Treasure Trove Permits

[Tracker1]

Cubfan64,

Thank you for the info. Yes i know from Mr. Wood posts he is or was the Chief Archaeologist, That's why I would like to talk with him.

Tracker1


Cactusjumper --- Joe Did you live in Apache Junction in the 1970's & 80's?

In those years I had dealings with several of the Rangers of the Mesa District Office. All really good People and willing to help any way they could.

Any way thanks for the info....

Tracker1

 

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[cactusjumper]

Tracker 1,

My Uncle, Chuck Ribaudo was living in Apache Junction around that time. I never lived there.

Scott Wood is still working for the Forestry. He is in Kaibab for a regional meeting of the Heritage Foundation. He will be back at his office Monday morning.

Take care,

Joe Ribaudo

 

[Tracker1]

Thanks Joe,

Your uncle must be the one I was thinking of. Didn't remember his first name but the Last I couldn't forget. He did a little dutch hunting also but was running Horses all over the area for some one. Is he still around? I haven't been in AJ for some time and have lost contact with everyone i knew their.

Thanks for letting me know about Mr. Wood.

OH I have a questing for everyone. dose any of you know if the Spanish used fire to melt gold and silver out of rock?

Tracker1

 

[cactusjumper]

Tracker 1,

Chuck did a lot of Dutch hunting, but never ran horses for anyone.

I believe the Spanish used fire, same as the Native Americans, to heat rock walls and ore, to make them break up easier. There are stories of them building big fires and throwing the ore into it. The gold would melt out and down into the ashes.

Take care,

Joe Ribaudo

 

[cactusjumper]

Tracker 1,

Just to be clear, Scott Wood is hardly a "middle man". He has many years experience on the job, and knows all of the old timers around the Superstitions. Most of them consider him a good man, and friend. He has heard it all, sometimes more than once.

If pip's website will handle your questions, by all means make that your primary source. If you want a little more depth to your knowledge, give Scott a call. Feel free to tell him I gave you his number.

It is: 602-255-5231 or, you can Email him at: [email protected]

Good luck,

Joe Ribaudo

 

[Tracker1]

Thanks Joe

Maybe I have the wrong Ribaudo. I'm sure your right about the firring of rock it would make it softer to crush.

pip thanks for the link but that isn't what I was looking for right now.

tracker1

 

[Tracker1]

Cactusjumper-- Joe,

I just sent you some mail. hope you get it. when you read it you will see why I didn't post it here.

Tracker1

 

[Tracker1]

DON Diego Peralta,

A highly educated man, and Deacon in the Catholic Church, Lived in what is now Peralta, New Mexico in 1750. A wife, daughter and three sons Manuel, Raul and Pedro.
"Could be he had something to do with the Making of the stone maps."
One of the Gonzales boys was playing with the Daughter and dropped a seed that took. when Don P found this out the boy ran for his life, sometime later he come upon the mountain of Gold. Thinking this may clear him with the Don he returned home to tell the Don. He was right. Daddy Diego packed up and with Manuel, Pedro and a bunch of workers left with the Gonzales boy to this mountain of Gold.
After returning home Gonzales was given the daughters hand and some of the mines they discovered. All lived happily everafter with there new found wealth, and worked the mines for many years after.

Some of this is opinion some is fact. Its taken me many years to collect thin info and my next few posts.

Tracker1

 

[truckinbutch]

It is worth reading . Please keep posting .

 

[Oroblanco]

WELCOME TO TREASURENET Tracker1! Thank you for sharing, and please do continue!
Oroblanco

 

[Tracker1]

truckinbutch and oroblanco thank you both for your kind words.
A little more follows...




Many years before the Peralta's 14, 15, 1600 hundred's. Explorers brought back gold and silver treasures to Spain from the New World. Both raw and hand made items of gold and silver.
The King of Spain and the Catholic church got together and sent hundreds of army troops and priest's to the New World with orders to claim existing mines and search for new.

Starting in South America and moving North they took over all mines and collected all the treasure's they could fined killing thousands of Indians on the way. The treasure the Priests collected for the church was taken along many carts full. In "Mexico" (((Montezuma's World))), the Priest's collected just token treasures, Montezuma took thousands of his people loaded with treasure and moved north to what is now Arizona. The Priest killed the remaining Aztec's in Mexico before moving on north. Montezuma already knew of the Mountain of gold and had a dwelling there. When reaching there he buried his treasures.


