovered; several of the people who found these mines stated that they found them by the information found on Jesuit documents at the missions. The fact that we don't have these documents today does not mean they did not exist; to support this contention that many documents have been taken by earlier treasure hunters and simply by people interested in them, quote

The state and church archives of Mexico have been gone over many times not only by Bancroft and Bandelier but by many others both before and after them. Not only these but the general archives of the Jesuit Order collected from all the Christian world at Salamanca Spain have been ransacked again and again. There are many private collections in Mexico some of which have been published notably the collections of Icalzbalceta and Bustamante. Valuable ancient documents exist in possession of private individuals in New Mexico and other parts of the United States and there are collections in the Smithsonian Institution and in the Lenox library New York among those in the latter is Castaneda's journal of the Coronado expedition . The original journal of the De Vargas expedition of 1692 is or was in private hands in New Mexico and the owner once offered to sell it to the writer There is also a copy in the archives in the City of Mexico.

<from Old Santa Fe: A Magazine of History, Archaeology, Genealogy &c, pp 89, published 1915 >

Then too, our skeptics have repeatedly insisted that practically nothing has been found of Jesuit treasures, which is not necessarily true. The rather less than impressive amount found hidden in Baja in 1768 may not be enough to change anyone's opinion, but how about $4,823,364,925.91, not counting the 26 bags of gemstones, found in a Jesuit fortress/monastery in Brazil in 1891. That is over $4.8 BILLION in gold, what it would be worth today that is, and in that case, when the Marquis de Pombal, another "enemy" of the Jesuits heard that they were supposed to have paid a 20% the royal quinto to the king, the padre named on the receipts found with it, father Anton Desartes, first claimed that he had never had the money and gold in his possession, then claimed that it had been paid to the king in a previous rulership! Pombal never found it, and our Jesuit apologists have pointed to the failure to find such treasures as "proof" they never had it, but it was eventually found.

Also previously posted was another impressive treasure found at a Jesuit college in Spain, I have not tried to calculate the value in today's money but it would be impressive, and another found hidden in a cave Europe (the exact name escapes me at the moment). So some decent treasures have been found.

I respectfully disagree about the Jesuits and mining in Arizona, which is not to say that the Franciscans did not mine, as I agree that they were, and smelting, probably casting bells, some of the activities of the Franciscans has probably gotten tagged as Jesuit wrongly. However there is enough evidence to show that it was indeed the Jesuits whom were mining in Arizona, well before the Franciscans. Father Garces even implied that the Jesuits were so busy with their "labors" that they did not have time to instruct the natives in basic Catechism and teach them to speak Spanish, which they were SUPPOSED to have been doing all along yet never did, in any area where the Jesuits were active. <Nor did the Jesuits in Canada and Louisiana, teach the Amerindians French, as they were supposed to do there, which raised suspicions against the Jesuits in Paris BTW>

Rather than make this long post even longer, I will point up just a few examples to support the contention that it was the Jesuits mining in Arizona, before and probably more extensively than the Franciscans who followed;

Father Segesser mentioned his being in the "silver mountains" and also complained about not being able to work the mines in safety due to the Indian troubles; Segesser wrote about the silver mountains while being assigned to San Xavier del Bac. Why would Segesser refer to working the mines, if the mining were NOT done by the Jesuits but by the later Franciscans?

Father Nentvig made a whole string of rather "incriminating" statements about lost mines, made it a point to list the Spanish mines and there are many, but NONE in Arizona, and listed mines with the various Missions implying that they must belong to those missions, or perhaps to the Indians, in which case the Jesuits would be the legal "guardians" and thus owners for all practical purposes. Segesser and Nentvig were both Jesuits.

Quite a few of the EARLY sources, nearly all, state that the first mines in Arizona were operated by the Jesuits, these sources include even the USGS. Only a century later, for some reason, in modern times, we have had many historians deny that it was the Jesuits whom were the pioneer miners and prospectors in Arizona.

We know that the Jesuits owned several (a number actually) of mines openly, despite all the laws against it, and these mines are never mentioned by our modern Jesuit apologists; the fact that they did own and operate mines, even importing African slaves for Matape (if memory serves, correction welcome) combined with that string of silver mines (and few gold) found well hidden in southern Arizona that they did NOT own openly but are referred to by father Nentvig right along with the missions they are associated with. Silver mines produce silver, and most of the silver mines found in southern Arizona also carry a small amount of copper with the silver (as is normal). Some of these mines had a respectable amount of ore already removed when rediscovered by Americans, so what happened to this ore, and/or the silver it contained? It would amount to TONS from just the Salero alone, yet no discovery of TONS of silver has ever been found in southern Arizona.

One more point here concerning the slag and smelting - while it is certainly possible that the Franciscans cast several (3) bells at Tumacacori, this should not have produced some 120 tons of slag, nor will it explain the slag mounds at Guevavi, or the partial mis-cast bell found there.

The first Franciscan priest, Father Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabé, arrived in 1768 and took up residency at the Mission with about fifty families. The Apaches attacked in 1769 and killed all but two of the few Spanish soldiers guarding the Mission; in 1770 and 1771 the natives continued their attacks and the cabecera was relocated to Tumacácori. Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi was abandoned for the last time in 1775.

<from the Wiki article>

So while there were Franciscans at Guevavi, it was a rather brief and tenuous presence; under attack by Apaches repeatedly and with a notably smaller population than had been living at Guevavi under the Jesuits. I would say that the evidence of smelting and casting at Guevavi, almost has to be the work of the Jesuits rather than the Franciscans. Consider this, why else would father Nentvig, in his Rudo Ensayo, have mentioned that there is a gold mine near Guevavi, that was not being worked at that moment, if the mission had nothing to do with it?

My apologies if anything posted was offensive, no offense was intended. After several years of this debate, with NO effect on our skeptics, the exercise has not been terribly productive. Trying to change opinions just won't work for some folks.

Good luck and good hunting Igadbois and everyone reading this, thank you to Deducer for the kind words, I do try to remember to state that something IS my opinion when posting something that is just my opinion and will try to make that a habit in future as well.

Oroblanco