JESUIT TREASURES - ARE THEY REAL?

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Mastiff4me

Thank you for the thumbs up. Some times us girls need to keep the boys inline.

Corp

 

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[gollum]

Hey Corp,

Never meant to say that Jesuits were the progenitors of religious types mining. I think (and so did King Philip V) that the practice was widespread and ignored by the local governments because the Church carried a lot of influence wherever it was.

If you read my personal beliefs on the subject in past posts, you will see that I think the Jesuits were far smarter than other Orders, and experts in finding the loopholes (if you have "Rules and Precepts of the Jesuit Missions of Northwestern New Spain" by Charles Polzer SJ you can see it in action). I personally believe that the Jesuits used Temporal Coadjutors as their buffer between the Order and Mining. They did this in other matters as well. Since temporal coadjutors were free to run businesses for profit, hold public office, etc, there was no problem as long as their close connections to the Order were kept secret. An example would be when Gen. Juan Mateo Manje complained in a letter about some Jesuit practices, he wound up in prison (long story short).

Best - Mike

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Gollum

I have no doubt that the Jesuit order had indirect business interests in mining as well as any other industries via Temporal Coadjutors. The Power of saving one soul by donating to the Jesuit order and receive services such as education and Mining processing , metal working expertise was far more better incentive, than contributing the Royal fifth to a monarch who put nothing back into the communities where the mine owners were working and living. king Philip V realized that much of the wealth was being siphoned off by various subjects. A classic example of shipwrecks recovered by officials of the Crown discovered treasure on board exceeded the Cargo manifest was clear indication that corruption was common place across all levels of society when smuggling and avoiding paying the royal fifth was a national pastime.

But it was not just an isolated case in this time and place this corruption was there from day one of the gold shipments returning from the Americas. A case in point Around 1648, Captain Francisco Gomez Rocha hid near Potosi (Bolivia) a treasure of 170 tons of silver. Gómez Rocha was the biggest culprit in the falsification of the silver currencies in Potosi mint and for several years the richest man in the city. In 1649 he tried to poison a governor when threatened with exposure and he was condemned to death and executed. In a letter of the viceroy from the Peru written to their king from Lima on April 2,1650, he affirm that: and although it is known that Gomez Rocha had hidden great quantity of money, he didn't declare anything This is the history documented with primary source. General Archive of Indies (Seville) Section Lima, bundle 54

The Crown had been well aware of the bleeding off of wealth from the Americas was rife and in cases where proven made examples of it such as Gomez Rocha. However there was so much wealth flowing out of the Americas they didn't seem a need to pursue the matter. Until Philip V reign when the South and north American Cash cow began to dry up and he then looked on cracking down on the corruption. The Jesuit order was on such order with ostentatious display of wealth in their churches was one such target, that fueled jealousy, resentment and fear of the growing influence of the Jesuits in the New world from the monarchy.

However it only came to ahead As the later king of Spain Charles III tried to rescue his empire from decay through far-reaching reforms such as weakening the Church and its monasteries, promoting science and university research, facilitating trade and commerce, modernizing agriculture and avoiding wars. He never achieved satisfactory control over finances, and was obliged to borrow to meet expenses. His reforms proved short-lived and Spain relapsed after his death. This slow decay lead to the eventual South America war of Independence and the eventual loss of most of Spains new world colonies.

Corp

 

[Oroblanco]

Greetings Corp and everyone;

Corporate Investigations wrote

In the context of Did the Jesuits of the old order own mines? No they did not need to.

It appears that you have reached your conclusions from having looked at the Rome end of the animal, which is not the whole picture. I don't wish to cast aspersions on your research, however I do not have a positive opinion of the Jesuit Order as a whole, nor of their history, and would not trust them to show anything to any non-Jesuit researcher which might cast a shadow on their image as an Order.