Spanish troops and Priests came by the thousands, taking over all the mines and making slaves of as many Indians they could. "Including Montezuma and his people."
The Priest berried the church treasure in several places. The Jesuit priest had already decided they would build there own empire . so for many years after the King and Vatican only token payments, the rest was berried for there own use.

When the King realised he was not getting his fair share he sent troops to gather all the priest and send them back to Spain. some of the priests hid.But the ones sent back were all killed.
The remaining Priests continued working the mines for many years.

When the Priests got word of the U.S, Cavalry coming thy buried all the mines.... Over the next few years the Cavalry rounded up the remaining Indians and Priests, sending them to San Carlos Reservation. The priests all died there, over the following years.

Tracker1

 

[Cubfan64]

Hi Tracker1,

Welcome to the discussions - Please understand that my intent is not to be a nay-sayer, but the difficulty with stories such as what you are recounting (and many others I've read and/or heard told) is coming up with historical proof. Documents such as church records, private diaries, photographic evidence, authentic assay reports, etc... are the things that begin turning these stories into either potential realities or simply legends.

While some of the stories may very well have a real basis in fact, I'll hazard a guess that most if not all have been told, retold, rewritten and otherwise mutated to the point where finding the wheat in the chaff is the REAL chore which some folks spend a lifetime working on.

Just tracking down real historical information on the Lost Dutchman Mine and the many stories surrounding the legends is more than one life's work imho. There are folks who have half their homes devoted to every document they can possibly find to try to nail down the facts and even they find themselves often overwhelmed trying to sort through it all.

Again, I don't mean to be a pessimist here, but you mentioned earlier that you have spent a great deal of time collecting both fact and forming opinion. Without giving anything away, can you be more specific on which things are fact and what makes them fact, and which are your opinions?

This is a mighty interesting place to share those opinions and you'll find a number of extremely knowledgeable people so I hope you'll continue sharing!

Regards

 

[lamar]

Dear Tracker1;
Where to begin my reply, my friend Ok, I suppose that it's best to start at the beginning, as with all things:

" Many years before the Peralta's 14, 15, 1600 hundred's. Explorers brought back gold and silver treasures to Spain from the New World. Both raw and hand made items of gold and silver.
The King of Spain and the Catholic church got together and sent hundreds of army troops and priest's to the New World with orders to claim existing mines and search for new."

The plunder of New World treasures lasted for less than a generation, my friend. The very first Conquistadores brought home the riches, while the later ones had to actually work for their share of the New World riches, to include plantations, mining, etc. The King of Spain and the Roman Catholic church neve got together on anything, at any time. The King of Spain REQUESTED that The Society of Jesus send missionaries to the New World to domesticate and convert the natives. The Vatican had nothing to do with either the request or the positive response from the Jesuits.

"Starting in South America and moving North they took over all mines and collected all the treasure's they could fined killing thousands of Indians on the way. The treasure the Priests collected for the church was taken along many carts full. In "Mexico" (((Montezuma's World))), the Priest's collected just token treasures, Montezuma took thousands of his people loaded with treasure and moved north to what is now Arizona. The Priest killed the remaining Aztec's in Mexico before moving on north. Montezuma already knew of the Mountain of gold and had a dwelling there. When reaching there he buried his treasures."

The natives never mined minerals on a serious basis. The gold and silver artifacts which were plundered from the natives in fact came from placer deposits or exposed veins. Please bear in mind that the natives of the Americas were only advanced as far as the copper age, and natives further north were still in the grips of the stone age. This is why there exists so many flint arrowheads, my friend. :-) The natives that could work copper were more technologically advanced and this is plainly evidenced by their massive stone structures, however using copper tools in mining won't get a person very far,very fast. You can try this for yourself. Take a copper chiesel and a copper hammer and go to the side of a granite wall, then start trying to tunnel a 3 foot square opening into it and attempt to tunnel in 10 feet. Take note of how long it takes. :-) Oh, and you won't need a stopwatch either. A calendar is more on the order. And this is why the Spanish colonists got rich from mining in the New World, my friend. They had mastered iron working and it takes iron tools to tunnel through the hardrock formations that gold and silver like to hide in. They simply were in the right place at the right time, with the right tools and technology at hand. And because of this they earned vast sums of money for their efforts.

