The history of gold mining in the United States is related to old chronicles, which give an account of a province called Cofachiqui that was visited by the Spaniard De Soto’s gold hunting expedition in 1538-1540 and which was embraced in what afterwards became Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and had its center on the western limits of South Carolina. Its capital and chief town stood upon the tongue of land between the Broad River of Georgia and the Savannah, just opposite to Abbeville. The Spaniard entered this place after two months and there found hatches formed from an alloy of gold and copper. At this their cupidity was greatly excited and they concluded that they had found a country abounding in the long coveted precious deposits of gold.
They had less than 24 km south east of the town, on the opposite or Caroline side of the river, lay one of the most extraordinary gold deposits in the world. The Cherokees were well acquainted with the Dorn mine. This is shown by the numerous relics of their handiwork scattered around it, and there can be little doubt that the massive nuggets of its outcropping gold supplied them abundantly with the finer metal of the alloy that attracted the Spaniards. It is no less known that the gold and copper found in possession of the Indians in the form of solid masses or curious trinkets, by the first white men who visited the country, noted the presence of gold.
The Indian method of smelting these metals was one of the most remarkable devices of savage ingenuity; in practical efficiency the blowpipe is scarcely superior. Having first hollowed out a flat stone in the form of basin, they filled it with charcoal and upon this laid the nuggets of metal. A number of Indians then seated themselves in a circle around the basin, each one having in his hand a long reed, pierced through its entire length and armed at one end with a clay tube or pipe. Everything being ready, fire was applied to the charcoal and the whole mass instantly blown into a powerful heat through the reeds, the clay extremities of which were inserted in the basin. In this way the Indians could easily produce any variety of ornaments from these metals using them either alone or in alloy. This method was known to have been in use among the Indians who lived upon the gold producing land of North Carolina and the same process must have known to the Cherokees.
The Indians from time immemorial were acquainted with valuable mines of gold and silver in Upper California. The Spaniards under De Soto led on by stories, exaggerated or misunderstood, of their Indian guides, made a wide superficial exploration in search the origin of this treasure. They are supposed to have excavated many of the diggings in North and South Caroline and Georgia, which were later forests. But no rich deposits appear to have been discovered and no permanent operations were undertaken.
In the great charter of King James, by which, in 1606, the right to explore and settle the North American continent from the 34th to the 45th parallel was granted to the London and Plymouth companies. It was provided that one-fifth of the gold and silver and one-fifteenth of the copper, which might be discovered, should belong to the crown. One exploration of Captain John Smith in Virginia was the exploration of the Chickahominy River, in the hope that it might constitute a water way of the Pacific Ocean, and one of the events in the history of the same colony was a mining excitement caused by the supposed discovered of gold. It is a curious circumstance that occurs in the region. Although the glittering dust of which a ship-load was sent by the deluded colonists to the jewelers of London, proved to be mica or pyrite, a blunder that has had its parallel in other places.