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KRUGER MILLIONS

President Kruger’s Hidden Gold

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VI. Overview

According to legend, somewhere in South Africa lies hidden a hoard of gold allegedly hidden by President Paul Kruger between 1899 and 1902.

In an attempt to prevent the gold falling into the hands of the invading British forces during the Second Boer War it is said that a treasure consisting of gold bars, coins, and diamonds worth up to $500,000,000 in todays terms was taken out of Pretoria by train and hidden before Kruger was exiled in 1900.

Over time this legend was declared a myth despite stories from 1905 and 1947 claiming to the treasures existence. In more recent history a hoard of Kruger ponds was found on farmland in the 1960’s.

In February 2021 the Business Insider published an article claiming that a large stash of coins had been discovered in a Swiss vault and is believed to be a part of the missing Kruger Millions.

Kruger in 1900.

The Legend Of The Kruger Millions

The Kruger Millions is a hoard of gold reputed to have been hidden in South Africa by or on behalf of President Paul Kruger to avoid it being captured by the British during the Second Boer War.^[1] According to myth, about two million pounds in buried gold and diamonds lie hidden in the Blyde River area in the province of Mpumalanga.^[2] The treasure is said to consist of hidden gold and coins worth more than US $500,000,000 in today’s terms.^{[citation needed]} Allegedly the treasure was hidden by or for President Paul Kruger at the end of the South African Boer War somewhere between 1899 and 1902.^{[citation needed]} Searches have failed to uncover any treasure.^[3]

In 1947, a man claimed to have found a portion of the treasure at Laurenco Marques, after following a map stitched into the cover of a Bible.^[4]

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Munnion, Christopher (8 June 2001). “Town under siege as missing ‘Kruger gold’ is found on farm” – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
^ Menahem Fogel (January 25, 2010). “Mpumalanga – Mystery of the Kruger Millions – Israel Guide – Jerusalem Post”. www.jpost.com. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
^ “THE “KRUGER MILLIONS” SEARCHES FOR TREASURES”. The Mercury. CXXX (19, 175). Tasmania, Australia. 23 April 1929. p. 10. Retrieved 13 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
^ “BIBLE MAP REVEALS KRUGER MILLIONS”. The Barrier Miner. LX (17, 784). New South Wales, Australia. 4 November 1947. p. 1. Retrieved 13 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.

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The Legend

Great Trek routes of the 1830s and 1840s

Born Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger on 10th October 1825 near the eastern edge of Cape Town. As a child he took part in what is known as the Great Trek and became the protégé of Andries Pretonus, leader of the Voortrekker. Witnessing the signing of the signing of the Sand River Convention with Britain in 1852. Kruger was elected Vice-President in 1877 and then President in 1883.

In 1886 the Witwatersand Gold Rush brought an influx of thousands of predominantly British settlers to South Africa which created tensions with the locals. This tension dominated Kruger’s Presidency until he left for Europe in 1900 just as the Second Boer War had turned against the Boers. Shortly after this, Kruger died in Switzerland in 1904.

Story Of Paul Kruger

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkryjər]; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900. Nicknamed Oom Paul (“Uncle Paul”), he came to international prominence as the face of the Boer cause—that of the Transvaal and its neighbour the Orange Free State—against Britain during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He has been called a personification of Afrikanerdom, and remains a controversial figure; admirers venerate him as a tragic folk hero.

Born near the eastern edge of the Cape Colony, Kruger took part in the Great Trek as a child during the late 1830s. He had almost no education apart from the Bible. A protégé of the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, he witnessed the signing of the Sand River Convention with Britain in 1852 and over the next decade played a prominent role in the forging of the South African Republic, leading its commandos and resolving disputes between the rival Boer leaders and factions. In 1863 he was elected Commandant-General, a post he held for a decade before he resigned soon after the election of President Thomas François Burgers.

Kruger was appointed Vice President in March 1877, shortly before the South African Republic was annexed by Britain as the Transvaal. Over the next three years he headed two deputations to London to try to have this overturned. He became the leading figure in the movement to restore the South African Republic’s independence, culminating in the Boers’ victory in the First Boer War of 1880–81. Kruger served until 1883 as a member of an executive triumvirate, then was elected President. In 1884 he headed a third deputation that brokered the London Convention, under which Britain recognised the South African Republic as a completely independent state.

Following the influx of thousands of predominantly British settlers with the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886, “uitlanders” (out-landers) provided almost all of the South African Republic’s tax revenues but lacked civic representation; Boer burghers retained control of the government. The uitlander problem and the associated tensions with Britain dominated Kruger’s attention for the rest of his presidency, to which he was re-elected in 1888, 1893 and 1898, and led to the Jameson Raid of 1895–96 and ultimately the Second Boer War. Kruger left for Europe as the war turned against the Boers in 1900 and spent the rest of his life in exile, refusing to return home following the British victory. After he died in Switzerland at the age of 78 in 1904, his body was returned to South Africa for a state funeral, and buried in the Heroes’ Acre in Pretoria.

Sourced from: Wikipedia

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The Treasure

The Witwatersand Gold Rush of 1886 was a result of an Australian prospector who had reported finding a gold reef between Pretoria and Heidelberg.

This gold rush led to the sudden development and expansion of Johannesburg changing its economic state from being on the verge of bankruptcy to a center of wealth almost overnight.

Gold mining at Johannesburg in 1893.

The Gold Rush

In July 1886 an Australian prospector reported to the Transvaal government his discovery of an unprecedented gold reef between Pretoria and Heidelberg. The South African Republic’s formal proclamation of this two months later prompted the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg, which within a few years was the largest city in southern Africa, populated almost entirely by uitlanders.^[2] The economic landscape of the region was transformed overnight—the South African Republic went from the verge of bankruptcy in 1886 to a fiscal output equal to the Cape Colony’s the following year.^[3] The British became anxious to link Johannesburg to the Cape and Natal by rail, but Kruger thought this might have undesirable geopolitical and economic implications if done prematurely and gave the Delagoa Bay line first priority.^[2]

The President was by this time widely nicknamed Oom Paul (“Uncle Paul”), both among the Boers and the uitlanders, who variously used it out of affection or contempt.^[4] He was perceived by some as a despot after he compromised the independence of the republic’s judiciary to help his friend Alois Hugo Nellmapius, who had been found guilty of embezzlement—Kruger rejected the court’s judgement and granted Nellmapius a full pardon, an act Nathan calls “completely indefensible”.^[5] Kruger defeated Joubert again in the 1888 election, by 4,483 votes to 834, and was sworn in for a second time in May. Nicolaas Smit was elected vice-president, and Leyds was promoted to state secretary.^[6]

Much of Kruger’s efforts over the next year were dedicated to attempts to acquire a sea outlet for the South African Republic. In July Pieter Grobler, who had just negotiated a treaty with King Lobengula of Matabeleland, was killed by Ngwato warriors on his way home; Kruger alleged that this was the work of “Cecil Rhodes and his clique”.^[6] Kruger despised Rhodes, considering him corrupt and immoral—in his memoirs he called him “capital incarnate” and “the curse of South Africa”.^[7] According to the editor of Kruger’s memoirs, Rhodes attempted to win him as an ally by suggesting “we simply take” Delagoa Bay from Portugal; Kruger was appalled.^[6] Failing to make headway in talks with the Portuguese, Kruger switched his attention to Kosi Bay, next to Swaziland, in late 1888.^[6]

In early 1889 Kruger and the new Orange Free State President Francis William Reitz enacted a common-defence pact and a customs treaty waiving most import duties.^[8] The same year the volksraad passed constitutional revisions to remove the Nederduits Hervormde Kerk’s official status, open the legislature to members of other denominations and make all churches “sovereign in their own spheres”.^[1] Kruger proposed to end the lack of higher education in the Boer republics by forming a university in Pretoria; enthusiastic support emerged for this but the Free University of Amsterdam expressed strong opposition, not wishing to lose the Afrikaner element of its student body.^[9] No university was built.

