Montezuma's treasure facts for kids

Montezuma's treasure is a famous legend about hidden gold and riches. People say it's buried somewhere in the southwestern United States or Mexico. This story is one of many exciting treasure tales in American folklore, which are traditional stories passed down through generations. Many believe there isn't much truth to the story, but it remains a popular legend.

The Legends of Montezuma's Treasure

One popular story about Montezuma's treasure talks about the year 1520. It says that Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, was held captive by Spanish conquistadors. These Spanish explorers were led by Hernán Cortés. The story claims the conquistadors demanded a huge payment of gold to release Montezuma.

To gather this ransom, messengers were supposedly sent to different tribes. Their job was to warn people to hide their valuable treasures from the Spanish. However, important historical books about the conquest, like The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, do not mention Montezuma being held for ransom. They also don't say that people were told to hide their gold from the Spanish.

The Casa Grande Mystery

In modern times, a maze-like structure was found at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Casa Grande. This discovery made some people wonder if the maze might be a secret hiding place for some of the legendary treasure. But even after a lot of digging and searching in the area, no treasure has ever been found to support this idea.

The Sierra Estrella Gold

Another version of the legend comes from 1847, during the Mexican–American War. According to this tale, a rich Mexican man named Don Joaquin forced local Apache people to dig for gold in the Sierra Estrella mountains.

Later, when the United States Army entered the mountains, the Apache people fought back against the Mexicans. The Mexicans had to quickly hide their gold in a canyon near a place called Montezuma's Head. Most of the Mexicans were killed in the fighting. However, at least one man survived. He supposedly returned to the mountains in the 1880s with a treasure map to find the gold. But the Apache still controlled the area, and the Mexican man never found the lost treasure.

Newspapers have been publishing stories about people claiming to find this lost treasure for a very long time, even as far back as 1895.

Montezuma's Treasure in Television

The exciting myth and the superstitions about a curse on Montezuma's treasure have been shown on television. For example, a 2014 TV show called Raiders of the Lost Past explored these ideas. It included interviews with many family members of people who have searched for the treasure.

The treasure legend was also the main idea for an episode of the old TV show Wagon Train. The episode was titled "The Alexander Portlass Story."