Montezuma's treasure is a legendary buried treasure said to be located in the Casa Grande ruins or elsewhere in the Southwestern United States and Mexico. [1] The legend is one of many treasure stories in American folklore. Thomas Penfield wrote, "There is not the slimmest thread of reality in this story which is common throughout Mexico and the southwestern United States. There are some puzzling aspects but the story, nevertheless, adds up to pure legend." [1]
One story[ citation needed ] tells of the 1520 imprisonment of Moctezuma II by Spanish conquistadors. With the conquistadors demanding a ransom in gold, runners were dispatched to warn tribes to hide their treasures. However, none of the histories of the conquest, such as The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, say that Montezuma was ever held for ransom by the conquistadors or that any people of the area were told to hide their treasure from the Spanish. A labyrinth found in modern times at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument led to speculation that it might be home to some of the fabled treasure. Extensive excavation of the area, however, has turned up nothing to support the claim. [1]
According to John Mitchell, in 1847, during the Mexican American War, a Mexican aristocrat named Don Joaquin enslaved the local Apaches to dig for gold in the Sierra Estrellas. But later, as the United States Army entered the mountains, the Apache rose up against the Mexicans who had to hide their gold in a canyon near Montezuma's Head. Most of the Mexicans were killed but at least one man survived and later went back to the mountains in the 1880s with a treasure map to find the gold. However, the Apache still controlled the area and the Mexican man never found the lost treasure. [2]
Newspapers as far back as 1895 [3] [4] have published accounts of people who have claimed to have found this lost treasure.
The myth and superstitions about a curse on the treasure are sensationalized in a 2014 television program Raiders of the Lost Past which includes interviews of many family members of treasure hunters.[ citation needed ]
The treasure is the basis for an episode of Wagon Train entitled "The Alexander Portlass Story".[ citation needed ]
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the king of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Francisco de Montejo was a Spanish conquistador in Mexico and Central America.
Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España is a first-person narrative written in 1568 by military adventurer, conquistador, and colonist settler Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1584), who served in three Mexican expeditions: those of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (1517) to the Yucatán peninsula; the expedition of Juan de Grijalva (1518); and the expedition of Hernán Cortés (1519) in the Valley of Mexico. The history relates his participation in the conquest of the Aztec Empire.
The Peralta Stones are a set of engraved stones suppsedly indicating the location of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, in Arizona, United States.
The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is, according to legend, a rich gold mine hidden in the Southwestern United States. The location is generally believed to be in the Superstition Mountains, near Apache Junction, east of Phoenix, Arizona. There have been many stories about how to find the mine, and each year people search for the mine. Some have died on the search.
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies is an account written by the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas in 1542 about the mistreatment of and atrocities committed against the indigenous peoples of the Americas in colonial times and sent to then Prince Philip II of Spain.
Tumbaga is the name for a non-specific alloy of gold and copper given by Spanish Conquistadors to metals composed of these elements found in widespread use in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica in North America and South America.
Motezuma, RV 723, is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi with an Italian libretto by Alvise Giusti. The libretto is very loosely based on the life of the Aztec ruler Montezuma who died in 1520. The first performance was given in the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice on 14 November 1733. The music was thought to have been lost, but was discovered in 2002 in the archive of the music library of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Its first fully staged performance in modern times took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 21 September 2005.
La Noche Triste was an important event during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, wherein Hernán Cortés, his army of Spanish conquistadors, and their native allies were driven out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.
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A treasure map is a map that marks the location of buried treasure, a lost mine, a valuable secret or a hidden locale. More common in fiction than in reality, "pirate treasure maps" are often depicted in works of fiction as hand drawn and containing arcane clues for the characters to follow. Regardless of the term's literary use, anything that meets the broad definition of a "map" that describes the location of a "treasure" could appropriately be called a "treasure map."
The history of New Mexico is based on archaeological evidence, attesting to the varying cultures of humans occupying the area of New Mexico since approximately 9200 BCE, and written records. The earliest peoples had migrated from northern areas of North America after leaving Siberia via the Bering Land Bridge. Artifacts and architecture demonstrate ancient complex cultures in this region.
The Peralta massacre was the alleged killing of a Mexican family by Apaches in about 1848. It is generally featured as an element of the legend of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was a pivotal event in the history of the Americas, marked by the collision of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Spanish Empire, ultimately reshaping the course of human history. Taking place between 1519 and 1521, this event saw the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, and his small army of soldiers and indigenous allies, overthrowing one of the most powerful empires in Mesoamerica.
The Purépecha Empire, also known by the term Iréchikwa, was a polity in pre-Columbian Mexico. Its territory roughly covered the geographic area of the present-day Mexican state of Michoacán, as well as parts of Guanajuato, Guerrero, and Jalisco. At the time of the Spanish conquest, it was the second-largest state in Mesoamerica. The state is also known as the Tarascan Empire.
Meers is an unincorporated community located on State Highway 115 in Comanche County, Oklahoma, United States, in the foothills of the Wichita Mountains. In 1901, Meers was founded as a gold prospecting town where it was named in honor of mine operator Andrew J. Meers from Cherokee County, Georgia.
The Lost Adams Diggings are the subject of a Southwestern treasure story, dating to the early 1860s, that refers to the existence of a canyon rich in gold deposits somewhere in western New Mexico.
Paramonga was an important city constructed at the border of the former Kingdom of Chimor in Peru during the late Intermediate Period, whose capital was the metropolis of Chan Chan.
The myth of the Seven Cities of Gold, also known as the Seven Cities of Cíbola, was popular in the 16th century and later featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold referred to Aztec mythology revolving around the Pueblos of the Spanish Nuevo México, today's New Mexico and Southwestern United States.