Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Martyr
D'Anghiera, The Most Intelligent Writer On The Conquest, Says:
"Cuba
is richer in gold than Hispaniola (San Domingo); and at the moment I
am writing, 180,000 castillanos
Of ore have been collected at Cuba."
Herrera estimates the tax called King's-fifth (quinto del Rey), in the
island of Cuba, at 6000 pesos, which indicates an annual product of
2000 marks of gold, at 22 carats; and consequently purer than the gold
of Sibao in San Domingo. In 1804 the mines of Mexico altogether
produced 7000 marks of gold; and those of Peru 3400. It is difficult,
in these calculations, to distinguish between the gold sent to Spain
by the first Conquistadores, that obtained by washings, and that which
had been accumulated for ages in the hands of the natives, who were
pillaged at will. Supposing that in the two islands of Cuba and San
Domingo (in Cubanacan and Cibao) the product of the washings was 3000
marks of gold, we find a quantity three times less than the gold
furnished annually (1790 to 1805) by the small province of Choco. In
this supposition of ancient wealth there is nothing improbable; and if
we are surprised at the scanty produce of the gold-washings attempted
in our days at Cuba and San Domingo, which were heretofore so
prolific, it must be recollected that at Brazil also the product of
the gold-washings has fallen, from 1760 to 1820, from 6600 gold
kilogrammes to less than 595. Lumps of gold weighing several pounds,
found in our days in Florida and North and South Carolina, prove the
primitive wealth of the whole basin of the Antilles from the island of
Cuba to the Appalachian chain.
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