Kruger was obsessed with the South African Republic’s independence,^[10] the retention of which he perceived as under threat if the Transvaal became too British in character. The uitlanders created an acute predicament in his mind. Taxation on their mining provided almost all of the republic’s revenues, but they had very limited civic representation and almost no say in the running of the country. Though the English language was dominant in the mining areas, only Dutch remained official.^[11] Kruger expressed great satisfaction at the new arrivals’ industry and respect for the state’s laws,^[4] but surmised that giving them full burgher rights might cause the Boers to be swamped by sheer weight in numbers, with the probable result of absorption into the British sphere.^[11] Agonising over how he “could meet the wishes of the new population for representation, without injuring the republic or prejudicing the interests of the older burghers”,^[8] he thought he had solved the problem in 1889 when he tabled a “second volksraad” in which the uitlanders would have certain matters devolved to them.^[8] Most deemed this inadequate, and even Kruger’s own supporters were unenthusiastic.^[8]

Rhodes and other British figures often contended that there were more uitlanders in the Transvaal than Boers.^[12] Kruger’s administration recorded twice as many Transvaalers as uitlanders, but acknowledged that there were more uitlanders than enfranchised burghers. According to the British Liberal politician James Bryce, most uitlanders saw the country as “virtually English” and perceived “something unreasonable or even grotesque in the control of a small body of persons whom they deemed in every way their inferiors”.^[13] On 4 March 1890, when Kruger visited Johannesburg, men sang British patriotic songs, tore down and trampled on the vierkleur at the city landdrost’s office, and rioted outside the house where the President was staying.^[14] One of the agitators accused him of treating the uitlanders with contempt; Kruger retorted: “I have no contempt for the new population, only for people like yourself.”^[9] The riot was broken up by police and the Chamber of Mines issued an apology, which Kruger accepted, saying only a few of the uitlanders had taken part. Few Boers were as conciliatory as Kruger; Meintjes marks this as “the point where the rift between the Transvaalers and the uitlanders began”.^[9]

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Davenport 2004.
Meintjes 1974, pp. 151–153.
^ Meredith 2007, pp. 201–202.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Meintjes 1974, pp. 153–156.
^ Meintjes 1974, pp. 151–152.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d Meintjes 1974, pp. 156–159.
^ Kruger 1902, pp. 192–194.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d Meintjes 1974, pp. 159–160.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Meintjes 1974, pp. 161–163.
Meintjes 1974, p. 124.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Meredith 2007, pp. 294–296.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Meintjes 1974, pp. 184–187.
Meredith 2007, p. 307.
^ Meintjes 1974, pp. 161–163; Meredith 2007, p. 294.

Kruger leaving for Europe in 1900—he would never return. At right is his secretary Madie Bredell.

By 1891 a rift between the Transvaalers and Uitlanders had begun and by 1900 the Second Boer War had turned against the Boer people causing Kruger to flee the Transvaal by rail on the 11th September 1900 crossing into Mozambique. His plan to take escape on the first outgoing steamer came to a halt when the Portuguese Governor put Kruger under house arrest for approximately a month before being extricated on the Dutch warship HNLMS Gelderland and arrived in Marseille on the 22nd November.

By April 1901 Kruger had moved and settled down in the Netherlands, publishing his memoirs in 1902. He remained in exile, moving to Switzerland in 1904 where he spent the remainder of his life before dying of Pneumonia in July 1904.

Kruger’s Exile

Kruger left the Transvaal by rail on 11 September 1900—he wept as the train crossed into Mozambique. He planned to board the first outgoing steamer, the Herzog of the German East Africa Line, but was prevented from doing so when, at the behest of the local British Consul, the Portuguese Governor insisted that Kruger stay in port under house arrest. About a month later Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands concluded a deal with Britain to extricate Kruger on a Dutch warship, HNLMS Gelderland, and convey him through non-British waters to Marseille. Kruger was delighted to hear of this but dismayed that Gezina, still in Pretoria, was not well enough to accompany him. Gelderland departed on 20 October 1900.^[2]

He received a rapturous welcome in Marseille on 22 November—60,000 people turned out to see him disembark.^[3] Accompanied by Leyds, he went on to an exuberant reception in Paris, then continued to Cologne on 1 December. Here the public greeted him with similar excitement, but Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to receive him in Berlin. Having apparently still harboured hopes of German assistance in the war, Kruger was deeply shocked. “The Kaiser has betrayed us”, he told Leyds.^[4] They went on to the Netherlands, which was strictly neutral and could not assist militarily, but would feel more like home. After another buoyant reception from the general public Kruger was cordially received by Wilhelmina and her family in The Hague, but it soon became clear to Leyds that it embarrassed the Dutch authorities to have them staying in the seat of government. The Kruger party moved to Hilversum in April 1901.^[5]

Gezina, with whom Kruger had had 16 children—nine sons, seven daughters (of whom some died young)^[1]—had eight sickly grandchildren transferred to her from the concentration camp at Krugersdorp, where their mother had died, in July 1901. Five of the eight children died within nine days, and two weeks later Gezina also died.^[6] Meintjes writes that a “strange silence” enveloped Kruger thereafter.^[6] By now partially blind and almost totally deaf, he dictated his memoirs to his secretary Hermanus Christiaan “Madie” Bredell and Pieter Grobler during the latter part of 1901,^[7] and the following year they were published.^[8] Kruger and his entourage relocated in December 1901 to Utrecht, where he took a comfortable villa called “Oranjelust” and was joined by his daughter Elsje Eloff and her family.^[9]

Rhodes died in March 1902, bequeathing Groote Schuur to be the official residence for future premiers of a unified South Africa. Kruger quipped to Bredell: “Perhaps I’ll be the first.”^[10] The war formally ended on 31 May 1902 with the Treaty of Vereeniging; the Boer republics became the Orange River and Transvaal Colonies. Kruger accepted it was all over only when Bredell had the flags of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State removed from outside Oranjelust two weeks later. In reply to condolences from Germany, Kruger would only say: “My grief is beyond expression.”^[11]

Kruger would not countenance the idea of returning home, partly because of personal reluctance to become a British subject again, and partly because he thought he could better serve his people by remaining in exile.^[11] Steyn similarly refused to accept the new order and joined Kruger in Europe, though he did later return.^[12] Botha, De Wet and De la Rey visited Oranjelust in August 1902 and, according to hearsay, were berated by Kruger for “signing away independence”—rumours of such a scene were widespread enough that the generals issued a statement denying them.^[13]

After passing October 1902 to May 1903 at Menton on the French Riviera,^[14] Kruger moved back to Hilversum, then returned to Menton in October 1903. In early 1904 he moved to Clarens, a small village in the canton of Vaud in western Switzerland where he spent the rest of his days looking over Lake Geneva and the Alps from his balcony.^[15] “He who wishes to create a future must not lose track of the past”, he wrote in his final letter, addressed to the people of the Transvaal. “Thus; seek all that is to be found good and fair in the past, shape your ideal accordingly and try to realise that ideal for the future. It is true: much that has been built is now destroyed, damaged, levelled. But with unity of purpose and unity of strength that which has been pulled down can be built again.”^[16] After contracting pneumonia, Paul Kruger died in Clarens on 14 July 1904 at the age of 78. His Bible lay open on a table beside him.^[17]

Kruger’s body was initially buried in The Hague, but was soon repatriated with British permission. After ceremonial lying in state, he was accorded a state funeral in Pretoria on 16 December 1904, the vierkleur of the South African Republic draped over his coffin, and buried in what is now called the Heroes’ Acre in the Church Street Cemetery.^[18]

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Meintjes 1974, p. 22.
Meintjes 1974, pp. 247–250.
^ Meintjes 1974, pp. 250–252.
^ Meintjes 1974, pp. 252–254.
^ Meintjes 1974, pp. 254–256.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Meintjes 1974, p. 256.
Meintjes 1974, pp. 256–257.
^ Kruger 1902, pp. v–vi.
Meintjes 1974, p. 258.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 259.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Meintjes 1974, p. 260.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 264.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 261.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 262.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 265.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 266.
^ Meintjes 1974, p. 267.
^ Davenport 2004; Meintjes 1974, p. vii; Picton-Seymour 1989, p. 164.

