JESUIT TREASURES - ARE THEY REAL?

[UncleMatt]

But I don't want to derail the thread, I was honestly curious if perhaps the Jesuits had knowledge of how to recover gold and silver from telluride ores, and if that it gave them an edge in collecting and hoarding those metals in the New World. So if anyone ever comes across anything related to that I would love to hear about it. We now return you to the regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.

 

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[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

But I don't want to derail the thread, I was honestly curious if perhaps the Jesuits had knowledge of how to recover gold and silver from telluride ores, and if that it gave them an edge in collecting and hoarding those metals in the New World. So if anyone ever comes across anything related to that I would love to hear about it. We now return you to the regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.

You call this progress

 

[deducer]

You call this progress

What "progress" are you looking for?

 

[sailaway]

looking for Mercedes, Spain I found this:
Jesuit Ranches and the Agrarian Development of Colonial Argentina, 1650-1767
By Nicholas P. Cushner
It seems that the ciudad mercedes cordoba españa may be the area the padre was from.

Priego de Córdoba, province of CÓRDOBA, Spain
http://www.caminosdepasion.com/en/patrimony/priego-de-cordoba/las-mercedes-church
The churches which can be found here are important examples of the Baroque style in the town such as those of la Asunción, la Aurora and la Iglesia de San Francisco (which has iinside the venerable image of Jesus of Nazareth). Examples from the last part of the Baroque age are the churches of las Mercedes and las Angustias (1772), of a rococo style.
CÓRDOBA, ROYAL COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAN HIPOLITO (Córdoba, Real Colegiata de San Hipólito, Plaza de San Ignacio de Loyola/Avenida del Gran Capitán)
http://www.royaltombs.dk/hiszpania/avgal.html
The Sacred Heart Church (Sagrado Corazon) in Plaza de San Ignacio, Malaga, Spain.

Cardinal Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana y Butrón
(1772.01.27 – 1800.12.15)
Born: 1722.09.22 (Spain)
Ordained Priest: 1751
Consecrated Bishop: 1765.08.11
Created Cardinal: 1789.03.30
Died: 1804.04.17 († 81)
Bishop of Plasencia (Spain) (1765.06.05 – 1766.04.14)
Metropolitan Archbishop of México (Mexico) (1766.04.14 – 1772.01.27)
Metropolitan Archbishop of Toledo (Spain) (1772.01.27 – 1800.12.15)
Cardinal-Priest of Ss. XII Apostoli (1797.07.24 – 1804.04.17)
http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/data/basESX.htm

The treasure from the frigate ‘Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes’, is to be put on show in Cartagena.
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/new...cedes_is_to_be_put_on_show_in_Cartagena.shtml

 

[Springfield]

Does anyone have information as to the reason for, or the results of Bartolomé Saenz's trip to the vicinity of Todos Santos - near the mouth of today's Bear Creek, near the village of Gila, NM - in 1756?

 

[gollum]

Does anyone have information as to the reason for, or the results of Bartolomé Saenz's trip to the vicinity of Todos Santos - near the mouth of today's Bear Creek, near the village of Gila, NM - in 1756?

It seems that Father Saenz, along with Father Sedelmayr were volunteered to accompany a troop of about 50 soldiers to the area scouting for Apache.

In the fall of 1756 an Indian-hunting force led by Captains Bernardo Bustamente and Gabriel Antonio de Vildósola were combing the previously unexplored territory to the east and along the upper Gila in search of Apaches. Riding with the expedition was Father Sáenz, who seven years earlier “full of apprehensions” had sought temporary asylum with Garrucho at Guevavi.Sáenz wrote an account of the expedition.

Funny how they took a guy like Saenz, who had nervous problems to a mostly unexplored area hunting Apache? Doesn't make a lot of sense................. unless ................ they were actually scouting for something else!

Mike

 

[Springfield]

... Funny how they took a guy like Saenz, who had nervous problems to a mostly unexplored area hunting Apache? Doesn't make a lot of sense................. unless ................ they were actually scouting for something else!

Mike

Maybe Todos Santos. It's generally assumed by scholars that it was a rendezvous site on the Upper Gila. It was already a named location ca 1710's. Ever run across its mention in your Jesuit research?