A Catholic study was done on the wealth of the Jesuits at the moment of their expulsion from Mexico, it is available on JSTOR. The title of it is The Wealth of the Jesuits in Mexico. This compilation lists several mines which were owned OPENLY by the Jesuit Order, and in the footnotes you will find that some of the properties listed as "Haciendas" were really ore mills. Father Polzer admitted to "one incident" in which two padres were caught mining and were "punished", while another researcher (I think his name was West) found "one example" of another mine being worked by the padres. The Jesuits definitely owned mines in Mexico, and we have reason to believe also had mines in almost every country in Latin America.

As to treasures - one example found and recovered was over 70,000,000 gold dollars, 2,800 pounds of gold dust and 20,000 pounds of gold ingots found with documents showing Jesuit father Anton Desarte, superior of the Jesuit college at Rio signed the receipts for this treasure, and that he was to pay 20.000.000 dollars to the king of Portugal, which would make sense as a royal fifth. A search done of the Jesuit missions of Baja California after the expulsion turned up over 7000 pesos in gold that had been hidden away, undeclared as was required by law.

The Jesuits never ever admit to any wrongdoing - yet ended up literally thrown out of almost every country on Earth at one time or another, some countries more than once; they were implicated in a string of assassinations and attempted assassinations, and were even suppressed "forever" by a Pope at one point, in which suppression document, the Pope hinted at the Jesuit's "unfortunate tendency to acquisitiveness". Vast fortunes were found being held in secret bank accounts in Holland after their suppression, and even during their suppression, the Order kept active in secret, founding Georgetown University in Maryland for example.

In nearly every country where Jesuit missionaries were active, we have legends of lost Jesuit mines and treasures; in some countries trying to get control of the precious metals mines was one of the first efforts done by the good padres, as happened in Japan, along with being implicated in trying to overthrow the Emperor. On being expelled from Japan, a number of Jesuits managed to sneak back into the country illegally. We won't even go into the even darker blots on their record, which disgusting revelations continue to turn up to this day.

We have had a lengthy discussion of this topic over several years, and the Jesuit apologists like father Polzer turn a blind eye to all evidence, and Polzer was of course a Jesuit. Some of the Jesuit mines have been found and are not lost today, like the Wandering Jew, the Montezuma or Old Padres in Arizona, the St Brigida mine in Sonora as examples. The fact that the king of Spain had to issue not one but repeated orders for the missionaries to STOP mining in his colonies, shows us how ineffective the enforcement of the laws really were. The crackdown in 1767 was hoped to catch them "with pants down" and reap the accumulated treasures, but the actual roundup was done in such a slow and plodding way, with word reaching ahead of the soldiers, and in some cases the padres were simply sent a message to come in (as happened in Arizona) the sting operation fell short. The fact that the Spanish authorities, and Portuguese in their dominions, or the French authorities in French colonial territories, all failed to turn up the hidden wealth of the Jesuits only proves that it was not possible to get the job done in that day. Modern historians have been puzzled by the piles of smelting slag found at Guevavi and Tumacacori, waste products of silver production, which predates the arrival of the Americans. Which brings up the last point.

The royal cedula forbidding the clergy from mining does not name ANY of the Orders operating in Mexico, for they were ALL doing it. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Augustinians etc even the good sisters of a nunnery had a mine and smelter operation. The Franciscans whom replaced the Jesuits in Arizona wasted little time in trying to re-locate the hidden mines of the Jesuits, and expand the operation to the Colorado river where father Garces was "martyred" by the Indians there after they were forced to work as slaves mining gold. If the Jesuits were not guilty of mining, why then do the royal cedulas not list the guilty Orders, or mention that the Jesuits are innocent?