As a result of the gold rush and change in economy in 1900 the the area of Pretoria had found itself with a large stock of gold. When the British took over they performed an inventory of the gold stock in Pretoria revealing that approximately £2,000,000 worth of gold consisting of 183,138 ounces or 457 gold bars was unaccounted for.

An intensive investigative took place which was led by Lord Alfred Milner who was in charge of finding the missing gold. Rumors began to circulate about the gold being buried somewhere nearby which ignited the imaginations of many.

Kruger Pond

The Legend Of The Kruger Millions Begins

When the British occupied Pretoria on June 5, 1900, Lord Alfred Milner established that gold to the value of approximately £800 000 (about R8-million in today’s terms, but bear in mind that the price of gold has gone up manyfold since 1900) had been removed from the S A Mint and National Bank between May 29 and June 4, 1900.

Gold to the value of £2,5-million was confiscated from gold mines and, according to documentary proof, £1 294 000 was removed from the S A Mint and National Bank. Gold to the value of about £2 million had disappeared ! Milner did everything in his power to find the gold but rumors began to circulate that the gold was buried somewhere and this fired the imagination of many, including that of the writer, Gustav Preller.

Armed with a pistol, he dramatically commandeered a mule wagon in Sunnyside. That night one load of gold was transported by the mule wagon, and four loads by a horse cab, to a waiting train on Pretoria station.

In the Preller collection, in the State Archives in Pretoria, there is a typed copy of the article in which Preller says: “I think it was on 28 May 1900, because on 31May I left Pretoria. Let’s say it was 28 May. In any case it does not seem that the precise date is important now”.

Ernest Meyer, Master of the Mint in 1900, was involved in the removal of the money and gold from Pretoria. On October 25, 1949, as a result of what Preller wrote, Meyer drew up a document in which the removal of the money and gold on June 4, 1900, is described.

In Meyer’s version of the events General Smuts, who was State Attorney at that time, was left behind in command at Pretoria, while the government head-quarters moved quietly and almost unobserved to Machadodorp. On June 2, the British forces were approaching Pretoria from the South. The mint was still in operation and, as was usual, was closed on Saturday June 2.

Apart from the account of the gold from the mint being loaded, there was supposed to be gold bullion in bar form from the gold mines that was also loaded. In 1930, according to Historian Hedley Chilvers however, most of the bar gold was never accounted for !

He maintains that the total value of the bar gold was £2 million (approximately 480,769 ounces or 1,202 bars) which would have a value of 26 million dollars (R6.6 billion) today – consisting of 183,138 ounces of bar gold (457 bars) was taken from the Witwatersrand mines : Robinson Mine (198 bars), Ferreira Deep (104 bars), Ferreira Mine (96 bars) and other small mines (60 bars).

12 years after the end of the war the State Mining Engineer Jan Munnik said at a public meeting : “I would ask General Botha what has been done with the 134 gold bars, worth roughly £750,000, which he had recovered from the mines, and which, at President Kruger’s departure, were left in the hands of the Commandant-General, General Botha, and two others, by government resolution. Thus far the gold has never been accounted for, and if General Botha can give a satisfactory explanation, and if there is any gold left, I would say: Hand it over to help the Empire.”

Sourced from: Sabie

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The Clues

In 1905 after being arrested for stealing a horse car, John Holtzhousen revealed that he was the last of three people left alive who had been given the duty to bury the £2 million worth of gold and diamonds near Blyde River. Holtzhousen disappeared soon after leaving a mystery which has sent treasure hunters to the Blyde River area for many years.

After years of treasure hunters digging trenches, opening graves, swashing ant heaps, and turning over old Boer fortifications in search of the elusive Kruger Millions Colonel Devys Reits, son of ex-President Reits wished to put an end to the scarring of South African commons.

Treasure map for the Kruger Millions.

Reits declared that the gold that had been unaccounted for was only to the sum of £80,000 and it was sold to France for the benefit of Boer refugees. Ultimately declaring that the legend of the Kruger Millions was nothing but a myth.

Just A Myth?

in 1905 John Holtzhausen has arrested in crime to theft of horse car. During investigation John revealed that he was the one labor amongst three that are involved in buried Kruger Millions treasure. Government imposed the duty on them to buried 2 million pound worth of coins and gold and diamond and during the arrest he leave to find this treasure. 2 labor out of 3 has brutally killed. After this surprising statement john missing from the scene. During investigation he only informs that treasure is buried in the ground of Blyde River. But they didn’t found any clue of it.

Sourced from: Infobush.com

THE “KRUGER MILLIONS” SEARCHES FOR TREASURES. The persistent myth of the “Kruger millions”-the truckload of gold which President Kruger is supposed to have taken away with him when he evacuated Pretoria-should now be exploded for good and all, since Colonel Denys Reitz. a son of ex-President Reitz, has explained at Cape Town that the sum amounted only to £80,000 worth, which was sold in France for the benefit of Boer refugees. But it will be surprising (remarks a contributor to the “Manchester Guardian”) If he can really stop the treasure-seekers who scar the faces of obscure South African commons with trenches whenever a fresh “clue” is discovered. In the office of the Commissioner of Police at Pretoria there is a stack of files six feet high all devoted to the mythology . that has sprung up round the Kruger millions. Graves have been opened, ant-heaps have been smashed over square miles of veldt and the entire floor-space of ruined Boer forts has been turned over in the night: but so far the only finds recorded are two bricks of gold extracted by graverobbers from a shroud. Though no explanation was found for the bars of gold in the grave, it was proved that they left the Pretoria mint long before President Kruger’s flight. One of the most amusing searches for the Kruger millions took place in the Marico district of the Transvaal. For days stories of how the searchers had been scared during the night by the hisses of a giant snake practically “owned” the main pages of the South African papers. Eventually it was discovered that the hisses were caused, not by a snake, but by the wind blowing down a disused ant-bear hole and escaping through an old ant-heap.

Sourced from: trove.nla.gov.au

The Blyde River Canyon is a 26km long Canyon located in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

In 1947 H.J. Lessing found a map stitched into the cover of a Bible his father had given to him shortly before being killed in the Second Boer War. The map led Lessing and a friend to an area near the Swaziland border between Johannesburg and Laurenco Marques where they began to dig until they found broken ammunition boxes filled with Kruger sovereigns, other coins, and rotting Kruger banknotes.

In 2001, the Independent reported that according to officials in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, a family in the 1960’s found 4,000 Kruger ponds on their farm land in the Ermelo area which they had been selling on a piecemeal basis.

