Hola amigos - this is a very long reply, as one last attempt to sway the opinion of our amigo Cactusjumper Joe. Some of what I am posting has been posted before but it was easier to do than to hunt up the old posts where they were originally done. So I must ask your indulgence, thank you in advance.
Cactusjumper wrote
Roy,
I can see how I might read/understand Father Nentvig's words differently than someone who believes as you do.....Can you?
It's quite true that many, if not most, of the missions (Jesuit, Franciscan, Dominican....etc.) were located near Spanish mines. As I have said before, it's possible that the Jesuit's worked, or had them worked, mines in Mexico. I don't see it on the scale that you and many other do. I don't think that makes me stupid.
I have never said you were STUPID amigo, as I have never held that opinion of you, rather quite the opposite, which is why your opinion on this particular topic is so hard for me to understand. In fact you are one of the most intelligent men I have ever met, which is what makes this topic all the more baffling to me. I might say
you can be STUBBORN, however!
I cited Nentvig's work Rudo Ensayo on purpose, for
he made it a point to list the Spanish mines and settlements separately! The properties, including ranches, listed with the Missions, we can then conclude
are NOT Spanish but are Mission properties. From that passage cited earlier, read it again - perhaps I can point up the angle.
Aribaca, destroyed in 1751, was an estancia and dependent mission of Guebavi. Two ranches nearby, Sopori and Tucubavi, have remained deserted although the missionary of Guebavi has sent some cattle there, and the mines in the vicinity are being worked.
<Rudo Ensayo>
Aribaca (Arivaca) was an estate and dependent mission of Guebavi (Guevavi). Two ranches nearby, have remained deserted although the missionary of Guebavi sent cattle to them, and the mines in the vicinity are being worked, at the time Nentvig wrote his essay. The ranches are clearly the property of the dependent mission and thus owned by the mission of Guevavi, as are the mines.
Why should the mission re-stock ranches they did not own? These very same mines were later mentioned by de Anza in 1774, on passing them, he noted that,
"This place has the advantage of good gold and silver mines which were worked until the year 'sixty seven, <edit, Anza means 1767> when they were abandoned because of greater persecution by the Apaches."
<Diary of Juan Bautista de Anza, Sunday, January 9, 1774>
So the mines that Nentvig mentions right along with the cattle ranches of Guebabi's dependent mission,
were abandoned in 1767. What happened in 1767? The Jesuits were expelled!
No Apache raid or Pima rebellion, the padres left and presto, the very mines listed as property of a dependent mission for Guevavi are suddenly abandoned.
What about Matape? A Jesuit college was located there, one especially richly furnished with silver ornaments. Father Polzer, famous and highly accredited historian of the southwest, known to chuckle at any mention of Jesuit mines, said, quote
“San José de Mátape, situated at the headwaters of the Río Mátape in central Sonora, never enjoyed the prominence of being one of the major Indian centers in the Jesuit mission system of northwestern New Spain. From the time of the first recorded visit to the village in 1622 to the final gathering of the exiled Sonoran Jesuits in 1767, the mission's importance fluctuated with the fortunes of Indian inhabitants and shifts in Jesuit strategy for the conversion of the north…. it was the earliest Sonora mission to be designated a collegium inchoatum (incipient college), a status it maintained throughout the greater part of its history.”
<, Polzer, The Jesuit Mission>
Any mention of the silver mines being operated by the Jesuit priests stationed at Matape?
Nope. Yet, West found out about it, (thinking it the ONLY such operation) and wrote
"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>
To prove that the silver mines supporting the college at Matape were NOT the only mines owned OPENLY by the Jesuits (just very quietly) remember what was listed in the study mentioned earlier, quote
"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>
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>
To this we can add the mines of Pozos, the mines owned by the California Fund, which itself was Jesuit owned.
The Jesuits owned a number of mines and yet none of our modern Jesuit apologists ever mention them!
If none of this is "convincing" to you Joe,
I don't know what would be. We could again post the lavish and very valuable decorations described at the Jesuit (and Franciscan for that matter) mission churches and even the visitas, despite being in buildings made of humble adobe mud, which decorations are nowhere to be seen when the Franciscan padres arrived in 1768 to take over. In fact their inventory found very little of value at any of the former Jesuit missions, for example not one silver statue of the Madonna, though this is specifically mentioned by several Jesuits as being one solid silver statue (size not given, so perhaps not large) in EVERY mission church and visita in Sonora including Pimeria Alta.
Would it help if you were to read the story of the lost Wandering Jew mine, and how the Americans found Jesuit documents in an old mission and then found the mine, followed by my taking you to the Wandering Jew mine so you can stand in it? Or the Salero? Or the Ostrich? (also known as the Old Padres mine, reportedly the first silver mine discovered by the Jesuits in Arizona) It would be a fun field trip, and heck I will even do the cooking if that might help.
The Jesuits and their apologists of today are to put things bluntly,
lying about their history in the Southwest, rather a whitewash job is all we are supposed to see. I don't know what you think the "scale" of Jesuit and Franciscan mining activity was, but it was certainly larger than incidental, using apparently fairly large amounts of quicklime to crack the rock and fairly large smelting activity at Guevavi. Not mining on a vast scale, but more than a "little". I do not propose that any Jesuit mission had thousands of Indians working at their mines daily, for a good part of the available manpower had to be used for working the fields and livestock to support the population. We know that the Jesuits made use of trusted Opata (and other tribes) overseers to keep the Pimas and Papagos at their work, and not Spaniards.
One last thing - I do understand that your opinion may be affected by what I call the Santa Claus syndrome; for when we stop believing in Santa, it is almost impossible to believe again, no matter what evidence is presented. However you have stated repeatedly, that you keep the door open, and consider each new piece of evidence/document and/or argument. I would have thought that your views would have shifted (pole-shift) at the actual listed mines owned by the Jesuits, considering how much denial and silence of recent decades about them, plus the NOT-lost mines, and for that matter just what is NOT found for we know that the product of gold and silver mines is gold and silver, and very little of either has ever been found that can be traced to the Jesuit mines. When considered in the light of their subversive plotting which led to their downfall in Spanish America, and add to this that the former Indians of their missions tell us that the Jesuits hid vast treasures, I don't see how one can continue to view it all as if it were practically nothing.
Cactusjumper also wrote
Hope all is well with you and Beth. Give her a smooch for me, and give the pups an extra treat.....Don't get those instructions mixed up.....you know how you are. Seems like last time that happened you ended up with a scar on your lip.
And a dent in the cranium! To our readers -
don't believe all those web sites that claim that all Huskies are super friendly, will never bark, never fight and never bite! My wife and I have the scars to prove those claims wrong! We are doing very well, been extremely busy of late as we have added to our work which I will explain in an email later, even the weather here has been cooperating. This year of 2014 has been very different for us, in a positive way so far.
Good luck and good hunting to you all, I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Roy ~ Oroblanco
Seems like last time that happened you ended up with a scar on your lip.
I suppose you will have to clarify exactly when those papers were "circulated widely within the Jesuit community". If it was done before the expulsion, I believe that might indeed be risky, depending on the content of the papers. What did you have in mind when you wrote that? 
you asked --->Does having carnal knowledge mean having sexual relations or knowing about the mechanics of the act? 
