I
However many legends of other kinds there may be, the buried treasure
or lost mine legend is the typical legend of Texas. Just how
representative it is, is demonstrated by the varied examples in this
section of “Legends of Buried Treasure and Lost Mines.” The McMullen
County group well illustrates how numerous are the legends. The group
is by no means unique in either number or variety. Pertaining to the
country up the Colorado and its western tributaries, there are
literally hundreds of lost treasure legends. Scarcely fewer legends
cluster around the old Fort Stockton-Fort Lancaster country, around the
Victoria-Refugio-Goliad country, around the Big Bend country, and along
certain sections of the Red River country. In lumber mills of East
Texas buried treasure is the frequent subject of tale and speculation.
The Nacogdoches country, the San Jacinto country, the San Augustine
country, the country all along the Brazos from head to mouth, to
mention only a few other localities, are replete with buried treasure
legends. Moreover, instead of diminishing in number, these legends are
constantly increasing.
The people who tell these legends represent many standards and strata
of life, but the ultimate source of their legendary gold and their
tales is common—Mexican or Spanish. In some of the legends the pioneer
Texan, the Indian, or the negro plays a part, but in nearly all the
Spaniard and the Mexican enter as both actors and transmitters. The
native Texan frequently makes no distinction between “Spaniard” and
“Mexican”; the wealth of legend, however, is generally Spanish. And
that wealth would fade the actual riches of Potosi into paltriness.
Now, how comes it that illimitable wealth is so popularly ascribed to
the long Spanish dominion in Texas and to the brief Mexican occupation
that intervened between the downfall of Spanish sovereignty and the
achievement of Texas independence? Were the Spanish great gainers in
Texas? Did Santa Anna’s armies mark their trail with gold?
The facts are that the Spanish in Texas were always hard up, that the
occupation of the territory was a financial loss, that Texas was
occupied as a buffer, [2] first against the French in Louisiana and
then against the United States, with but little attempt at mineral
exploitation and always with a drain on the treasury. The Spanish
soldiers and settlers often led a wretched existence, even on occasions
having to root in the ground for starches and to hunt wild berries for
sugars. According to Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, one old San Antonio
Mexican did write that the Spanish soldiers there were rolling in
wealth. “They will spend a hundred reales for a dinner,” said he, “as
easily as we spend a centavo for a glass of beer.” But he was a
revolutionist inflamed with hatred of Spanish tyranny. So far as we
know from the records—and again I quote Mrs. Hatcher for authority—only
one cargo of money ever came to Texas from south of the Rio Grande;
that was during the Mexican Revolution, in 1811. An expedition of
revolutionists set forth from Coahuila to San Antonio, seeking escape
to the United States. They had with them a considerable amount of
bullion and money belonging to the revolutionary party. They were
caught in Texas and hanged, and nobody knows what became of their
wealth.
According to authenticated history, the Spanish worked but one mine in
what before 1836 was the state of Texas. [3] That was Los Almagres on
the San Saba River, opened about 1757. Though the history of the San
Saba mission and of the San Saba presidio is clear and sufficiently
full, little is known of the history of the mine. It is doubtful if it
ever paid much. Certainly, captains and commanders were always urging
the Spanish viceroy to equip a large presidio on the San Saba to
protect the mines. A certain Captain Villareal, too, is reported to
have sent an urgent plea to the viceroy for more troops to protect a
mine “two days’ ride from Corpus Christi,” which, he said, had been
taken by Indians. [4] But such advice from the Spanish commanders must
not be taken too seriously. Many of them were notorious grafters,
paying their men in goods with enormous profit to themselves, and
frequently carrying on their payrolls the names of men whom they had
enlisted only to discharge, or whom they had not enlisted at all. Their
meat was more men. [5] Yet these old reports have furnished
“documentary evidence” to many a treasure hunter.
Santa Anna’s army, although it was well furnished when it crossed over
into Texas from Mexico, and although it provided some fair plunder to
the Texans at San Jacinto, [6] could not, thinks Dr. E. C. Barker,
Professor of American History in the University of Texas, have dropped
off any chests of money in Texas. According to Dr. Barker, the Mexican
troops in Texas, especially garrison troops, were often poorly paid.
If we turn from the Spanish and Mexicans to the early American
colonists of Texas, we find that the prospect of mineral riches had
little part in motivating their colonization. Though Stephen F. Austin
“denounced” a mine—perhaps coal—on the upper Trinity, [7] and though
the Bowie brothers, with a small band of men, staked their lives on the
chance of gaining silver ore from the San Saba country, [8] thereby
giving basis to the most remarkable of all Texas legends, nevertheless,
the pioneer settlers of Texas came hither to plough and herd, to trade
and labor, not to prospect. [9]