In 2016, Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown followed it’s host Josh Gates to South Africa as he went in search of the missing Kruger Millions. Following some leads they investigated an old train tunnel in Machadodorp where a treasure hunter had previously reported finding a gold Kruger pond.

Gates then follows another lead out to the Sudwala caves where they find another Kruger gold pond, but no Kruger Millions.

Map depicting key areas of the Kruger Millions Treasure Legend:

1.Pretoria
2.Johannesburg
3.Sudwala Caves
4.Middelburg
5.Machadodorp
6.Ermelo
7.Blyde River
8.Bible Map Treasure Find
9.Laurenco Marquee

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Conclusion

The “Lost Hoard” Kruger pond (Image: South African Mint)

In February 2021 Business Insider reported that a stash of the Kruger Millions had been discovered in a Swiss vault and are now up for sale through the South African Mint.

According to the South African Reserve Bank the sack of Kruger Ponds was transported from the Netherlands to Switzerland shortly before the Second Boer War.

In conclusion, it would appear that despite the statement from the ex-president Reits which claimed that the legend of the Kruger Millions was a myth, nothing more than an accounting error and speculation, several caches of Krugerrands have been located over the years including this stash found in the Swiss bank.

Could this be all of the Kruger treasure caches or are there more out there waiting to be found. What do you believe?

From Myth To Reality

BIBLE MAP REVEALS KRUGER MILLIONS
Portion of one of the world’s greatest lost treasures – the Kruger millions-is reported to have been found by a Johannesburg man, Mr. H. J. Lessing says he found a map stitched into the cover of a Bible which his father gave him shortly before he was killed in the. Boer War. While holidaying recently near the Swaziland border, between Johannesburg and Laurenco Maques (the territory shown in the map), Lessing said he and a friend motoring to the marked spot began to dig. “My pick struck something metallic and we soon uncovered broken ammunition* boxes filled with Kruger sovereigns, other coins and rotting Kruger banknotes,” Lessing said. “What we found would easily buy several motor cars. It is at present in the Johannesburg Bank.” The Kruger millions disappeared when Lord Roberts marched on Johannesburg. Kruger, President of the Transvaal, was able to load bullion in a special train and sent it off to Laurence Maques. This story was supported by British examination of records at Johannesburg which showed a deficit of £2,024,000. Kruger is known to have sent only £800,000 and is thought to have buried the remainder.

Sourced from: trove.nla.gov.au

Officials in Ermelo, in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, last week admitted for the first time that they were keeping secret the location of the “Kruger millions,” allegedly found by a Zulu family in the 1960s.

Ever since the discovery, the family had allegedly dug up and sold coins from the treasure on a piecemeal basis.

According to South African reports, a Zulu family of farm labourers which has lived in the Ermelo area for more than 100 years has dug up some 4,000 gold coins known as Kruger pounds and may have sold up to 400 of them but only for their scrap value since the 1960s.

Sourced from: Independent.ie

Josh heads to Pretoria, South Africa and meets historian, Fransjohan Pretorius. Fransjohan gives him background on the Boer War and Paul Kruger. Josh takes the Delagoa Bay Railway to Machadodorp where the gold was unloaded. He looks for the gold in an old train tunnel but doesn’t find anything. He goes to the Gold Reef City Mint and meets director, Glenn Schoeman. A treasure hunter found a coin he believed was a Kruger coin and sent it for authentication. Josh and Glenn test it and find it’s a genuine coin.

Josh goes to meet archaeologist Anton Van Vollenhoven at the Sudwala Caves. They explore the caves because one legend tells of a Boer Officer named Fritz Joubert Duquesne who supposedly brought the coins to the cave. They find a tin can and a new coin but no gold. Josh then goes to meet Edward Mabunda, a Shangaan tribesman, in Hazyview. Josh gets permission from the village chief to search for the millions in Kruger National Park and the chief gifts him a spear.

Josh heads to meet the treasure hunter who found the authentic Kruger coin – Lukas Van Der Merwe. Along the way, he sees a lion, a hippo, impalas, and elephants. He meets Lukas, Nico Moolman, and Sergeant Mark Preston at an anti-poaching unit base camp. They go to an area in the bush and search for the coins with metal detectors and find an old bullet. At night they use a drone and find the front of a Boer saddle, a horseshoe, and an old pistol.

Sourced from: expeditionunknown.fandom.com

A stash of rare gold coins discovered in a Swiss vault – and believed to be part of the puzzle of the missing Kruger Millions – are now for sale.

It’s commonly assumed that somewhere between Pretoria and Mozambique – possibly where the small town of eNtokozweni is located in Mpumalanga – a large portion of the gold coins and bars were buried, to be used to fund the fight at a later stage. Kruger arrived in France by ship on 22 November 1900, with no sign of the gold stash.

The mystery of the missing “Kruger Millions” has inspired intrepid treasure hunters and braai-side theorists alike. In 2001, it emerged that a family of farm workers had discovered some of these Kruger pods near Ermelo in Mpumalanga as early as 1960. Beyond that, however, the gold has remained hidden.

That was until the recent discovery of a Swiss vault.

According to the South African Mint, a subsidiary of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the sack full of Kruger ponds was transported from the Netherlands to Switzerland shortly before the start of the Second World War. The treasure remained in a vault until it was recently sold at auction.

Sourced from: businessinsider.co.za

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ADAM L C

Director of Areas Grey

Adam is an avid treasure hunter, seeker of adventure and the creator of Areas Grey. After travelling for almost half his life and cataloguing over 100 treasure legends along the way. He decided this was simply far too much treasure for one person to chase! As a result he created Areas Grey so he could share his stories, connect with other treasure hunters and put a little more adventure in the lives of the treasure hunting community.

Adam is a Private Investigator and former Wilderness Guide with a passion for history and archaeology. With the skills, knowledge and gear, Adam is always eager to go on the next fortune seeking adventure and connect with fellow treasure hunters along the way.

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“He who wishes to create a future must not lose track of the past.”

– Paul Kruger, 1904

Open post

El Dorado

08/03/202118/08/2023
by Grey

El Dorado

The Golden One

I.

OVERVIEW

II.

LEGEND

III.

THE TREASURE

IV.

EXPEDITIONS

V.

CONCLUSION

VI.

WRITER

Overview

Almost everyone will have heard the legend of El Dorado (The Golden One), a lost city of gold hidden somewhere in South America’s interior. Over the years countless people have gone in search of this hidden city of extreme wealth with only one claiming to have found it.

Juan Martinez, a captain of munitions for the Spanish adventurer Diego de Ordaz claimed to have been carried down stream blindfolded by the locals for approximately 15 days before arriving at a city he described as being of an immense size.

This Muisca raft figure is on display in the Gold Museum, Bogotá, Colombia.

Pedra Pintada in Roraima, Brazil

It is now commonly accepted that the legend of El Dorado stemmed and evolved from a ritual where by a tribal chief (Zipa) of the Muisca people covered himself in gold dust before submerging himself into Lake Guatavita.

Despite this, people haven’t stopped looking for a lost city of gold and maybe they are right to pursue this dream. In 1977 Guimarães Cruz & Roland Stevenson found evidence of an extinct lake in northern Brazil that likely began to drain 700 years ago due to tectonic movements. Was this Lake Parime which El Dorado existed along it’s banks?

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The Legend

Nieuwe caerte van het Wonderbaer ende Goudrjcke Landt Guiana by Jodocus Hondius (1598) shows the city of Manoa on the northeastern shore of Lake Parime

The legend of El Dorado lured European explorers to South America for over two centuries with stories of precious stones and an abundance of gold coins being found inspiring their efforts.

