Spanish Fort Built by Gold Hunters Discovered Miles From Where I Live

[Buster's Uncle]

Spanish Fort Built by Gold Hunters Discovered
LiveScience.com
by Megan Gannon, News Editor  3 hours ago
 

 
Before there was Jamestown and even before there was Roanoke, there was Spain's Fort San Juan, in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of the fort built by gold-hunting Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and say it's the oldest European garrison ever found in the interior of the United States.

The settlement around Fort San Juan was occupied for less than two years and it met a rather bloody end — likely brought on by the Spaniards' botched bartering for food and their sexual transgressions with Native American women. But the short-lived fort's traces serve as a reminder of how different U.S. history might have been if Spain had been more successful in its early colonial campaigns. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World]

The garrison was built by Spanish Captain Juan Pardo and his men in about 1567 near what is today Morganton in western North Carolina, about 300 miles (482 kilometers) inland. It is thought to be the first and the largest of the forts that Pardo established in an attempt to colonize the American South. It's also the only one to have been discovered so far.

"Fort San Juan and six others that together stretched from coastal South Carolina into eastern Tennessee were occupied for less than 18 months before the Native Americans destroyed them, killing all but one of the Spanish soldiers who manned the garrisons," University of Michigan archaeologist Robin Beck said in a statement.

Archaeologist Robin Beck at the base of the Spanish moat, which measured is 5.5 feet (1.7 m) deep and 15 feet (4.5 m) across.

The fort was located at the Native American site of Joara, part of the mound-building Mississippian culture. Previous excavations had revealed evidence of a European presence at Joara, including houses occupied by Spanish soldiers.

"We have known for more than a decade where the Spanish soldiers were living," another excavator, Christopher Rodning of Tulane University, explained in a statement. This summer, the team returned to learn more about the Mississippian mound at the site, but last month, their excavations inadvertently exposed part of the fort.

"For all of us, it was an incredible moment," Rodning said.

In addition to excavations, the researchers used techniques like magnetometry to probe the site. This allowed them to detect features buried below the surface, including the fort's V-shaped moat and a graveled entryway. Among the artifacts found at the site were nails, tacks, pottery and an iron clothing hook for fastening a jacket or attaching a sword scabbard to a belt, the researchers say.

The Spaniards were actively prospecting for gold while they occupied the site, though they never found the goldmines that would make North Carolina's settlers of the early 1800s rich. Archaeologists believe the colonizers' downfall was brought on by their own presumptions about how to trade with the Native Americans.

An iron clothing hook was among Spanish artifacts found at the site.

"The soldiers believed that when their gifts were accepted, it meant that the native people were their subjects," Beck said in a statement. "But to the natives, it was simply an exchange. When the soldiers ran out of gifts, they expected the natives to keep on feeding them. By that time, they had also committed what Spanish documents refer to as 'indiscretions' with native women, which may have been another reason that native men decided they had to go. So food and sex were probably two of the main reasons for destroying Spanish settlements and forts."

England exploited Spain's failure when they established Jamestown in 1607, putting in motion the American frontier narrative that's in the history books today, another archaeologist, David Moore of Warren Wilson College, explained in a statement.

"For Native Americans, though, this was the beginning of a long-term and often tragic reshaping of their precolonial world," Moore added.

http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-fort-built-gold-hunters-discovered-131513703.html

I live ten miles from Morganton, have considerable knowledge of local history, and this is news to me.

[Unorthodox]

Huh. 

There's lots of local legends about spanish gold and mines in them thar hills, but little in the way of actual evidence.  We set about locating a bunch of old ghost mines, some supposedly spanish, for about 5 years as our summer "vacations".  Found several, most had been collapsed.  Couple had evidence there may be gold if you could reopen them, but location and safety make that pretty stupid to attempt.  We pulled some gear out of one that was never really identified as to origin, wonder what mom did with that stuff, probably be easier to get an identification in the internet age.     

There's a river I know you can get gold from panning as well.  I wouldn't call it worth the time, but whatever. 

[Buster's Uncle]

The North Carolina mountains were the site of the first US gold rush, circa early 1800s, so the Spaniards were looking in an appropriate place, though I don't think the Cherokee ever did any mining, and the Spanish tended to prefer their gold already dug up and smelted.

Momma says she's know about that dig for a few years, but not known much.