 

[deducer]

Funny how they took a guy like Saenz, who had nervous problems to a mostly unexplored area hunting Apache? Doesn't make a lot of sense................. unless ................ they were actually scouting for something else!
Mike

Well, his "nervous problems" had occurred 7 years earlier and he went to stay with Fr. Garrucho at Guevavi, and apparently got better after that.

 

[gollum]

Well, his "nervous problems" had occurred 7 years earlier and he went to stay with Fr. Garrucho at Guevavi, and apparently got better after that.

Well, since this is my thread, and it is about Jesuit Treasure, let me tell you all a little story about the Jesuit Mission at Guevavi:

This story has been pieced together from MANY different sources; period letters, mission documents, history books, Jesuit Fathers' Journals, and more.

Guevavi was an ore processing center. Large pieces of silver slag have been found there. A broken chunk of 17th century bronze bell was found with the casting sprues still attached:





THAT means that smelting, refining, and casting was going on there.

When reading most books and NPS Websites regarding the history of Guevavi, you read of a great sadness. You read of at least three epidemics of measles and smallpox that kept killing people around the mission. Actual translation of period documents describe something completely different! Hands uncontrollably trembling, headaches, vomiting, unexplained miscarriages, children born dead, mental problems, and much much more! Sound like measles or smallpox to you? Not to me! Sounds more like heavy heavy metals poisoning.

While I haven't seen a detailed report of our dear Father Saenz's "nervous problems", I am willing to go out on a limb (not a very big one though), and say that what was called nervous problems probably consisted of uncontrollable shaking, anxiety, headaches, nervousness, upset stomach problems, etc. Could also be heavy metal poisoning. Someone using Mercury that wasn't trained to use it, may have amalgamated some gold or silver, then cooked it off in a skillet or pot (inhaling the highly toxic mercury vapors). Do that a few times and see if you don't get all the aforementioned symptoms! Why would a Jesuit who:

WAS NOT ALLOWED TO MINE, OR EVEN TO HAVE ANY KNOWLEDGE OF MINING! Would a Jesuit REALLY have done that? Read the words of our very own Father Joseph Och SJ:

...............After this the dishes were ready for use in cookery. .... many were worth more than a ducat because of the thousands of gold scales found mixed in with the clay. This gold could not have been collected through washing without an expenditure of labor in excess of the cost. It was true gold as I proved with a bit of quicksilver with which it immediately formed an amalgam....

Well, I guess they valued gold and silver more than their agreement with the Spanish Crown.

There were also slag pits found at Tumacacori in the 1860s indicative of silver/gold refining. Bet this went on in more places than you'd think.

Best - Mike

 

[cactusjumper]

Hi Mike,

"There were also slag pits found at Tumacacori in the 1860s indicative of silver/gold refining. Bet this went on in more places than you'd think."


Is "silver/gold refining" the only possible answer for slag pits?


Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Hi Mike,

"There were also slag pits found at Tumacacori in the 1860s indicative of silver/gold refining. Bet this went on in more places than you'd think."


Is "silver/gold refining" the only possible answer for slag pits?


Take care,

Joe

Not to answer for Mike but volcanic slag is the only other logical source for slag than smelting metals.

 

[somehiker]

Was there any reason, other than an absence of raw material or technical knowhow, for the Jesuit missions NOT to have engaged in refining and casting ?
Of any metals, gold, silver, iron, copper, tin or lead.
Were they forbidden to do so by church or crown ?

 

[deducer]

When reading most books and NPS Websites regarding the history of Guevavi, you read of a great sadness. You read of at least three epidemics of measles and smallpox that kept killing people around the mission. Actual translation of period documents describe something completely different! Hands uncontrollably trembling, headaches, vomiting, unexplained miscarriages, children born dead, mental problems, and much much more! Sound like measles or smallpox to you? Not to me! Sounds more like heavy heavy metals poisoning.

From From Savages to Subjects: Missions in the History of the American Southwest by Robert H. Jackson, we have this:

While I haven't seen a detailed report of our dear Father Saenz's "nervous problems", I am willing to go out on a limb (not a very big one though), and say that what was called nervous problems probably consisted of uncontrollable shaking, anxiety, headaches, nervousness, upset stomach problems, etc. Could also be heavy metal poisoning. Someone using Mercury that wasn't trained to use it, may have amalgamated some gold or silver, then cooked it off in a skillet or pot (inhaling the highly toxic mercury vapors). Do that a few times and see if you don't get all the aforementioned symptoms!