One such story came from the deathbed of Juan Martinez a captain of munitions for Diego de Ordaz. After Martinez had escaped a death sentence by escaping down river in a canoe he was taken to the city by locals.

Claiming to have been blindfolded and carried for 15 days before being shown around an enormous city named Manoa. This city of Manoa also known as El Dorado was marked on several maps during the 16th and 17th centuries until Alezander Von Humboldt allegedly disproved El Dorado’s existence during his expedition between 1799 and 1804.

Numerous expeditions took place since then fueled by the belief that a hidden city of gold of extreme wealth must exist in the interior of South America. However, all pursuits to find the treasure have ended in failure.

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The Treasure

It was no secret to the Spanish conquistadors that the native peoples had an abundance of gold and silver to which they didn’t share the same sense of value to as the Spanish had which they believed suggested that they must have a plentiful source. As such many expeditions have been taken over the years in search of that source and El Dorado.

Between 1531 an 1532 Diego de Ordaz was the first to explore Orinoco River following it beyond the mouth of the Meta River before his search for gold was put to an end by the rapids at Atures. During Ortez’s expedition he had heard of a kingdom abundant in gold called Meta which existed beyond a mountain on the left bank of the Orinoco River.

Nicolas Sanson’s 1656 map showing the “lake or sea called by the Caribes, Parime, by the Iaoyi, Roponowini.” Manoa or El Dorado is located on the northwest corner of the lake. To the north is Lake Cassipa.

The Search For El Dorado

Spanish conquistadores had noticed the native people’s fine artifacts of gold and silver long before any legend of “golden men” or “lost cities” had appeared. The prevalence of such valuable artifacts, and the natives’ apparent ignorance of their value, inspired speculation as to a plentiful source for them.^{[citation needed]}

Prior to the time of the Spanish conquest of the Muisca and discovery of Lake Guatavita, a handful of expeditions had set out to explore the lowlands to the east of the Andes in search of gold, cinnamon, precious stones, and anything else of value. During the Klein-Venedig period in Venezuela (1528–1546), agents of the German Welser banking family (which had received a concession from Charles I of Spain) launched repeated expeditions into the interior of the country in search of gold, starting with Ambrosius Ehinger‘s first expedition in July 1529.^{[citation needed]}

Spanish explorer Diego de Ordaz, then governor of the eastern part of Venezuela known as Paria (named after Paria Peninsula), was the first European to explore the Orinoco river in 1531–32 in search of gold. A veteran of Hernán Cortés’s campaign in Mexico, Ordaz followed the Orinoco beyond the mouth of the Meta River but was blocked by the rapids at Atures. After his return he died, possibly poisoned, on a voyage back to Spain.^[1] After the death of Ordaz while returning from his expedition, the Crown appointed a new Governor of Paria, Jerónimo de Ortal, who diligently explored the interior along the Meta River between 1532 and 1537. In 1535, he ordered captain Alonso de Herrera to move inland by the waters of the Uyapari River (today the town of Barrancas del Orinoco). Herrera, who had accompanied Ordaz three years before, explored the Meta River but was killed by the indigenous Achagua near its banks, while waiting out the winter rains in Casanare.^{[citation needed]}

Even before the conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires and the Muisca Confederation the Spanish collected vague hearsay about these polities and their riches.^[2] After the Inca Empire in Peru was conquered by Francisco Pizarro and its riches proved real, new rumours of riches reached the Spanish.^[3]

The earliest reference to an El Dorado-like kingdom occurred in 1531 during Ordaz’s expedition when he was told of a kingdom called Meta that was said to exist beyond a mountain on the left bank of the Orinoco River. Meta was supposedly abundant in gold and ruled by a chief that only had one intact eye.^[4]

Between 1531 and 1538, the German conquistadors Nikolaus Federmann and Georg von Speyer searched the Venezuelan lowlands, Colombian plateaus, Orinoco Basin and Llanos Orientales for El Dorado.^[5] Subsequently, Philipp von Hutten accompanied Von Speyer on a journey (1536–38) in which they reached the headwaters of the Rio Japura, near the equator. In 1541 Hutten led an exploring party of about 150 men, mostly horsemen, from Coro on the coast of Venezuela in search of the Golden City. After several years of wandering, harassed by the natives and weakened by hunger and fever, he crossed the Rio Bermejo, and went on with a small group of around 40 men on horseback into Los Llanos, where they engaged in battle with a large number of Omaguas and Hutten was severely wounded. He led those of his followers who survived back to Coro in 1546.^[6] On Hutten’s return, he and a traveling companion, Bartholomeus VI. Welser, were executed in El Tocuyo by the Spanish authorities.

In 1535, Sebastian de Benalcazar, a lieutenant of Francisco Pizarro, interrogated an Indian that had been captured at Quito. Luis Daza recorded that the Indian was a warrior while Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas wrote that the Indian was an ambassador who had come to request military assistance from the Inca, unaware that they had already been conquered. The Indian told Benalcazar that he was from a kingdom of riches known as Cundinamarca far to the north where a zipa, or chief, covered himself in gold dust during ceremonies.^[7] Benalcazar set out to find the chief, reportedly saying “Lets go find that golden Indian!” (Spanish: ¡Vámos a buscar a este indio dorado!),^[8] eventually the chief became known to the Spaniards came to know as El Dorado.^[9] Benalcazar failed however to find El Dorado and eventually joined up with Federmann and Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada and returned to Spain.^[9] It has been speculated that the land of wealth spoken of by the Indian was Arma, a kingdom whose inhabitants wore gold ornaments, which was eventually conquered by Pedro Cieza de Leon.^[10]

In 1536 Gonzalo Díaz de Pineda had led an expedition to the lowlands to the east of Quito and had found cinnamon trees but no rich empire.

PIZARRO AND ORELLANA’S DISCOVERY OF THE AMAZON

See also: Amazon River § History

In 1540, Gonzalo Pizarro, the younger half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador who toppled the Incan Empire in Peru, was made the governor of the province of Quito in northern Ecuador. Shortly after taking lead in Quito, Gonzalo learned from many of the natives of a valley far to the east rich in both cinnamon and gold. He banded together 340 soldiers and about 4000 natives in 1541 and led them eastward down the Rio Coca and Rio Napo. Francisco de Orellana accompanied Pizarro on the expedition as his lieutenant. Gonzalo quit after many of the soldiers and natives had died from hunger, disease, and periodic attacks by hostile natives. He ordered Orellana to continue downstream, where he eventually made it to the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition found neither cinnamon nor gold, but Orellana is credited with discovering the Amazon River (so named because of a tribe of female warriors that attacked Orellana’s men while on their voyage).

EXPEDITIONS OF PEDRO DE URSÚA AND LOPE DE AGUIRRE

In 1560, Basque conquistadors Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre journeyed down the Marañón and Amazon Rivers, in search of El Dorado, with 300 Spaniards and hundreds of natives;^[11] the actual goal of Ursúa was to send idle veterans from the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire away, to keep them from trouble-making, using the El Dorado myth as a lure. A year later, Aguirre participated in the overthrow and killing of Ursúa and his successor, Fernando de Guzmán, whom he ultimately succeeded.^[12]^[13] He and his men reached the Atlantic (probably by the Orinoco River), destroying native villages of Margarita island and actual Venezuela.^[14] In 1561 Aguirre’s expedition ended with his death in Barquisimeto, and in the years since then he has been treated by historians as a symbol of cruelty and treachery in the early history of colonial Spanish America.

