I think there has been a couple of posters who have claimed to have found where that treasure was buried in the Sups. Don't recall them saying the Jesuits were looking for it, although the stone maps were the basis of their beliefs. One or both may have authored books about their conclusions. The Bowman is another which comes to mind, but I think he based his theories on how potent his latest crop harvest happened to be. He put it somewhere just north east of the Dons Camp. None of them had actually found any treasure though.
The idea though, that the Jesuits may have taken an interest in the stories of that missing treasure and where it may have been taken, has also been part of my own research efforts. I haven't enough evidence as yet, on which to base such a claim. And neither have I stumbled across any hoard of Aztec treasure out there....
How about you, scdfia ? What are your thoughts re: possible links between the Jesuits, the stones.....or "rocks"....and "Montezuma's Treasure" ?
OK, hiker, here goes. I have grave reservations concerning the "stones", as far as the stories have unfolded so far. My working model - always subject to change - is that Travis was essentially no more than a clever grifter. Recidivism is a very difficult tendency to overcome, and some of his alleged activities seem to indicate that. I'm much more interested in Pegleg and the provenance and content of his maps. I don't expect to see the results I'd like, but ... we'll wait to find out.
For decades I've had a notion that there was something of enormous value concealed somewhere in central Arizona. I don't mean the LDM - I haven't seen anything to convince me to hop onto that hayrack ride yet either. So, what's hidden? I don't know. Re Montezuma's treasure, I haven't bought into that story as told either (notice a pattern?). If the Aztecs removed treasure from central Mexico and hid it from the Spaniards, my bet would be somewhere in Mexico.
Now, I had a couple long chats with Gerry Babcock way back before he published his book,
Chicomoztoc, about the Aztecs in the Superstitions. He had a story to tell and he stuck with it, whether or not his premise was genuine. I've seen evidence, mostly circumstantial, of Aztec-related sites in New Mexico and my antennae are always sensitive to additional ideas along those lines. My working model: the Aztecs may have had very rich mines in the American Southwest - their pre-migration homeland - and these mines may have been a primary source of their later huge Mexican inventory. In other words, the gold originally traveled south to Mexico, not north later to today's USA.
The Jesuits? Kino undoubtedly heard all the rumors and likely did a lot of searching trying to match up his intel. Whatever one might think of those guys, one thing seems obvious to me: if they had knowledge of big loot in the Superstitions, they'd have figured out how to claim or recover it long ago. Powerful, capable organizations seldom allow themselves to be in a position where they "lose" important things, IMO. Would they lay claim to anything RG might turn up, based on "Jesuit symbols" someone put on a map?" Sure, why not? Jackals love easy prey. However, my personal opinion is that nothing will be found.
Rumors, legends, stories and maps abound, but remember, things are seldom as they seem.
