Remember the instance found by Mr West, in which Jesuits were working silver mines?
<It is posted in this thread further up on this page, however for the benefit of our readers whom are not actively posting here it is again>
"In at least one documented case, the relationship between missionaries and miners in connection with food supply resulted in a singular activity on the part of the priests. Mining in sonora was not limited entirely to lay Spaniards. The Jesuits of Matape mission also engaged in the extraction and refining of silver ores from deposits near Tecoripa, not far from San Miguel Arcangel. According to the rules of the Jesuit order, priests were forbidden to own, operate, or even knowledge of mining. But apparently ownership of the mines in question had been signed over to the mission by a Spanish miner in payment for debts he incurred for supplies obtained from the padres. Moreover, the priests claimed that the mines belonged to the College of San Jose at Matape, not to the mission itself, and thus the superiors permitted continuation of the "forbidden" activity. During the late seventeenth century, annual proceeds from the Tecoripa mines under church management ranged from three thousand to twelve thousand pesos, a substantial windfall for the college and the missionaries. "
<Sonora: its geographical personality by Robert Cooper West, pp 62>
This happens to be the same area where African slaves were introduced, and the mines so glaringly omitted by father Nentvig; is this the only case where a Jesuit college held title to mines?
"Some capital was also placed in non-agricultural enterprises. The most significant were the mines which provided the sole support of the college of Zacatecas.<snip>
This occurred, for example, in the case of the mines belonging to the college of Zacatecas. The assessors appraised them in 1773 and gave them a value of 365,000 pesos but because of renewed vigor in the mining industry in Zacatecas, the officials conducted a reappraisal in 1780 and increased their value to 730,000 pesos."
<The Wealth of the Jesuits in Mexico, 1670-1767 Author(s): James D. Riley; Source: The Americas, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Oct., 1976), pp. 226-266 Published by: Catholic University of America Press on behalf of Academy of American Franciscan History pp 243, 245>
Did you catch it? Riley tells us that the college of Zacatecas sole source of income was its MINES. The mines mentioned by Mr West, are not the same mines - they belonged to the college of San Jose at Matape! This means there are at least two documented cases of Jesuit colleges which owned and operated MINES. Whom do we think was doing that labor, in those mines? Hired Spanish workers, or do you think perhaps it could have been the local Indios?
Just for good measure, I will add this - the author James Riley also stated, quote
"The Jesuits had three kinds of investments, urban rental property, interest bearing notes, and commercial ventures such as haciendas, mines, obrajes and retail stores which they exploited themselves."
<ibid, pp 242>
Also, before this idea is proposed - NO, I don't believe we can attribute those two instances admitted to by father Polzer in which priests were found involved in mining, for the way he phrased it, implied they were individual priests, not a group of mines owned by Jesuit colleges. I am confident that if father Polzer was talking about mines owned by Jesuit colleges, there would have been no reason for the priests to be punished in any way.
Considering that this report of a second group of mines belonging to a Jesuit college, originates from a Catholic publisher, I don't think we can dismiss it as so much fiction from the imagination of treasure writers. It is interesting too, that in each case where an historian discovers an instance of Jesuit mines, they presume it to be a SINGULAR occurrence!