This modern revisionist attempt to whitewash the missionaries works, is puzzling and hardly a good thing. The Indians of the various villages of the missions were not free, they had to work three days per week for the padres; they could not leave the mission without permission of the padres, could not do business with any outsiders, all such business had to go through the padres. Failure to work, or work hard enough, was punished by whipping or the stocks among other possibilities. The padres were often operating well beyond the frontier of settlement by Spaniards, where their word was law and backed by Spanish soldiers as well as trusted Indios. Mining was only a part of their enterprises of course, and all missions were expected to become fully self-supporting, so a blind eye could be turned toward illegal mining by the padres in many cases. The fact that the Jesuits owned mines openly, and we have so much testimony about the Jesuits having secret mines, often from the very Indians whom were the members of the various Jesuit missions, while the apologists try to deny everything just flabbergasts me. How does that old saying go - there is none so blind as he who will not see? For there should not be ANY such evidence that the Jesuits had or operated mines, according to father Polzer and the Jesuit apologists, yet we do have evidence that they certainly did.

I am sorry that you did not find the "smoking gun" in the Jesuit archives of Rome, but I doubt that such records would ever be allowed to be seen by any non-Jesuit. I hope I have not bored you to tears, thank you for your time and I hope you all have a very pleasant evening.
Oroblanco

 

[Rebel - KGC]

WELL DONE... WELL DONE!

 

[Mastiff4me]

Greetings Corp and everyone; Corporate Investigations wrote It appears that you have reached your conclusions from having looked at the Rome end of the animal, which is not the whole picture. I don't wish to cast aspersions on your research, however I do not have a positive opinion of the Jesuit Order as a whole, nor of their history, and would not trust them to show anything to any non-Jesuit researcher which might cast a shadow on their image as an Order. A Catholic study was done on the wealth of the Jesuits at the moment of their expulsion from Mexico, it is available on JSTOR. The title of it is The Wealth of the Jesuits in Mexico. This compilation lists several mines which were owned OPENLY by the Jesuit Order, and in the footnotes you will find that some of the properties listed as "Haciendas" were really ore mills. Father Polzer admitted to "one incident" in which two padres were caught mining and were "punished", while another researcher (I think his name was West) found "one example" of another mine being worked by the padres. The Jesuits definitely owned mines in Mexico, and we have reason to believe also had mines in almost every country in Latin America. As to treasures - one example found and recovered was over 70,000,000 gold dollars, 2,800 pounds of gold dust and 20,000 pounds of gold ingots found with documents showing Jesuit father Anton Desarte, superior of the Jesuit college at Rio signed the receipts for this treasure, and that he was to pay 20.000.000 dollars to the king of Portugal, which would make sense as a royal fifth. A search done of the Jesuit missions of Baja California after the expulsion turned up over 7000 pesos in gold that had been hidden away, undeclared as was required by law. The Jesuits never ever admit to any wrongdoing - yet ended up literally thrown out of almost every country on Earth at one time or another, some countries more than once; they were implicated in a string of assassinations and attempted assassinations, and were even suppressed "forever" by a Pope at one point, in which suppression document, the Pope hinted at the Jesuit's "unfortunate tendency to acquisitiveness". Vast fortunes were found being held in secret bank accounts in Holland after their suppression, and even during their suppression, the Order kept active in secret, founding Georgetown University in Maryland for example. In nearly every country where Jesuit missionaries were active, we have legends of lost Jesuit mines and treasures; in some countries trying to get control of the precious metals mines was one of the first efforts done by the good padres, as happened in Japan, along with being implicated in trying to overthrow the Emperor. On being expelled from Japan, a number of Jesuits managed to sneak back into the country illegally. We won't even go into the even darker blots on their record, which disgusting revelations continue to turn up to this day. We have had a lengthy discussion of this topic over several years, and the Jesuit apologists like father Polzer turn a blind eye to all evidence, and Polzer was of course a Jesuit. Some of the Jesuit mines have been found and are not lost today, like the Wandering Jew, the Montezuma or Old Padres in Arizona, the St Brigida mine in Sonora as examples. The fact that the king of Spain had to issue not one but repeated orders for the missionaries to STOP mining in his colonies, shows us how ineffective the enforcement of the laws really were. The crackdown in 1767 was hoped to catch them "with pants down" and reap the accumulated treasures, but the actual roundup was done in such a slow and plodding way, with word reaching ahead of the soldiers, and in some cases the padres were simply sent a message to come in (as happened in Arizona) the sting operation fell short. The fact that the Spanish authorities, and Portuguese in their dominions, or the French authorities in French colonial territories, all failed to turn up the hidden wealth of the Jesuits only proves that it was not possible to get the job done in that day. Modern historians have been puzzled by the piles of smelting slag found at Guevavi and Tumacacori, waste products of silver production, which predates the arrival of the Americans. Which brings up the last point. The royal cedula forbidding the clergy from mining does not name ANY of the Orders operating in Mexico, for they were ALL doing it. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Augustinians etc even the good sisters of a nunnery had a mine and smelter operation. The Franciscans whom replaced the Jesuits in Arizona wasted little time in trying to re-locate the hidden mines of the Jesuits, and expand the operation to the Colorado river where father Garces was "martyred" by the Indians there after they were forced to work as slaves mining gold. If the Jesuits were not guilty of mining, why then do the royal cedulas not list the guilty Orders, or mention that the Jesuits are innocent? This modern revisionist attempt to whitewash the missionaries works, is puzzling and hardly a good thing. The Indians of the various villages of the missions were not free, they had to work three days per week for the padres; they could not leave the mission without permission of the padres, could not do business with any outsiders, all such business had to go through the padres. Failure to work, or work hard enough, was punished by whipping or the stocks among other possibilities. The padres were often operating well beyond the frontier of settlement by Spaniards, where their word was law and backed by Spanish soldiers as well as trusted Indios. Mining was only a part of their enterprises of course, and all missions were expected to become fully self-supporting, so a blind eye could be turned toward illegal mining by the padres in many cases. The fact that the Jesuits owned mines openly, and we have so much testimony about the Jesuits having secret mines, often from the very Indians whom were the members of the various Jesuit missions, while the apologists try to deny everything just flabbergasts me. How does that old saying go - there is none so blind as he who will not see? For there should not be ANY such evidence that the Jesuits had or operated mines, according to father Polzer and the Jesuit apologists, yet we do have evidence that they certainly did. I am sorry that you did not find the "smoking gun" in the Jesuit archives of Rome, but I doubt that such records would ever be allowed to be seen by any non-Jesuit. I hope I have not bored you to tears, thank you for your time and I hope you all have a very pleasant evening. Oroblanco

