By: George A Slovitsky

The Legend: A huge pile of silver from a Spanish Mission Mine remains buried and is guarded
by the skeletal remains of a Mayo Indian Princess.
As the story goes, a back room, in the mission mine, was not only used to store the silver, but
was also used by the Indians for their religious activities. It’s believed that some of the Indians
must have been listening to the preaching’s of the Padre’s and when they noticed a Mayo Indian
princess traveling alone in the desert, they were certain she was the next Virgin Mary.
Believing this, they kidnapped the Mayo Indian princess, demanding she marry their chief and
produce a child savior. The princess refused marriage and proclaimed she would rather die than
marry the chief. The Indians made a decision; if she would not marry their chief, they would
sacrifice her to their gods.
On their only day off from the mines, they took the princess to the large pile of silver in the back
room and tied her there. She was given a last chance to marry the chief. Again, she refused. The
chief then cut her hands and rubbed a poison into her blood explaining that when the sun touched
her cuts she would die. As the sun began to shine through a hole in the ceiling of the room, the
Indians began singing and dancing around the princess.
The missionaries heard the sounds but by the time they reached the mine, they found the nude
body of the Indian princess, dead, and tied to the silver. This enraged the missionaries, because
the Indians were ignoring all their teachings and sticking to their pagan’s way. They sealed the
mine and left the princess along with all the silver.
Behind the Legend: The Opata Mine is located somewhere close to Tumacacori Mission about
45 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. Spaniards built the Tumacacori Mission in the hopes of
converting the Papago and the Opata Indians to the Catholic religion.
The missionaries not only wanted to covert the Indians, but they also wanted to use them as
slaves to mine the silver ore they had discovered in the various mines around the area in 1766.
The Opata Indians preferred working in one particular mine more than the others and the
missionaries allowed this, as the mine was highly profitable. At the back of this mine was a giant
room where all of the silver was stored in a pile in the center of the room.
Local Opata Indians began to trade at the Cerro Colorado Silver Mine store in 1848. To
everyone’s surprise, the Indians paid for their purchases with large nuggets of native silver.
Trading continued for some time and the Opatas seemed to have an abundance of nuggets, but
whenever a white man inquired as to where the Indians were getting their silver, they remained
silent.
As more white men moved into southern Arizona the Apaches took to the war path. Once
fighting started, the Opatas, who feared the Apache, would no longer travel to the south and their
access to the silver nuggets was cut off. Nothing more was heard of the silver or the mine until
1880 when an old white prospector appeared in Nogales and offered to sell a huge silver nugget
to a saloonkeeper.
The saloonkeeper agreed to the purchase and pretty soon the huge nugget was the talk of the
town. The old prospector spent his money freely, while the saloonkeeper kept the old man’s
glass full of redeye. After some celebrating, the old man began talking about his silver strike. He
said he was on the Santa Cruz River near Tubac when he came upon a tiny, crude hut. He found
an old Opata Indian living there and the prospector gave him some tobacco and a can of
tomatoes.

As the prospector got ready to leave, the old Indian came to him, giving him a large silver nugget
as thanks. The Indian said he’d found the nugget on Carrizo Creek while hunting many years
ago. The Indian described the area and claimed many such nuggets were lying exposed along the
riverbank.
Then the prospector concluded telling his story, the saloonkeeper offered to grubstake him if he
would accept his offer of a 50-50 partnership. The deal was struck and soon after the prospector
and his new partner left town on their burros completely outfitted for the journey.
After several weeks of prospecting in the heat of the Sonoran desert, the saloonkeeper called it
quits and returned to Nogales alone.
The old miner refused to give up and continued on. Months passed and not a word was heard of
the prospector and the assumption was that he’d died in the desert. Then one day the old
prospector showed up in Nogales leading four burros all heavily laden with ore that once assayed
turned out to be almost pure silver.
The old man said after his partner left him, he had continued prospecting the banks of Carrizo
Creek south of the Tascosa Mountains. He found an eroded outcropping of kaolinite (aka kaolin
China clay) that was heavy with silver nuggets.
That evening, the old miner was living large and spending freely. He kept his glass full of
redeye, spent a good deal of time at the gaming tables, and bought gifts for the saloon girls.
The following day the prospector did not show up at his usual haunts. By noon a search party
had formed and at the edge of town, inside an old barn, they found the old man dead. No signs of
violence were found, and it was ruled his heart had just stopped as he slept.
The saloonkeeper was confident he could find the spot where the dead prospector had located the
rich silver. He made several trips to Carrizo Creek, but never located the kaolin outcropping. He
finally gave up disgusted.
To this day, the location of the outcropping where the Opata Indians had first discovered huge
silver nuggets has remained a mystery.
My Notes: In the early 1860’s, when the French were trying to occupy Mexico, an ancient
record giving a description of the old Tumacacori mines, was taken to Paris by a relative of
Madam Conde, wife of General Conde, the Mexican Commissioner. This record was placed in
the National Museum at Paris, and copies were later returned to Mexico. According to this
document, which carries some odd dates, the Opata Mine is halfway between the Guadalupe
Mine and the Pure Conception Mine. The Guadalupe Mine, according to the record, is one
league south of the big gate of the mission, could mean the main/front door, as this door faces
south. The Pure Conception Mine is three leagues south of the Guadalupe Mine. The Spanish
league in those days was 3.45 miles, which places the Opata Mine midway between the two.
In 1850, J. Ross Browne, in his report to the US Government, referring to the mission and nearby
Tubac, wrote…Tubac had probably 150 silver mines within a radius of 16 miles. They have not
been worked for 50 years. That would place the abandonment of operations at around 1800.
Did the old prospector found the mine, is the outcropping misdirection, or did the silver come
from some other source, the debate continues. Research is the key to this one, not much
information is out there. Good luck and happy hunting!!!