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500-1760,Harvard University Press, 1978. ISBN 0674751078
^de Gandía 1929, p. 106.
^ de Gandía 1929, p. 110.
^ Hemming 1978, p. 15.
^ Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). “Spire, Georg von”. in Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
^ “Hutten, Philipp (Felipe Dutre, de Utre, de Ure), Conquistador, 1511 – 24.4.1546 in Venezuela.” Deutsche Biographie
^ John Hemming, The search for El Dorado pg 101-102.
^ de Gandía 1929, p. 113.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Hemming 1978, pp. 91-95.
^ Hemming 1978, p. 85.
Beatriz Pastor; Sergio Callau (1 January 2011). Lope de Aguirre y la rebelión de los marañones. Parkstone International. pp. 1524–1525. ISBN 978-84-9740-535-5.
^ William A. Douglass; Jon Bilbao (2005). Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World. University of Nevada Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-87417-625-4.
^ Elena Mampel González; Neus Escandell Tur (1 January 1981). Lope de Aguirre: Crónicas, 1559-1561. Edicions Universitat Barcelona. p. 132. ISBN 978-84-85411-51-1.
^ Gabriel Sánchez Sorondo (1 January 2010). Historia oculta de la conquista de América. Ediciones Nowtilus S.L. p. 124. ISBN 978-84-9763-601-8.

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Expeditions

Trinidad and Tobago stamp featuring the ‘Discovery of Lake Asphalt by Raleigh, 1595’

Between 1538 and 1595 The Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Antonio de Berrio made three expeditions in search of El Dorado with the first two failing. During the third expedition his entire forces were captured by Walter Raleigh who took on the challenge of finding El Dorado with Berrio as his guide for several months before giving releasing him making the end of his third failed expedition.

Walter Raleigh inspired by the accounts of Juan Martinez who had seen El Dorado first hand in 1570. Raleigh believed that if he could locate Lake Parime in the highlands of Guyana he would be able to find the lost city.

His Lieutenant Lawrence Kemys mapped the local area with the help of tribes who detailed the routes they took by canoe along the rivers to a large body of water on the shores of which existed Manoa – El Dorado.

Though Raleigh never found El Dorado, he never gave up looking. Convinced he could find the lost city of gold he launched a second expedition in 1617 which ultimately resulted in the death of his son and his friend before being beheaded himself on his return to England.

Walter Raleigh

The Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Antonio de Berrio (nephew of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada), made three failed expeditions to look for El Dorado. Between 1583 and 1589 he carried out his first two expeditions, going through the wild regions of the Colombian plains and the Upper Orinoco. In 1590 he began his third expedition, ascending the Orinoco to reach the Caroní River with his own expeditionaries and another 470 men under command of Domingo de Vera.^[1] In March 1591, while he was waiting for supplies on Margarita Island, his entire force was taken captive by Walter Raleigh, who proceeded up the Orinoco in search of El Dorado, with Berrio as a guide. Berrio took them to the territories he had previously explored by himself years before. After several months Raleigh’s expedition returned to Trinidad, and he released Berrio at the end of June 1595 on the coast of Cumaná in exchange for some English prisoners.^[2] His son Fernando de Berrío y Oruña (1577–1622) also made numerous expeditions in search of El Dorado.

Walter Raleigh‘s 1595 journey with Antonio de Berrio had aimed to reach Lake Parime in the highlands of Guyana (the supposed location of El Dorado at the time). He was encouraged by the account of Juan Martinez, believed to be Juan Martin de Albujar, who had taken part in Pedro de Silva’s expedition of the area in 1570, only to fall into the hands of the Caribs of the Lower Orinoco. Martinez claimed that he was taken to the golden city in blindfold, was entertained by the natives, and then left the city and couldn’t remember how to return.^[3] Raleigh had set many goals for his expedition, and believed he had a genuine chance at finding the so-called city of gold. First, he wanted to find the mythical city of El Dorado, which he suspected to be an actual Indian city named Manõa. Second, he hoped to establish an English presence in the Southern Hemisphere that could compete with that of the Spanish. His third goal was to create an English settlement in the land called Guyana, and to try to reduce commerce between the natives and Spaniards.

In 1596 Raleigh sent his lieutenant, Lawrence Kemys, back to Guyana in the area of the Orinoco River, to gather more information about the lake and the golden city.^[4] During his exploration of the coast between the Amazon and the Orinoco, Kemys mapped the location of Amerindian tribes and prepared geographical, geological and botanical reports of the country. Kemys described the coast of Guiana in detail in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596)^[5] and wrote that indigenous people of Guiana traveled inland by canoe and land passages towards a large body of water on the shores of which he supposed was located Manoa, Golden City of El Dorado.

Though Raleigh never found El Dorado, he was convinced that there was some fantastic city whose riches could be discovered. Finding gold on the riverbanks and in villages only strengthened his resolve.^[6] In 1617, he returned to the New World on a second expedition, this time with Kemys and his son, Watt Raleigh, to continue his quest for El Dorado. However, Raleigh, by now an old man, stayed behind in a camp on the island of Trinidad. Watt Raleigh was killed in a battle with Spaniards and Kemys subsequently committed suicide.^[5] Upon Raleigh’s return to England, King James ordered him to be beheaded for disobeying orders to avoid conflict with the Spanish.^[7] He was executed in 1618.

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Bell, Robert (1837). Lives of the British Admirals: Robert Devereux. Sir Walter Raleigh Volume 4. Longman. pp. 330–35.
^ Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana, Hakluyt Society, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006. ISBN 0904180875
^ Dotson, Eliane. “Lake Parime and the Golden City” (PDF). Wash Map Society. p. 4. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ “Raleigh’s Second Expedition to Guiana”. Guyana. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Laughton, John Knox (1885–1900). “Kemys, Lawrence (DNB00)”. Dictionary of National Biography. 30.
^ “Sir Walter Raleigh”. Learn NC. UNC School of Education. Archived from the original on 6 February 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Drye, Willie. “El Dorado Legend Snared Sir Walter Raleigh”. National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 18 November 2010. Retrieved 15 February 2019.

Many more expeditions have taken place between 1609 and now in the name of El Dorado:

1609 – Robert Harcourt and his brother Michael Harcourt explored Oyapock River.

1611 – Sir Thomas Roe sailed up the Amazon and took canoes up the Waipoco in search of Lake Parime.

1637 – Acana & Fritz, two monks went on several journeys in search of the Manoas and published accounts of their journeys.

1739 – Nicholas Horstman travelled up the Essequibo River discovering Lake Amuco.

1740 – Don Mamuel Centurion embarked on a journey up the Caura River and Paragua River.

1775 – Nicholas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos explored the Caroní River, the Paragua River, and the Pacaraima Mountains, reached the Uraricoera River and Rio Branco.

Robert Schomburgk, 1865

A scientific survey of the Guyana River basins and lakes were carried out by Alexander Von Humboldt between 1799 and 1804 in which he concluded that Lake Parime and El Dorado were nothing but myths.