Oro Blanco. Oro, you are a brilliant writer. The next post you make should have a Simon and Schuster tag on it. Thanks for sharing these pearls of wisdom.

 

[Randy Bradford]

Oro, I hope my book is half as good as that post...

 

[Oroblanco]

Thank you all for the very kind words.

PS I forgot another point in that post -that the Jesuits must have had treasures of precious metals. The mines that they owned and operated, legally and illicitly, produced silver and gold and copper. Where did that silver, gold and copper go? Do we just assume that they produced nothing, even though the production was impressive enough that a Catholic Bishop complained about it?
The fact that so little of their "church treasures" have been found to date, is hardly proof that they never existed.

Good luck and good hunting to you all, I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Oroblanco

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

OK,OK, now that you have demonstrated your obvious Literary abilities, get to work on the Tayopa story. But keep posting your excellent articles

It is really quite simple ----> VENI, VEDI, ViCI

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Mastiff4me]

Haha! Good morning, Don Jose! I am running out to buy Oro a grand, matching sombrero to help attain all of this praise.

 

[gollum]

While I don't really hold anything against the Order (they were a product of their times), I do confess they and their apologists need to come clean on several matters such as mining and slaveholding.

Here is one really good proof of Jesuit Slave buying from South America:

There is a great book called "Spanish Treasure Bars - From New World Shipwrecks". On page 59, it shows two large silver bars. They are two of the first bars from the 1622 wreck of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. They are called the "Discovery Bars". These bars were not the same as most of the others on her manifest. They were made in Bolivia bearing the Potosi Mint Tally number, and were brought aboard in Cartagena, Colombia (as opposed to Portobello, Panama with the rest).



