Cool....let us chomp the bit together sir...........
Nice relevant questions......ah
My information comes through 35 or so years of bookwork, but most of it has been stimulated by a natural sense both on and off the trail. I have dwelt with at least one spirit through and through (if that is hard to swallow, you haven't spent enough time seeking the spirit of all spirits), but mostly just the one of whom I have known as Don Marcos Luis. He was a Jesuit Priest of whom watched over all of the horse trail treasure sites in his service of the Pope and his faith. He was killed in the late part of the 18th century, in a booby trap designed by a friend. He came and made himself visible in front of me on the day that we met; a real stone cold ghost buddy....no joke. He wore a crimson red gown and cap with sandals, was over 6' tall with a plump gut to boot. He was dead, transparent and walking up the hill just ahead of me, until I stopped and he stopped and smiled before vanishing.
Ok, enough of all that..........
The Treasure of Santa Fe is simply a chain of once lost Aztec mines that still exist across the West to this day. Each Mt. district has it own vault and matching system of which ties it all together into one treasure/trail. The monks were here before anyone else and were kind loving and highly educated gentlemen prodigies, sent ahead by the church to secure the rare opportunities that are associated with a newly discovered region and it's population. Is the church not good at this?
The Utes called them the big hats and some surviving legends claim that they were French. These guys were already in business here with the Ute chieftains, by the time Coronado came calling at the South end of Utah lake in 1542.
After all of the crap settled, the Monks being in charge, but under the authority of the church, were able to acquire a percentage with the King's blessing since all he had to do was sit and drool anyway.
One must understand that now as always, the church has funded and supervised it's own expeditions and the hell with the King, his flaky bride and their drug habits of any given day. Where it gets real here is all of the kivas out there that were left behind when the Jesuits disbanded in the late 18th century. Rumor has it that one really pissed off Monk worked his way down to the gulf and gathered together a crew of rowdy companions and got right to work on plundering all of the bullion they could find and then hauled it back into the Mountains where it originated. They then hid and landscaped the entire circuit....at least 8 of the richest lost Aztec mines. Utah is cool and their are no Apache, few if any agents of the King and there is lots to eat for man and best as well. This place was their paradise, literally for some.
The photo is the one and only Heart S

tone of the Peraltas, whether you or anyone else likes it or not......it is.