Hola mi amigo Pip, <extra coffee alert!>
This post got to be very long, so I must beg your indulgence, thank you in advance.
Exellent points amigo Pip, especially about the way the other European powers viewed the Spanish (and Portuguese) methods of conquest, in particular the English, French and Dutch. I mention the Dutch in particular as they revolted from Spanish rule and became one of the most powerful naval powers in the world in a short time, contesting with England for primacy and even with Spain and Portugal for possession of huge areas of the New World such as Brazil. Some of the published works from the time period describe the Spanish treatment of the natives, and their African slaves as well, in horrific terms, highlighting such practices as the use of dogs to hunt down and attack natives and slaves who ran away or rebelled, which was seen as something on a par with the way we view chemical and biological warfare today.
When I started this thread, it was with an eye to bring to light some of the legends of lost Jesuit mines and treasures, and this has been only partially successful. There are many little-known examples which have not been mentioned. It is perhaps remarkable that in so many different lands where the Jesuits were active (and expelled) we find legends of their having hidden mines and stashes of riches. At least one massive treasure was unearthed in Brazil in the late 1800s. And as usual, the document found with it was couched in ambiguous terms, so that a lawyer might make an argument that while it was found in a Jesuit site with marks of Jesuit ownership, it was really not theirs after all. Even in such lands where precious metals mines have been long thought to be non-existant, and thus "proving" the Jesuit legend to be mythical, in recent years discoveries of surprisingly rich veins of gold are showing that there was something to the story after all - as in Paraguay for example.
However this game of denial and fuzzy logic has its limits, except those whom are so blind that they will not see. When the origins of these tales of lost Jesuit treasures are traced back, in most cases it was Amerindians telling Anglos of them, the Amerindians being the descendants of the very same people once held in thrall in the Jesuit mission system. I have seen this explained away by the Jesuit apologists as the Indians simply telling the Anglos what they wanted to hear, to entice tourism etc and yet in those same origins, even to this day, we find that the very same Amerindians are believed to know much more about the locations of the treasures and mines but will not tell the "whites"! The treasure of Bac, for instance, which includes the massive silver mentioned above, has been fairly well protected by the Pima people who protect it. They were able to bring it out and put it all on display when the Jesuits returned to Arizona in the American Civil War period, and quickly return it to hiding when the war came to the territory, where it has remained hidden ever since.
These various Amerindian tribes often see these lost mines and treasures as properly belonging to themselves! Why they would be then advertising the locations and existence to (of all people) treasure hunters is utterly illogical, but this obvious factor is not perceived by the Jesuit apologists. Again, looking at the origins of many tales of lost Jesuit treasures coming from the Amerindians themselves, we find that in most every case, this knowledge was not imparted freely, but only after the Anglos had befriended one (or more) member of the tribe, and became a trusted friend, rather than in the form of some kind of sales pitch or mythology spread at any and every opportunity to outsiders in order to attract them.
The reason I made it a point to mention that the Jesuits of Mexico owned some mines openly is that much of their activities were not openly known to the public. Many mines, for example, they held no legal title to at all, if there were any documented title, it was in the names of "trusted friends" to provide the Order with a layer of plausible deniability. Your point about the Jesuits venturing well past the "frontiers" points this factor up, for while they may have had permission to be so exploring, as with Kino's expedition to the gulf for example, this did not grant them title and right to all minerals discovered by any means.
We also see the apologists point to the farming and ranching activities of the same Jesuit missions, claiming this was their only form of wealth and activity other than saving souls, ignoring the fact that all missions of any Order had to become self-supporting, so the Jesuits like all the other Orders sought out every possible means to do so, including mining of precious metals, base metals, salt, trade in furs and hides, fisheries, pearl fisheries even milling of ores for Spanish owned mines. A number of the "Haciendas" listed in that Catholic study done on the wealth of the Jesuits at the time of their expulsion from Mexico were not cattle ranches or tobacco farms, they were mills for processing ore. Again, these were owned and operated OPENLY, so we do not have paper proof of the whole of their vast enterprises, which extended into the realm of what we would call banking activities, like mortgages and loans.
As these missions were expected to become fully self-sufficient (financially) and not simply be a drain on the Royal treasury forever, it is not hard then to understand why the monarchy was perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to a great deal of activity, with an eye to the future when these missions would not only be self supporting but would be providing tax revenues; note that one of the great favors granted to the missions was that they were exempted from paying taxes for a period of time, which the Jesuits often begged for lengthy extensions when that time alloted ran out.
To find a parallel to the Jesuits we need not look far afield, for in New Mexico we find that the area was granted to the Franciscan Order to convert and reduce, and they set to the task with fervor. So much so that the most peace loving Indians of all, the Pueblos, felt compelled to rise in revolt in 1680, killing scores of the padres, burning the missions and in particular, ALL of the documents in the capital. It took over ten years to again reduce them to subjection, and one of the conditions of making peace was that the padres must limit their activities to religious matters and agriculture, NO mining.
Exactly how many mines they <Franciscans> were operating cannot now be established due to the loss of that archive in 1680, but it cannot have been a small number for the shipments of silver especially, coming out of New Mexico in the twenty years previous to 1680 were huge. Those Spanish treasure fleets sought by so many treasure hunters were transporting almost unbelievable amounts of silver, gold and gems, and this was coming from mines for the loot from sacking the two main Amerindian empires (Aztec and Inca) stopped flowing within a few short years as those sources were fully exploited. We do not have the same amount of information on these lost mines in New Mexico in part due to the burned archives, and in part due to the Pueblo Indians having had a strong threat to any member of their tribe who might reveal those locations to an outsider. They did not ever want to return to those days of virtual enslavement again.
As you also pointed out, pretty much all of the religious Orders sent to the Spanish (and Portuguese) colonial possessions were active in mining, as for example the first gold placer mining in Arizona is (or was) credited to an Augustinian padre in the 1770s, though this is quite debatable for father Garces had set the Yumas to work mining placer gold at the two missions he established on the lower Colorado river. Garces died the "martyr's" death at the hands of his "converts" too and the gold mined was hidden by the Yumas, though there is one account that it was found in the ruins of the church a century later and removed. The Jesuits were not the first to exploit the mineral wealth and forced labor of Indians, nor were they the last.
I have gotten carried away, my apologies amigo (and to our readers) I think I have belabored the point over-much. All too often, many of us forget that we are not the first treasure hunters to seek these lost treasures and mines, many, many others came before us and had access to documents we see referred to, but have vanished into history; early treasure hunters report being able to go to the old abandoned missions and finding many old documents from the Jesuit and later Franciscan era as well, and there were no rules about their simply taking the documents for their personal use. The Franciscans of later years, specifically the early period of tourism in the Southwest, were known to even sell the old Jesuit documents for a dollar a sheet. I cannot throw stones at any of these people, in the case of the early treasure hunters, it is probable that those old documents could have been lost in any case due to being unprotected and there was no law against taking what was left abandoned, and for the Franciscan padres, they were very much in need of money. It is perhaps a wonder that we have as much documentation as we do have today.
I had thought this thread had pretty well spun out over a year ago, so was surprised to see it active again. Good luck and good hunting my amigo Pip and everyone, I fully realize that you and many of our readers already know much (or all) of what i just posted, mainly it was for the benefit of our newbies who read our discussions but usually do not post. I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Oroblanco
