Читать книгу The History of Mining - Michael Coulson - Страница 41

The vastness of what is now the continental USA meant that without disturbing what was going on in the northeast explorers entered the dry wastelands of the southwest from the Caribbean and Mexico; these visitors were of course the rapacious Spaniards (of which more later), as ever searching for gold and silver, and later we will look at their activities in Latin America. However, in the 16th century from their base in Mexico, Francisco Coronado, Alvar Vaca, Antonio Espejo and Juan Onate all led expeditions north into what are now Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Rumours had circulated of gold in large quantities and Espejo headed into Arizona driven by a story of a lake of gold; whilst this proved far-fetched he did stumble across gold in rich veins near what is now Prescott, and this was followed by the arrival of Onate to stake claims in the area. This did not lead anywhere as it proved impossible to coerce the native Indians to assist the Spaniards, or Mexicans as they had by then become, into mining the veins. But though the evidence of gold in the region was patchy there was more substance to the belief that the region was prospective for copper, as stories abounded of copper items being found in the possession of indigenous Indians.