Not to split hairs, but in the interest of trying to be historically accurate, Saenz's "nervous problems" had begun earlier when he was stationed at Caborca from November of 1748 to July of 1749 where his exposure to the unruly native people there, nearly caused him to have a nervous breakdown.

But we do have records of Jesuits getting "sick" while at Guevavi, such as Segesser in 1734 who got sick to the point of having to be taken out of the field and to Cucurpeto where he recuperated. From that point on to around 1748 he was rector of the Jesuit school at San Francisco de Borja de Tecoripa.

I would like to suggest that the Jesuits, being as well-trained and well-taught as we know they were, would most certainly have been taught about the dangerous byproducts of amalgamation, and would likely have avoided that, but just by being in proximity to the harmful and highly toxic effect of refining, would have inevitably been exposed to it one way or another.

I would love to know if anyone has been able to get their hands on an article entitled Sweet-toned bells of Guevavi on pg. 174, Vol. 12 of Mining World from Pacific Chemical and Metallurgical Industries (Miller Freeman publication, 1950). That article contains some pretty good information about the mining activity at Guevavi.

 

[cactusjumper]

Not to answer for Mike but volcanic slag is the only other logical source for slag than smelting metals.

Roy,

I believe it's common knowledge that the Jesuit's worked iron and steel. They forged things needed in the missions.

Take care,

Joe

 

[gollum]

Roy,

I believe it's common knowledge that the Jesuit's worked iron and steel. They forged things needed in the missions.

Take care,

Joe

Joe,

GEE, seems you missed the picture of the broken BRONZE Bell casting, Father Och's own words about amalgamating gold, and chunks of silver slag I mentioned found onsite at Guevavi? Sure, they worked with iron and steel.......and silver, gold, bronze, and whatever they needed to use.

See Joe, one thing no Jesuit apologist has ever been able to sufficiently explain is why, when Jesuits were "not allowed to mine, or even to have any KNOWLEDGE of mining", WHY was Father Joseph Och SJ carrying quicksilver (Mercury) while traveling around Pimeria Alta? Since he was not allowed to have even any knowledge of mining, why did he show his knowledge of the subject by amalgamating the gold flecks in an Indian's dinner plates? He could not have been selling it to any miners because all Mercury was property of the King, and could only be bought from representatives of the King (which the Jesuits were not), just like salt. In the New World, ALL Mercury and Salt was property of the crown.

Deducer,

Funny you mention Caborca. It was one of the (supposed) Jesuit jumping off points for their shipments of gold and silver to the Jesuit enclave in the Philippines after they set up shop on the Baja Peninsula. Caborca was also the site of Padre Kino's Boat built to aid transportation of Jesuits to Baja. Why would the Jesuits want a 60' boat of their own (actually, any boat over 42 feet is called a yacht)?

The well known Manilla Galleons would stop off at Punto Cabo San Lucas on the way to Acapulco. There is also supposed to be a lost Jesuit Mission on the Pacific Coast of Baja (and I am not talking about Santa Ysabel which is in the mountains on the Gulf side of Baja). It could very well be the lost San Juan Buenaventura Mission from Father Venegas' Map. This story coincides with another story of a secret place where the Jesuits would load their booty onto some Galleons for shipment to their enclave in the Philippines.


Mike

 

[gollum]

Another quick question;

The Jesuit Order by virtue of several Ecclesiastical Precepts (the most important rules a priest has, and could be excommunicated for breaking) were not allowed to operate a "business for profit", yet they had some of the largest herds of cattle, sheep, and horses in the New World. They had the single richest sugar plantation in the New World. The only business they were allowed to conduct was strictly for the upkeep of the mission. I think I missed Mission Puerco de Trump on Kino's Map!

Mike

 

[deducer]

Roy,

I believe it's common knowledge that the Jesuit's worked iron and steel. They forged things needed in the missions.

Take care,

Joe

From the University of Arizona Bulletin: Bilbiography of Arizona Mining Metallurgy and Geology Bulletin #23 Economic series #7, we find the following description of Tumacacori:




No mention of iron or steel manufacture, at Tumacacori.

