In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

10. The Discovery of Gold in Georgia The gold had lain there since nature sculpted the Appalachians , filling crevices, secreted in the pockets where metallic gas had formed and cooled within the molten rock to form the miraculous yellow metal. And above it the Cherokee Indians lived for generations-planting, hunting, and fishing-innocent of the treasure beneath their feet for which men would kill and die. In 1540 Hernando deSoto and his explorers were the first white men the Indians of the Georgia mountains had ever seen.· Although the gold they sought was here, the disappointed Spaniards did not find it and it would lie undisturbed for three more centuries. They had no interest in the fact that they had brought a primitive people from the stone age into the age of metal as swiftly and unexpectedly as a flash of lightning strikes a tree in the forest. The Cherokees watched Spanish axes of iron and steel felling a great tree in an hour while stone axes shattered and the task might take them several days. Spanish knives transformed game into food or pelts with magical speed as Indian hunters looked on in amazement. Their lives would never be the same. In the late 1700s European settlers began to arrive and the Cherokees adapted rapidly to the civilization of their new white neighbors. Sequoya, a Cherokee scholar, invented the symbols for an alphabet and many soon learned to read their own newspaper edited by the articulate, intelligent Elias Boudinot. They lived in houses, some modest, 98 Discovery of Gold in Georgia 99 some elaborate, and farmed, raised cattle, and owned slaves. The Cherokees began to dress like the whites, absorbed their customs, and adopted the Christian religion. Ironically, many of the very Christians who were so concerned over the state of their souls were to seize their land and belongings and exile them, for the discovery of gold changed the white settlers and their Indian friends into adversaries. How did it all start and who was first to discover gold in Georgia? It is believed to have been a North Carolinian named Parks. The Parks family moved to Georgia in 1818, buying farmland at the edge of a forest not far from the site where the Dahlonega Court House would one day be built. Benny Parks was deer hunting in the winter of 1828 when he tripped on a stone and almost fell. "My toe hurt so dad-blamed bad Ipicked up that rock and was ready to pitch it," the old Georgia farmer said, as he reportedly told the story in 1894. "But something stopped me ... it just didn't feel like an ordinary rock. When I looked at it closer, it glinted. It glinted like gold and doggone ... it really was!" Since he came from North Carolina where the gold rush began some years before, Parks was not surprised. White haired with sparking blue eyes, Benny Parks had a superior memory even at 94; and he seldom stumbled over a word as he described to a reporter the events that followed his discovery. "The .land I wanted belonged to Reverend Mr. Obarr, who, though a preacher was a hard man and desperate. I went to him and told him that I thought I could find gold on his place, if he would give me a lease. He laughed as though he did not believe me, and consented. So, a lease for forty years was written out, the consideration ofwhich was, that I was to give him one-fourth of the gold mined. I took into 142.98.108] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 14:08 GMT) 100 The Gold Seekers partnership a friend, in whom I had confidence ... went over to the spot with a pan and turning over some earth, it looked like the yellow of an egg. It was more than my eyes could believe! "The news got abroad and such excitement you never saw. It seemed within a few days as if the whole earth must have heard of it; for men descended upon the area from every state.... They came afoot, on horseback ... in wagons , acting more like crazy men than anything else. All the way from where Dahlonega now stands ... it was all forest then ... to Nuckollsville, there were men panning in the streams and digging holes in the hillsides. "The saddest man in that county was Preacher Obarr from whom I had leased the land. He thought the lease was a...

Share