Hello friends,
I only wish to point out that those wild Apaches were actually pretty far from being "savages" even though they were fierce and pitiless fighters. You can choose to dis-believe the Adams tale of having made an agreement with Chief Nana allowing the Adams party to mine within a specific area, but similar agreements are a matter of record. Cochise made an agreement NOT to attack or molest first the US mail, then stagecoaches - DURING a war with the US! The Apaches were very good at sticking to the agreement, even though their form of "government" was that of near total individual freedom. Other Amerindian tribes exhibited surprising "reasonable" attitudes toward the Europeans love for gold, such as the Souix and Cheyenne tribes showed following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills - we ALL remember the ensuing war for the hills, (with several large engagements, some of the largest in all of the Indian wars including Custer's famous last stand) but before the US government issued the ultimatum and then regarded all Indians who failed to come in to the reservations as "hostiles" even some of the most intractible war chiefs had proposed ideas such as allowing the whites to come and mine gold, but had to leave when the gold ran out, or of the whites paying a "royalty" on the gold produced and so forth. Hollywood loves to portray the Amerindians as either barbarous, heartless savages or as noble red men defending their hearths and homes, but the reality lay somewhere between. They were human beings with intellect, showed patience, could be very reasonable and were very good at sticking to the many treaties signed with the USA - (of course some were broken by the Amerindians too) while on the other hand were capable of great courage and incredible fortitude (whites expressed amazement at how "tough" even severely wounded Indian warriors could be, which led some to theorize that they must be sub-human and "insensible" to pain) and to the Amerindian, war meant absolute war, a battle was not over while any enemy still drew breath, and even babies were fair game. Some young ones might be captured and adopted into the tribe, but if an infant squalled too much on the march to home, the warrior thought nothing of simply swinging the baby by the heels and smashing the skull against a convenient tree or rock. Atrocities were committed on both sides of the horrible Indian wars, which were in reality Civil wars, with many instances of both sides of the conflict being armed and equipped by the same government!
Anyway just wanted to point out that there is no reason to dis-believe the report of Adams and the other survivor that an agreement had been reached with Chief Nana allowing the party to mine, which the Adams party then broke and paid the price for. Chief Nana was one of the most capable Apache war chiefs of all, his last raid is still taught in West Point as an example of guerilla warfare at its finest. Nana may be one of the more intractible foes of the 'white men' (and the 'black white men' as well) but was an intelligent and even reasonable person. We have no reason to suppose that he would have refused to make the agreement with Adams, nor that he would have punished the party with death for breaking the agreement.
I would not classify all the old tales of lost mines and buried treasure as worthless - while most probably do have some fatal flaw in the directions or location, remember this is not necessarily true and a majority of lost mines (for instance) are fairly well documented. In one case, a mine in Colorado was even studied by the US bureau of mines (and a paper published on it) and later LOST never to be found again! The old stories even have value as simple entertainment, and make great stories. In the Peralta legends I find the exception, as it is not well documented, little evidence to support even the tale of their secret lost gold mines in the Superstitions cannot be traced beyond Bicknell's articles which date after the time of the death of Jacob Waltz. Waltz is very well documented as a real person who really sold a considerable amount of gold, and we can even see a piece of the ore today. Of course a prospector might do better to just go out and search new ground without trying to track down some lost mine, but in prospecting it is usually good practice to search where the mineral sought has been produced in past, and with a lost mine you may well find a good rich vein or 'glory hole' to reward your efforts. Personally I think your best chance of ever finding any lost mine is to use the same ordinary methods used to prospect for a NON-lost mine, panning out samples, taking ore samples from any veins or ledges of quartz etc and have them fire assayed etc. That way even if you fail to find the lost mine, you may well discover a NEW deposit of paying quality! Remember that over 90% of new mineral discoveries are made by individual prospectors, not the huge mining companies. Anyway good luck and good hunting.
Oroblanco
PS I have been studying the "Heart" stone and now am fairly sure this is a genuine article; it even has visible cracks which hint of considerable age. Whether it has anything to do with any gold in the Superstitions remains to be seen; it could be a "map" to some quite different location - like the Goldfield district, for example.
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