Myths about the Americas

Originally posted by pinguin First, you have to understand one of the main problems on nutrition in the Americas it was the lack of cattle. In the Americas there weren't domesticated large meat animals like cows, sheep or goats.

Yep, mind you, the medieval European commoner didn't get to eat red meat more than a few times a year. Most of the meat in their diet was fish or pork. Even chicken was apparently quite a luxury item. I think this is probably because cattle produce milk, chickens produce eggs, sheep produce wool, and so on, but pork obviously is only good for meat. Plus the others all have to be fed crops, at least during the winter, while pigs can just eat refuse and can also forage a little in forests even in winter. This means that to eat beef or chicken on any sort of regular basis, you would need to be able to store a massive quantity of grains for the winter to keep a herd going, and average people had a hard enough time storing enough food for people let alone livestock. The nobility, obviously, had an easy time because their serfs paid them in crops.

Go back to earlier civilizations like Egypt or Sumer and the commoners (not the elites, obviously) were almost entirely vegetarian, except for fish and wild fowl. I suspect this is because floodplain civilizations don't have alot of good pasture land, they have excellent farmland, and then swamps or deserts or mountains, not much inbetween, so they would have to grow most of the food for livestock or graze them on good farmland.

A little off-topic, but I've always been bothered by assertions that Eurasians were eating more or better meat when in fact they hardly ate much at all, besides fish, unless they were very wealthy.

Edited by edgewaters - 15-Dec-2008 at 02:39

I remember a friend, whose grandparents owned property outside of the small town of St. Mary, Idaho, (state) told me about some lost gold mine there.

The story goes that the Spanish found gold and enslaved some of the local Indians to dig their mine. In time the indians rebelled and trapped the Spanish within the mine. Who knows if this is a true story or just some urban legend but his grandfather believed the lost mine was somewhere on his property. I think he said they owned around 200 acres and it is mountain country with dense evergreen forests; mostly pine, douglas fir and red bark cedar.

It was his dream to find it but hopefully it did not have a curse on it like the lost gold mine somewhere in the Las Padres National Forest of S. California- It is the same story with enslaved indians rebelling and burying the spainards into the mine but with a curse. I read the curse was agianst anyone who even tried to locate this lost mine. We tried and it is one long hike into the Los Padres back country, so now I know what has gone wrong with my life-


Edited by eaglecap - 07-Jan-2009 at 20:48

Right.  Fountains of youth, El Dorado; Blackbeard's treasure, etc.

Edited by pikeshot1600 - 08-Jan-2009 at 13:40

I am curious, why you in North America had the Spaniards as the bad guys that exploit Indians to extract gold, while we here in South America have the British pirats (corsairs included) as the bad guys that had buried treasures product of theirs robbery on Spanish towns and gallions.

I believe this fact deserves a psycological and sociological analysis.

Interesting. In my country, Chile, there are many legends of attempts made by corsairs and pirates, not only from Britain but also from Dutchland, France and "independents" to enter the "Spanish sea" that was the Pacific. Some came to capture posts, others to attack indefense cities or to attack the Manila Galleon. In any case, the scale of those attack were such small that it doesn't make sense all the paranoia that generated on our ancestors.

Edited by pinguin - 09-Jan-2009 at 13:19

Walsingham probably knew more about the Enterprise of England (the worst kept secret in Europe) than Phillip II.  Someone had to know the vulnerabilities of Cadiz in 1587.

Originally posted by pinguin There was a well organized secret service in England, with several british colaborators in the payroll. I don't think we are talking of a single spy or event. That service worked for a long time.   When the incursions to the Pacific were planned at London, the news travelled fast to Spain, from there to the Caribbean, Panama, and rushing from Peru to the Chilean south. Somehow that route was fast enough to alert the defenses at the Pacific, and several incursions ended in disaster, for the corsairs. I have formal references comming from a reseach book made in Chile, that certainly you don't have access abroad. If you need for schollarly reasons, just ask them please.

Originally posted by pinguin I am curious, why you in North America had the Spaniards as the bad guys that exploit Indians to extract gold, while we here in South America have the British pirats (corsairs included) as the bad guys that had buried treasures product of theirs robbery on Spanish towns and gallions. I believe this fact deserves a psycological and sociological analysis.

that is a good question- I do not know-???

There is also the legend, in Arizona, of the Lost Dutchman's gold mine. I will have to reread it but I think the miners, not spainards, were guilty of cruelly exploiting the Indians and once the indians rebelled they were also buried in the mine with a curse. I read somewhere that even looking for the lost mine would bring the curse upon you. I also some a program on TV about it but that is often hype.

anyone here know about the lost Dutchman's gold mine?

Here is something from wikipedia on the lost Dutchman's gold mine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Dutchman's_Gold_Mine


By Dusty Pixel on Flickr


Name: CurseOfDutchmansGold.jpg

Edited by eaglecap - 12-Jan-2009 at 21:59

Originally posted by gcle2003 Originally posted by pikeshot1600 Walsingham probably knew more about the Enterprise of England (the worst kept secret in Europe) than Phillip II.  Someone had to know the vulnerabilities of Cadiz in 1587.     I didn't mean to disparage Walsingham's competence (or even the CIA's). I meant his predilection for telling people of influence what they wanted to hear, or what would further his own position.

Originally posted by gcle2003 Yes, patronage. However, the situation in Spain wasn't very different for less-than-grandees (like Walsingham). You still needed a patron.