Dr. Eugene Lyon's translation of the manifest entry indicated this belonged to the king for payment of tax levied against the sale of slaves. He further states that the bar belonged to a Portuguese Slave Trader named Duarte de Leon Marquez (hence the large "D" on the left side), who held a concession to sell slaves in Cartagena. I will go with Dr. Lyon's translation because it does tie in neatly with my theory, and there are few that know more than he does in this arena. The previous owner/s of the silver bars paid to Marquez for slaves is/are unknown. That sigla is not one known to belong to any person. The sigla is an "A" over a Cross..............................



.............. except for one thing. A Spaniard would not subjugate a Holy Cross under a letter. There are several siglas that have crosses on top of letters, but not one with a cross on the bottom, besides, a closer look at the bar itself shows that it is upside down (both bars)! Look at all the Roman Numerals. They are upside down and backwards! If you put the bars right, you get a different looking sigla:



NOW, everything is right (except the last owners "D"). The sigla now looks like a Cross over a "V". Anyone that has been researching Jesuit Treasure knows that a Cross with "V" means Jesuit.



What that says using Dr. Lyon's standards for bar translation is that the Cross over "V" (Jesuits) paid for slaves with silver bars. "D" (Marquez) turned the bars upside down and had his sigla carved into them, and sent some to the King of Spain as payment of taxes for the sale of slaves to the Jesuits.

I just felt the need to add one thing here; Jesuit Apologists will always just say the treasure bars are fakes because they have no REAL provenance. Easy comeback right? WEEEEEEEELLLLLLL, these bars are absolutely known to have been sitting on the bottom of the sea since 1622, and are also included in the Atocha's Manifest in Spain. Not so easy to call "FAKE" on these is it?

Best - Mike

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello All

As always some interesting comments here. Its getting close to that time of year and I wish to convey my seasons greetings and happy new year to all the aficionados of treasure legends.

See you all some time next year, after I get back from holiday.

Corp

 

[Oroblanco]

I hope you have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS amiga and a most prosperous New Year! We will look forward to your well-researched and well written posts!

I also hope that you were not offended by the reaction about Jesuit mines and treasures, we have had a long discourse on this over the past few years, and it kind of amazed me that the Jesuit library had nothing on their mining activities, even those which we can prove that they owned openly. One college had mines as its sole source of income for instance, and Bishop Pallafox even complained to the Pope about a very rich group of silver mines at the very same time that Tayopa was in bonanza production, yet nothing turned up in their records at Rome! For me this only underlines that they are covering up their former activities, and as you already know, I do not believe that we ought to handle them with kid gloves any longer. I am NOT anti-Catholic by any means either, just anti-Jesuit.

To all, for the sake of argument, I can play the devil's advocate temporarily, if you wish, and argue for the Jesuits.

Roy

 

[gollum]

Okay Roy, we'll now call you Orolamarro! LOL

Merry Christmas to you Corp. and every one else!

Mike

 

[Oroblanco]

Speaking as OroLamarro\\\

Gollum wrote

NOW, everything is right (except the last owners "D"). The sigla now looks like a Cross over a "V". Anyone that has been researching Jesuit Treasure knows that a Cross with "V" means Jesuit.

It is a well known fact that the Jesuits were the ones whom protected the poor innocent Indians from the enslavement of the evil greedy Spaniards my friend; hence it is not logical that in protecting people from enslavement, the same Order would be involved in purchasing or selling slaves.

May I ask your source for the claim that a a cross with a 'V' means Jesuit my friend? Thank you in advance;

///NOT as OroLamarro

Merry Christmas to you Mike, and to everyone reading this! Have to sign off, will pop in tomorrow.
Oroblanco

 

[cactusjumper]

I hope you have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS amiga and a most prosperous New Year! We will look forward to your well-researched and well written posts!