There exists no documentation or historical evidence that the Aztec advanced North into Arizona. You could look at pre-columbian native Americans as socities with strict boundaries. The Aztec did not control the lands to the North, therefore they would not have ventured to the North, unless they had a substantial warparty and then there would have been a huge battle, of which there should exist phyiscal evidence. No evidence exists, therefore the theory that the Aztecs secreted thier treasures in Arizona is nothing more than a mere legend with a healthy dose of speculation thrown in.

" Spanish troops and Priests came by the thousands, taking over all the mines and making slaves of as many Indians they could. "Including Montezuma and his people."
The Priest berried the church treasure in several places. The Jesuit priest had already decided they would build there own empire . so for many years after the King and Vatican only token payments, the rest was berried for there own use."

Spanish troops may have been sent over by the thousands, but they surely did not send over 1000s of priests, my friend. At the height of the Spanish colonial period, there were an estimated 1,250 European priests residing in the New World, and this includes ALL of the New World, from the tip of Argentina all the way to thw coast of California. That is a lot of territory and very few priests to cover it. Converted native Americans made up the bulk of the priesthood in Latin America during the Spanish colonial period.

"When the King realised he was not getting his fair share he sent troops to gather all the priest and send them back to Spain. some of the priests hid.But the ones sent back were all killed.
The remaining Priests continued working the mines for many years."

You must be referring to the Jesuit expulsion of 1767, my friend. Yes, the Jeusits were sent back to Europe, but not a single Jesuit was executed. And also, every European Jesuit priest who had been sent to the New World colonies was accounted for at the time of their expulsion. To conclude, all European Jesuits priests were accounted for and all were returned to the Vatican States, unharmed. There does not exist a single account of a Jesuit priest ever working a mine in the New World, my friend.

"When the Priests got word of the U.S, Cavalry coming thy buried all the mines.... Over the next few years the Cavalry rounded up the remaining Indians and Priests, sending them to San Carlos Reservation. The priests all died there, over the following years."

First, a mine is just a hole and how does one bury a hole in the ground It would seem to me that the more a person dug, the larger the hole would grow, thus making the burial of the hole impossible. And, if someone filled a mine in, then there would undoubtedly be evidence of the diggings in the tailling piles. After all, the rock and soil which was removed from the mine shafts had to go SOMEWHERE! The miners didn't simply eat it. So where at the tailling piles? To have mined on the scale which you are implying, the mining operations would have needed to been substantial and if they were substantial then the tailling piles would also have been substantial, my friend. And if the priests all died in San Carlos, where is their burial record?
Your friend;
LAMAR

 

[Tracker1]

oroblanco

I'm sure your info is closer to being right then what i posted, i was trying not to take up to much time and space, the only thing i have to go by is a little i can remember. when i turned 70 i packed all my info in boxes and took it to Cali, i give it to my nephew. all i have left is a few pictures and maps.

I quit looking in the superstitions when it was closed to mining.

oh speaking of maps, have any of you ever lied out pictures of the stone map trail beside the dutchmans and the Julia thomas maps. check-it out some time.

tracker1

 

[Tracker1]

Lamar

Are you an Apache? if not you would have no idea of what happened to the last of the priest.
What is Montezumas Castle and where is it?

I don't see any proof of what your saying...

tracker1

 

[lamar]

Dear Tracker1;
No, I am not an Apache, my friend. I am an amateur researcher of the Roman Catholic faith, most particularly from the 3rd century until the end of the 16th century and I can state that the supposed activities of the Jesuits did not happen, my friend. There does not exist any record of Jesuit priests being executed or of them mining precious ores or of them disobeying superiors. There is not only written documentation of the day to day happenings in the New World colonies, there are MOUNTAINS of documents pertaining to these happenings. The Spaniards and the Jesuits were all prolific writers and they wrote down literally EVERYTHING! This is an historical fact, my friend. The facts are so ever-presented and well documented that I've never been asked to prove my statements before, my friend. The records exist in many different archives in both the Old and New Worlds.
Your friend;
LAMAR

 

[Tracker1]

Lamar

I agree with you about the Spaniards and priest being very well educated and prolific writers. I never said they were not.