Post-Elizabethan expeditions

On 23 March 1609, Robert Harcourt accompanied by his brother Michael and a company of adventurers, sailed for Guiana. On 11 May he arrived at the Oyapock River. Local people came on board, and were disappointed at the absence of Sir Walter Raleigh after he had famously visited during his exploration of the area in 1595. Harcourt gave them aqua vitae. He took possession in the king’s name of a tract of land lying between the River Amazon and River Essequibo on 14 August, left his brother and most of his company to colonise it, and four days later embarked for England.^[2]

In early 1611 Sir Thomas Roe, on a mission to the West Indies for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, sailed his 200-ton ship, the Lion’s Claw, some 320 kilometres (200 mi) up the Amazon,^[3] then took a party of canoes up the Waipoco (probably the Oyapock River) in search of Lake Parime, negotiating thirty-two rapids and traveling about 160 km (100 mi) before they ran out of food and had to turn back.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]

In 1627 North and Harcourt, obtained letters patent under the great seal from Charles I, authorising them to form a company for “the Plantation of Guiana”, North being named as deputy governor of the settlement. Short of funds, this expedition was fitted out, a plantation established in 1627, and trade opened by North’s endeavours.^[2]

In 1637-38, two monks, Acana and Fritz, undertook several journeys to the lands of the Manoas, indigenous peoples living in western Guyana and what is now Roraima in northeastern Brazil. Although they found no evidence of El Dorado, their published accounts were intended to inspire further exploration.^[8]

In November 1739, Nicholas Horstman, a German surgeon commissioned by the Dutch Governor of Guiana, traveled up the Essequibo River accompanied by two Dutch soldiers and four Indian guides. In April 1741 one of the Indian guides returned reporting that in 1740 Horstman had crossed over to the Rio Branco and descended it to its confluence with the Rio Negro. Horstman discovered Lake Amucu on the North Rupununi but found neither gold nor any evidence of a city.^[9]

In 1740, Don Manuel Centurion, Governor of Santo Tomé de Guayana de Angostura del Orinoco in Venezuela, hearing a report from an Indian about Lake Parima, embarked on a journey up the Caura River and the Paragua River, causing the deaths of several hundred persons. His survey of the local geography, however, provided the basis for other expeditions starting in 1775.^[1]

From 1775 to 1780, Nicholas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos, two entrepreneurs employed by the Spanish Governors, set out on foot and Santos, proceeding by the Caroní River, the Paragua River, and the Pacaraima Mountains, reached the Uraricoera River and Rio Branco, but found nothing.^[10]

Between 1799 and 1804, Alexander von Humboldt conducted an extensive and scientific survey of the Guyana river basins and lakes, concluding that a seasonally-flooded confluence of rivers may be what inspired the notion of a mythical Lake Parime, and of the supposed golden city on the shore, nothing was found.^[1] Further exploration by Charles Waterton (1812)^[11] and Robert Schomburgk (1840)^[12] confirmed Humboldt’s findings.

GOLD STRIKES AND THE EXTRACTIVE WEALTH OF THE RAINFOREST

By the mid-1570s, the Spanish silver strike at Potosí in Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) was producing unprecedented real wealth.^{[citation needed]}

In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died, bringing to an end the era of Elizabethan adventurism. A bit later, in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the great inspirer, was beheaded for insubordination and treason.^{[citation needed]}

In 1695, bandeirantes in the south struck gold along a tributary of the São Francisco River in the highlands of State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The prospect of real gold overshadowed the illusory promise of “gold men” and “lost cities” in the vast interior of the north.^{[citation needed]}

The gold mine at El Callao (Venezuela), started in 1871, a few miles at south of Orinoco River, was for a time one of the richest in the world, and the goldfields as a whole saw over a million ounces exported between 1860 and 1883.^{[citation needed]} The immigrants who emigrated to the gold mines of Venezuela were mostly from the British Isles and the British West Indies.^{[citation needed]}

The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA),^[13] officially created on February 24, 2016 as the Arco Mining Orinoco National Strategic Development Zone, is an area rich in mineral resources that the Republic of Venezuela has been operating since 2017;^[14]^[15] occupies mostly the north of the Bolivar state and to a lesser extent the northeast of the Amazonas state and part of the Delta Amacuro state. It has 7,000 tons of reserves of gold, copper, diamond, coltan, iron, bauxite and other minerals.^{[citation needed]}

It appears today that the Muisca obtained their gold in trade, and while they possessed large quantities of it over time, no great store of the metal was ever accumulated.^{[citation needed]}

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Humboldt, Alexander von, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, (chapter 25). Henry G. Bohn, London, 1853.
From Robert Harcourt (explorer): Goodwin, Gordon (1890). “Harcourt, Robert” . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Cardoso, Alírio (2011). “A conquista do Maranhão e as disputas atlânticas na geopolítica da União Ibérica (1596-1626)”. Revista Brasileira de História. 31 (61): 317–338. doi:10.1590/S0102-01882011000100016.
^ Dean, James Seay (2013). Tropics Bound: Elizabeth’s Seadogs on the Spanish Main. The History Press. ISBN 978-0752496689.
^ Williamson, James Alexander (1923). English colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, 1604-1668. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 54.
^ Lane-Poole, Stanley (1885–1900). “Roe, Thomas (DNB00)”. Dictionary of National Biography. 49.
^ Brown, Michael J. (13 January 2015). Rowse, A. L. (ed.). Itinerant Ambassador: The Life of Sir Thomas Roe. University Press of Kentucky. p. 15. ISBN 978-0813162270. JSTOR j.ctt130j7sv.
^ Durivage, Francis Alexander (1847). A popular cyclopedia of history: ancient and modern, forming a copious historical dictionary of celebrated institutions, persons, places and things … Case, Tiffany and Burnham. p. 717.
^ Harris, C. A.; Abraham, John; De Villiers, Jacob (1911). Storm Van’s Gravesande: The Rise of British Guiana, Compiled from his Works. Hakluyt Society.
^ Pierce, Edward M. (1867). The Cottage Cyclopedia of History and Biography: A Copious Dictionary of Memorable Persons, Events, Places and Things, with Notices of the Present State of the Principal Countries and Nations of the Known World, and a Chronological View of American History,. Case, Lockwood. pp. 1004.
^ Waterton, Charles (1891). Moore, Norman (ed.). Wanderings in South America. London, Paris & Melbourne: Cassell & Co, Ltd. p. 192 – via gutenberg.org.
^ Rivière, Peter (2006). The Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk, 1835-1844: Explorations on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society, 1835-1839. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 274. ISBN 0904180867.
^ http://historico.tsj.gob.ve/gaceta/febrero/2422016/2422016-4514.pdf Decreto N° 2.248, mediante el cual se crea la Zona de Desarrollo Estratégico Nacional “Arco Minero del Orinoco”.
^ Egaña, Carlos, 2016. El Arco Minero del Orinoco: ambiente, rentismo y violencia al sur de Venezuela
^ Cano Franquiz, María Laura. “Arco Minero del Orinoco vulnera fuentes vitales y diversidad cultural en Venezuela”. La Izquierda Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 July 2017.

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Conclusion

In 1535 Sebastian de Benalcazar a Lieutenant of Francisco Pizarro had learned of a kingdom known as Cundinamarca to the north where a chief known as the Zipa covered himself in gold dust during ceremonies. Learning this he set off in search of the Zipa exclaiming “¡Vámos a buscar a este indio dorado!” or “Lets go find that golden Indian!” Which is said to be where the term El Dorado came from.

The lake where the Zipa would submerge himself was found in 1537 by conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada who then attempted to drain the lake but failed finding only the equivalent of 4000 pesos in gold.

Muisca raft, representation of the initiation of the new Zipa in the lake of Guatavita, possible source of the legend of El Dorado. It was found in a cave in Pasca, Colombia in 1856, together with many other gold objects.

In 1580 entrepreneur Antonio de Sepúlveda took an industrious attempt at draining the lake but only recovered approximately 12,000 pesos in golden ornaments, jewelry, and armor before too failing.