I also hope that you were not offended by the reaction about Jesuit mines and treasures, we have had a long discourse on this over the past few years, and it kind of amazed me that the Jesuit library had nothing on their mining activities, even those which we can prove that they owned openly. One college had mines as its sole source of income for instance, and Bishop Pallafox even complained to the Pope about a very rich group of silver mines at the very same time that Tayopa was in bonanza production, yet nothing turned up in their records at Rome! For me this only underlines that they are covering up their former activities, and as you already know, I do not believe that we ought to handle them with kid gloves any longer. I am NOT anti-Catholic by any means either, just anti-Jesuit.

To all, for the sake of argument, I can play the devil's advocate temporarily, if you wish, and argue for the Jesuits.

Roy

Roy,

Do you give any credence to the fact that Bishop Pallafox was a rabid anti-Jesuit? I have had people who hated me, call me a liar, to be kind, and every other name in the book. Do we give them credit just because they have made these public accusations?

As for the bars, that Mike mentioned, with Jesuit's names on them, it was standard procedure for the mines to pay for things they purchased from the missions with those bars.

Merry Christmas to all my friends here, and to some who are not so friendly as well.

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Hola amigos;
I see that I do not need to play Devil's Advocate (OroLamarro) for the moment. So putting my own hat back on....

Cactusjumper wrote

Roy,

Do you give any credence to the fact that Bishop Pallafox was a rabid anti-Jesuit? I have had people who hated me, call me a liar, to be kind, and every other name in the book. Do we give them credit just because they have made these public accusations?

Do you equate the rantings of people on an internet, open to any and all including complete whackadoos as well as genuises, usually posted as an attack without using their own name and often multiple false IDs as well, as being on a par with a Bishop complaining directly to the Pope and in his own name? It is not the same thing amigo. From what I have seen, Pallafox did not start off being "virulently anti-Jesuit" but became anti-Jesuit after seeing their excesses. I have not seen any person post attacks or accusations against you, Joe, whom had the standing of being a Bishop of the Church, much less have made those attacks in writing and signed in name, to some authority of the level of a Pope. In short NO I do not lend credence to Pallafox being just so virulently hateful of Jesuits that he was willing to make up false accusations and put them in writing, to the Pope. I am sure that to a Jesuit, Pallafox was a dangerous enemy indeed!

Really it is surprising that in view of all the evidence, as you have been participating in this debate for years, that you would continue to hold such a view.

Cactusjumper also wrote

As for the bars, that Mike mentioned, with Jesuit's names on them, it was standard procedure for the mines to pay for things they purchased from the missions with those bars.

Merry Christmas to all my friends here, and to some who are not so friendly as well.

Do you contend that the Jesuits had no precious metals mines? If you will grant that they did own at least some and operate them, what is the product of a precious metal mine? A silver mine generally produces silver correct? Would you not expect that a silver bar smelted from a Jesuit mine, would logically have marks of ownership? Would you not also expect that a silver bar PAID to a Jesuit mission for the purchase of grain or oxen or horses or the use of Indians, would rather be marked by the original producer, and NOT by the Jesuit Mission whom merely received it in payment? We could go off into the topic of slaves as well, do you contend that the Jesuits never owned any slaves, nor brought any into Mexico?

Hmm - that reads as if it is a series of rhetorical questions. So let me break it down.

Joe - 1: Do you contend that the Jesuits had no precious metals mines?

2: What is the product of a precious metal mine? A silver mine generally produces silver correct? Would you not expect that a silver bar smelted from a Jesuit mine, would logically have marks of ownership?

3: Would you not also expect that a silver bar PAID to a Jesuit mission for the purchase of grain or oxen or horses or the use of Indians, would rather be marked by the original producer, and NOT by the Jesuit Mission whom merely received it in payment?

4: Do you contend that the Jesuits never owned any slaves, nor brought any into Mexico?

That should make it simpler to address each question in turn.