You say your research is from the 3rd to the end of the 16th century. And it also sounds like you are trying to tell me that all priest from day 1 were Lilly White, Mr Goodie Goodies...
There are and always have been good and bad people in every walk of life. "I cant believe you believe that..." My information was told to me by an Apache Indian that lived on San Carlos Reservation, He was in the know and would not lie if his life depended on it. He would never give up any information about mines or treasure sites, but he was a very good story teller. He also stated he had been sent to check out my brother and i because of the person we worked with in the mountains. we were told it would be best if we stated away from this person. needless to say we took his advice and went on our own. I wont give his name because he still has family on the reservation. sorry be he is the only one that could confirm what i said about the last 3 priests going to the reservation.

tracker1

 

[lamar]

Dear Tracker1;
I have no doubt that the person who told you the story was being completely honest, however whoever he heard the story from obviously fabricated it, or heard it from someone who did fabricate it. It works like this, my friend. First, you take the historical documents and compare them to the physical facts. For example:
"We established a mission in 1591 12 miles east of where the Gila and White rivers meet. 2 miles further East lies a small canyon."

So, you follow the directions and BAM! There are the mission ruins! So far, so good. Next, you can physically compare the layout of the mission to it's documented evidence. "Church is in the right place, check. Graveyard is exactly where it should be. Check. Houses are in the correct places. Check. Etc, etc."

After a while it's becomes fairly apparent that the written record is not lying, my friend and it also becomes apparent that the Jesuits had nothing to hide. OK, so now we come to alledged Jesuit mines. Where is that history written down at? It doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge, and trust me, I've searched many archives for them. So now we come to the legends, my friend, and chasing legends won't pay the water bill.

You stated that the Aztec managed to move all of their vast treasure trove from Mexico City to Arizona, if I read the above statement correctly. My natural question would be, how were they able to do this? How were the Aztecs able to traverse some 1,000 miles of hostile territory without a huge war party to guard them, without horses or burros to carry the treasure, and be able do all of this without leaving a trace fo their passing? Those questions are ultimately unanswerable because there does not exist a logical explanation of how they were able to achieve this feat. The fact is they didn't do that, unless they were somehow able to fly the treasure to the Superstition Mountains from deep within Mexico, my friend.

In reality, there is no question about WHERE the Aztec treasure lies, my friend. There is plenty of historical documentation that tells us EXACTLY where it's located at. I've seen and physically touched some of the actual archived documents which tells where the treasure lies and how it came to rest where it is now. It's currently resting quite peacefully at the bottom of the lake which Mexico City sits upon. There were over one hundred Spaniards who watched in horror and disbelief as the Aztecs sent their nation's treasures to the bottom. And there it now rests undisturbed, unless someone managed to figure a way to fish it all up from the some 200 feet of volcanic silt that it now nestles snugly at the bottom of. :-) The question now is, HOW can it be recovered? As to date, no one has yet to come up with a workable solution.
Your friend;
LAMAR

 

[pippinwhitepaws]

 

[cactusjumper]

Tracker 1,

The fact that your source was an Apache, does not mean everything he said was factual. It could be that he believed every detail of the story that was passed along to him was true, but that does not guarantee that it was.

Geronimo was known to be a habitual liar. As you said: "There are and always have been good and bad people in every walk of life." Few people would consider the Apache to be "Mr Goodie Goodies..."

The story you were told has little chance of being historically factual. As someone who once believed in Jesuit Treasure, I researched both sides of the legends, for and against. After a number of years, I came to the conclusion that the Jesuits had no treasures, such as have been described in legend. At the same time, it's very unlikely that any of the stories of Jesuit mining for the Order, or their own inrichment are true.

I understand your belief, as well as your not accepting that it might all be untrue. Hopefully you took the time to study Jesuit history, as well as Apache customs and history. There are good accounts of the Jesuit expulsion written by Jesuits and non-Jesuits.

It's a hard dream to let go of........I know.

Take care,

Joe