In 1801, Alexander Von Humboldt estimated the lake could hold $300 million worth of gold. In 1898 contractors from London decided to try their luck at recovering the gold. They successfully drained the lake to reveal 4 feet of mud and slime which in the sun became as hard as concrete. They were only able to recover approximately £500 worth of gold from the lake before filing for bankruptcy. In 1965 the Columbian government designated the lake as a protected area making salvage attempts illegal.

Lake Guatavita gold

While the existence of a sacred lake in the Eastern Ranges of the Andes, associated with Indian rituals involving gold, was known to the Spaniards possibly as early as 1531, its location was only discovered in 1537 by conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada while on an expedition to the highlands of the Eastern Ranges of the Andes in search of gold.^[2]

Conquistadores Lázaro Fonte and Hernán Perez de Quesada attempted (unsuccessfully) to drain the lake in 1545 using a “bucket chain” of labourers. After 3 months, the water level had been reduced by 3 metres, and only a small amount of gold was recovered, with a value of 3000–4000 pesos (approx. US$100,000 today; a peso or piece of eight of the 15th century weighs 0.88 oz of 93% pure silver).^{[citation needed]}

A later more industrious attempt was made in 1580, by Bogotá business entrepreneur Antonio de Sepúlveda. A notch was cut deep into the rim of the lake, which managed to reduce the water level by 20 metres, before collapsing and killing many of the labourers. A share of the findings—consisting of various golden ornaments, jewellery and armour—was sent to King Philip II of Spain. Sepúlveda’s discovery came to approximately 12,000 pesos. He died a poor man, and is buried at the church in the small town of Guatavita.

In 1801, Alexander von Humboldt made a visit to Guatavita, and on his return to Paris, calculated from the findings of Sepúlveda’s efforts that Guatavita could offer up as much as $300 million worth of gold.^[1]

In 1898, the Company for the Exploitation of the Lagoon of Guatavita was formed and taken over by Contractors Ltd. of London, in a deal brokered by British expatriate Hartley Knowles. The lake was drained by a tunnel that emerged in the centre of the lake. The water was drained to a depth of about 4 feet of mud and slime.^{[citation needed]} This made it impossible to explore, and when the mud had dried in the sun, it had set like concrete. Artifacts worth only about £500 were found, and auctioned at Sotheby’s of London. Some of these were donated to the British Museum.^[3] The company filed for bankruptcy and ceased activities in 1929.

In 1965, the Colombian government designated the lake as a protected area. Private salvage operations, including attempts to drain the lake, are now illegal.^{[citation needed]}

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Humboldt, Alexander von, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, (chapter 25). Henry G. Bohn, London, 1853.
Hemming, John. “The Draining of Lake Guatavita” (PDF). SA Explorers. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 15 February2019.
^ “Guatavita, Lake”. British Museum Collection. Trustees of the British Museum. Retrieved 15 February 2019.

Artistic concept for an idealistic El Dorado

Although the legend of El Dorado is now written off as a myth stemming from the ritual of the Zipa at Lake Guatavita there are still some unanswered questions that give some possible hope to treasure hunters. Such as the eye witness account of Juan Martinez which inspired so many to go in search for the lost city of gold.

Lake Parime was dismissed as a myth along with El Dorado in the 19th century. However, in 1977 Brazillian Geologists found that the surrounding hillsides in northern Brazil share a horizontal line at 120 meters above sea level suggestive of an extinct lake with a surface area of approximately 80,000 square kilometers that would have existed until recent times. A lake of this size in this area would match those maps that depict Lake Parime from the 16th century.

In 2019 the ISS (International Space Station) detected deposits of hold along the amazon river which may have, like those findings of gold before along the rivers could have been washed up on the shore of the lake before being carried by streams and rivers out of the mountains.

With Spaniards such as Pizzaro having found so much gold in the possession of the northern and western native inhabitants and their cities it would it then not make sense for their to be a central location of wealth to the inlands an El Dorado?

Nicolas Sanson’s 1656 map showing the “lake or sea called by the Caribes, Parime, by the Iaoyi, Roponowini.” to the left. Compared to the location and area of an extinct lake discovered by Brazillian Geologists in 1977 to the right.

There Is Still Hope?

In 1987–1988, an expedition led by John Hemming of the Royal Geographical Society failed to uncover any evidence of the ancient city of Manoa on the island of Maracá in north-central Roraima. Members of the expedition were accused of looting historic artifacts^[1] but an official report of the expedition described it as “an ecological survey.”^[2]

EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF LAKE PARIME

Main article: Lake Parime

Although it was dismissed in the 19th century as a myth, some evidence for the existence of a lake in northern Brazil has been uncovered. In 1977 Brazilian geologists Gert Woeltje and Frederico Guimarães Cruz along with Roland Stevenson,^[3] found that on all the surrounding hillsides a horizontal line appears at a uniform level approximately 120 metres (390 ft) above sea level.^[4] This line registers the water level of an extinct lake which existed until relatively recent times. Researchers who studied it found that the lake’s previous diameter measured 400 kilometres (250 mi) and its area was about 80,000 square kilometres (31,000 sq mi). About 700 years ago this giant lake began to drain due to tectonic movement. In June 1690, a massive earthquake opened a bedrock fault, forming a rift or a graben that permitted the water to flow into the Rio Branco.^[5] By the early 19th century it had dried up completely.^[6]

Roraima’s well-known Pedra Pintada is the site of numerous pictographs dating to the pre-Columbian era. Designs on the sheer exterior face of the rock were most likely painted by people standing in canoes on the surface of the now-vanished lake.^[7] Gold, which was reported to be washed up on the shores of the lake, was most likely carried by streams and rivers out of the mountains where it can be found today.^[8]

RECENT EVIDENCE

Astronomers from ISS (International Space Station) found deposits of gold on the amazon river which can be a proof for the lost city of gold by historians.^[9]^[10]

Sourced from: Wikipedia

REFERENCES:

Cano Franquiz, María Laura. “Arco Minero del Orinoco vulnera fuentes vitales y diversidad cultural en Venezuela”. La Izquierda Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 July 2017.
^ Videla, Rafael (1 January 2008). “El Dorado: El Gran Descubrimiento de Roland Stevenson”. Alerta Austral (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 August 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Hemming, John; Bowles, Steve; Watson, Fiona (1988). “Maracá Rainforest Project Brazil 1987-1988” (PDF). Royal Geographical Society. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 August 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Stevenson, Roland. “Parime: Finding the Legendary Lake”. Netium. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Maziero, Dalton Delfini. “El Dorado Em busca dos antigos mistérios Amazônicos”. Arqueologiamericana (in Portuguese). Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Veloso, Alberto V. (September 2014). “On the footprints of a major Brazilian Amazon earthquake”. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências. 86 (3): 1115–1129. doi:10.1590/0001-3765201420130340.
^ Shea, Jeff (March 2013). “The March 2013 Paragua River Expedition: Penetration into The Meseta de Ichún of Venezuela” (PDF). Explorers Club Report #60. p. 110. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Fonseca, J. A. (7 September 2011). “A Misteriosa Pedra Pintada (Roraima)”. Moiseslime (in Portuguese). WordPress. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ “Significant gold deposits in Roraima Basin – study”. Stabroek News. March 22, 2009. Archived from the original on 1 February 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ “Illicit gold rush in Peruvian Amazon”. Nature. 502 (7473): 596–596. October 2013. doi:10.1038/502596b. ISSN 0028-0836.
^ “NASA’s stunning photo showing ‘Gold Rivers’ in Peruvian Amazon has a grim backstory”. www.timesnownews.com. Retrieved 2021-02-14.

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