 

[deducer]

Furthermore what went on at Tumacacori appears to be bigger and longer-running than previously thought:



I had somewhere, a document from Archaeology Southwest that documented a strong relationship between the mines in the Santa Rita mountains and Guevavi, but have lost track of where I filed it, so will not quote from it for now.

 

[Oroblanco]

Cactusjumper wrote

Roy,

I believe it's common knowledge that the Jesuit's worked iron and steel. They forged things needed in the missions.

Take care,

Joe

Joe - how much slag do you believe is produced by a forge?

That was a trick question; forging does not really produce slag. The operation of a forge is working iron and or steel that already exists, it is not actually melting the metal to the point of being liquid, which would then be hot enough to melt rock silica and other impurities as found in metal ores. Have you ever done any metal detecting of an old blacksmiths shop? I have done several, and it is interesting what you find - small bits of trimmed off waste iron, occasionally a heavily corroded tool or horseshoe, etc all things of iron and corroded iron, plenty of ash, but never slag.

Slag by definition is the by product of metal smelting, not forging, or sometimes volcanoes produce slag which is actually quite different in makeup from that produced by a smelter; which only makes sense as the smelter is deliberately melting specific types of rock with metal content while the volcano can't be choosy. Smelting operations are done at a higher temperature than a forge operates; a forge CAN get hot enough to melt metal to a liquid state but that would be a disaster for the blacksmith as he only wants to soften it to make it easier to work, not turn it into a liquid that could splash, spill etc. Slag is made up of rock silica and the impurities that float on top of the metal in the smelting process, not really possible to produce it by working iron in a forge as you simply don't have waste rock in the process even if you were working at the extreme temperatures of a smelter rather than the very high temperatures of a forge. No blacksmith would allow sizable quantities of rock to be in with his metal that he is working on to produce slag for that matter.


We have been over this point before if memory serves and clearly you do not believe me when I say it. Here is the dictionary definition of slag:

• 1. stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore. <Google>
• 1. Stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore.
  2. Similar material produced by a volcano; scoria. <Oxford Dictionary>
• 1. The vitreous mass left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore. 2. See scoria. <FreeDictionary.com>

Perhaps if you would contact a blacksmith and ask him (or her) how much slag is produced by using his forge, it might help settle this issue for you?

Even if a forge were producing slag at all, perhaps by the hot metal accidentally coming into contact with dirt or ash etc, the amount thus produced would be very small, certainly not enough to fill wagons as was found at the missions. The stuff found at the missions did not come from operating forges.

<photo of slag>


Perhaps what you mean to say is not "forging" irons and steels at the missions to make tools, but primitive foundry work? They are called "Bloomery" type foundries, a fairly good explanation on Wiki:

Bloomery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Picture of an iron Bloomery foundry

If we try to explain the piles of slag found at the missions as the result of iron foundries (Bloomeries) then we are left with another problem in explaining where they obtained the iron ORE to be smelting in a foundry? As far as I know, not a single example of an iron mine has ever been found in Arizona that was worked prior to the arrival of the Americans. On the other hand, we have a whole string of old mines discovered by the first Americans to arrive, which they were informed by the local Indians had been worked by the padres, and these mines are not iron mines but mostly silver, and a few gold. Father Nentvig listed several mines as being associated with the missions, and not in the separate chapter for the Spanish owned and operated mines, which seem to coincide with the same mines the Indians told the first Americans had been worked by the padres. I think it is kind of reaching to try to explain these "coincidences" away but that is just an opinion. Nentvig makes no mention of any iron mine(s) in Pimeria Alta, nor for that matter of any iron foundry producing iron or steel in Pimeria. Pfefferkorn makes no mention of any iron foundries in Sonora. It is possible that there were iron foundries (of the primitive bloomery type) yet there is no mention of them, and rather we find that the missions were importing iron tools and not producing them locally.

I hope all is well with you folks,
Roy

 

[Thirsty44]

I would love to know if anyone has been able to get their hands on an article entitled Sweet-toned bells of Guevavi on pg. 174, Vol. 12 of Mining World from Pacific Chemical and Metallurgical Industries (Miller Freeman publication, 1950). That article contains some pretty good information about the mining activity at Guevavi.

Here's the article for anyone who's interested. It's from the June, 1950 issue of Mining World.