Perhaps it would be helpful to review the older posts amigo, we have posted evidence, including a Catholic study done of the Jesuit wealth in Mexico at the time of their expulsion, which lists some of the mines the Jesuits owned openly. Some of the "Haciendas" were also not ranches or farms but mills for processing ore. The fact that they owned some mines OPENLY, and we have so much testimony that they were operating many more illicitly, should put even father Polzer and the National Park Service stand about their never having mines nor the treasure product of them, into doubt. Certainly you are willing to question authority, so why do you choose to accept the statements of a Jesuit whom must protect his own Order, and the National Park Service with an agenda to protect the old missions and ruins of them, against even a Catholic study which proved the Jesuits were mining? Does it not make both of these sources questionable, that we can show that the Jesuits indeed owned and operated mines, well beyond the one or two minor incidents Polzer sloughed off as nothing, and as far as the NPS - that they formerly publicly held the polar opposite view of what they espouse today, and that idiots damaged the ruins of missions which could be pointed to as a reason for them to hold their current position.

Thank you in advance, and Merry Christmas to you Joe and everyone (we will be saying this for a while - seven more days or so, so I hope no one gets tired of seeing it!)
Roy ~ Oroblanco

 

[gollum]

Hey Joe,

Look carefully at the Jesuit "+ & V". You can see that it was engraved over the letter "B". This could mean two things according to the transcription method of Dr. Lyons:

1. Could be a subjugated part of the "+ & V" (maybe meaning Bogota or Bolivian Missions source of the silver)

2. (Most likely) The original owner was "B", and paid the Jesuits for something in silver bars (look carefully and you will see the same "B" on both bars), and the Jesuits overstamped the "B" on the bars with their sigla. The Jesuits in turn paid for slaves from Duarte de Leon Marquez with those same silver bars (who then flipped the bars over and put his sigla on them). Marquez then used some of the bars to pay taxes to the King for the slaves he sold in Cartagena (which is how they wound up on the Atocha).

Although I am a firm believer in Jesuit Mining (especially rampant in South America), I can't be certain that Jesuit Mines were the source of this silver. Just a thought though, since my theory is that the Jesuits used Temporal Coadjutors as a buffer between themselves and breaking an ecclesiastical precept (and Royal Ordenza), the "B" might be the Coadjutor that ran the mine for the Order, and then gave the silver to the Order. A lot of theory, but I can fairly safely say that the bars PROBABLY didn't originate in a mine run DIRECTLY by the Jesuits.


Mike

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Mike mi buddy, you posted --> the Jesuits used Temporal Coadjutors

soo true, in almost every case, a mission was nearby, supposedly to save the souls of the miners, which allowed the priest, the Jesuit representative, the final say so, yet remaining in the background. I

In the case of Tayopa, the mission - capilla - was conveniently nearby, while tha actual head quarters was a few miles away. The mission was destroyed during the uprising, according to local legends, the Main head quarters also, but when. ?

In any event, ithe Head quarters is strictly a pile of non native materiel now, reddish earth which contrasts with the native soil..Yes it was of Adobe construction.. Presently a farm house is on top of it - would sure love to run a detector over it. ready 'Oro de Tayopa' & Golly

Don Jose de La Mancha

p.s. Father Polzer and I were friends to the last, yet we disagreed, the same applies to my missing friend La Mar.

 

[Oroblanco]

Mike - you have not gotten the Jesuits off the slave trade hook. I agree 100% that it was more likely the Coadjutors whom were in charge of running the mines as well as other operations in the "temporal" realm, however they were (and are) still Jesuits. I doubt that the Indios made any distinction between the padres leading them in prayer and the lay brother ordering them to work; I don't see why we should make any distinctions either for the padres were in charge of the Coadjutors and in charge of all valuables.

Don Jose - NO - I do not wish to run a metal detector around in someone's farm house! It would be a good way to end up bleeding! If that is where the cache is, then we need to purchase the property, THEN we can see about running the detectors! While I can agree that father Polzer was a good historian, he certainly never found any fault with his Jesuits, so was a flawed historian after all.

Joe - ? Nothing to say?

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas,
Oroblanco