Even the
alluvium deposits along the banks of the rivers and their tributaries,
as well as the river beds, might, in many instances, be found to
"pay."
The early settlers compelled the Indians to work for them. These poor
creatures, armed with the simplest tools, dug the earth from the river
banks. Their wives and daughters, standing up to their knees in the
river, washed it in wooden troughs. When the output diminished another
site was chosen, often before the first one was half worked out. The
Indians' practical knowledge of the places where gold was likely to be
found was the Spanish gold-seeker's only guide, the Indians' labor the
only labor employed in the collection of it.
As for the mountains, they have never been properly explored. The
Indians who occupied them remained in a state of insurrection for
years, and when the mountain districts could be safely visited at
last, the _auri sacra fames_ had subsided. The governors did not
interest themselves in the mineral resources of the island, and the
people found it too difficult to provide for their daily wants to go
prospecting. So the surface gold in the alluvium deposits was all that
was collected by the Spaniards, and what there still may be on the
bed-rocks of the rivers or in the lodes in the mountains from which it
has been washed, awaits the advent of modern gold-seekers.
The first samples of gold from Puerto Rico were taken to the Espanola
by Ponce, who had obtained them from the river Manatuabon, to which
the friendly cacique Guaybana conducted him on his first visit (1508).
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