The major exports from New Spain back to the mother land were gold and silver. From northern Mexico wagons loaded with bullion crossed the Rio Grande at the mouth of the Pecos and proceeded to the Texas coast. There were silver deposits in Texas itself, located among the Llano, San Saba and Nueces canyons. Lipan Apaches traded bits of silver ore in San Antonio. They molded silver into rifle bullets. Yes, silver was there. Someplace.
The Spanish miners worked those hills. Where were their mines? Lost today, lost to history, and the source of tales of lost treasures. Here's but one of those stories -- Jim Bowie and the Lost San Saba Mines.
Jim Bowie of the Alamo fight, inventor of the wicked blade, slave trader in Louisiana who found his way to Texas. He married the beautiful Ursula de Veramondi, the vice-governor's daughter. Bowie became a prominent citizen of San Antonio. And struck up a friendship with the Lipan Apache chief, Xolic. Perhaps Xolic revealed the source of the silver bullion to his friend Bowie.
Some years earlier the Spanish were mining silver from a cave near the Llano River. On the San Saba river they established a mission to Christianize the savages, and nearby, a contingent of soldiers maintained a small fort. Indians savagely destroyed the mission -- the remains are near the town of Menard in Central Texas. There are fragments of a smelter among the remains of the mission. Was there a silver mine there?
Jim Bowie, presumably acting on information from the Lipan Apaches, set out to find the so-called San Saba mine. Along on the expedition was his brother, Rezin Bowie, and both left accounts of the expedition. Jim Bowie thought that the mines were but a mile distant from the fort. Yet the expedition took a circuitous route to San Saba, "examining the nature of the country."
The expedition came to an end when they were attacked by a large band of Caddos, Wacos and others. The Texians had the high ground and made a good fight, repelling the Indians after a day. The party hobbled back to San Antonio. The Texian survivors left a variety of tales about the San Saba Mine. Did Jim Bowie carve his name at the mine entrance? Did Rezin Bowie climb down into a mine? Did one Cephas K. Ham actually lead the expedition?
Ham wrote that Bowie made a second attempt to reach the mine but couldn’t locate it. Had the Indians disguised the shaft? Filled it? The Lost Bowie Mine would have been many miles away from the Spanish diggings on the Llano river anyway.
Older Texans will tell you -- there's silver out there, waiting to be found. The legend survives its heroes.
Dac Crossley
January 22, 1990
"People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to." -- Malcolm Muggeridge.