Nobody Remembers Yoachum’s Silver

Nobody Remembers

Once upon a time, before Branson Missouri became the wholesome man’s Las Vegas, when Indians were still living the high life in Missouri, “and the livin was eeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssssssyyy.”..wait.

Somehow I got in Porgy’s And Bess ‘s story…sorry.

It was 1541, and the Spanish had gotten tired of plundering Aztec for gold, and decided to look for the gold and silver in the Ozark mountains. And they found a good spot near Table Rock Lake, now know as Silver Dollar City to entertainers who have made a fortune off of Duck Dynasty’s second cousins, and roller coasters enthusiasts.

Looking around old Indian passage ways, the Spanish found a shelter cave with a good rein of silver ore.  The plan was to put the silver in ingots, transport it to the Mississippi River, send it down to the Gulf of Mexico and off to Spain.

And so, they captured local Indians, and made them into slave labor to dig that silver out, and didn’t treat them very well . WHY nobody complains about the cruelty of Spanish slave masters on CNN I’m not sure, except to say, the Indians own Casinos and blacks do not, and if I were black I would blame Jesse Jackson.

(sorry, stick to the story Joyanna)

Needless to say, when the Spanish guys went out hunting, everybody noticed that they didn’t come back, and one morning the Choctaw having had enough, massacre the whole lot of them, although a few escaped.

The silver mine was forgotten for more than two and a half centuries, because the Choctaws didn’t want to mine another single ingot. They had better things to do.

Then, one day, in the middle of a thunderstorm, some Choctaws went to seek shelter, found all these silver ingots, and although they could have cared less about silver,  they knew that trading them to the white men for horses and weapons…useful things, might come in handily. So they did.

Valentine’s Day had not been invented yet.

Then one day, some Mexicans came looking for the cave. It seems they had found out about it from an old map given to them by the Spanish guys who had escaped the first massacre. So the Indians decided that cave needed to be sealed.  They didn’t want a Mexican invasion either.

The country moved on…and after the war of 1812, our government decided that he Delaware Indians needed to be re-located to the Ozarks, something I’m sure all Delaware people would like to do to any remaining tea party people in their state. . All KINDS of Indians ended up in the Ozarks from all over: Shawnee, Seneca, and Pottawatomie…getting kicked out of their lands.

But hey, Missouri wasn’t so bad.

And then, along came the Yoachum family.

Short history: James Yoachum and his brother Solomon were from Illinois. When James was 18, he abandoned his pregnant wife, and decided to make his fortune trapping furs in the Ozarks. He came back only to find his wife had died in childbirth, so he moved his new son, and his brother and the family to the Ozarks.  And though his excuse was that he hated farming, the REAL truth was….

Another woman.

Yes, James married a Delaware Indian woman. Which was a good deal as you will find out.

James was smart. He was always good to the Delaware Indians, gave the horses and food…and they lived in peace together, and then the government came in and told the Delaware Indians they would have to move AGAIN.

No, Obama was not alive yet. It was the Delaware Affordable Move Act.

James was really upset at the government for moving his friends, and so he gave them blankets, food and horse for their journey, and THEY in turn, told him where the silver mine was. But he must promise to never tell anyone where it was. EVER.

And so James got the Silver mine.  And whenever they needed to trade, they just went and got a few silver rocks, and they had enough. Everybody was happy, happy, happy.

UNTIL—the government stepped in again. They thought up another LAW. If anybody wanted to buy stuff at the trading post, they had to use American coins. No longer could they trade in furs, or silver, or anything. So, even though the Yoachums had plenty of silver, they had no money.  To the government, they were dirt poor.

So..what would YOU do? James just started making his own silver coins, and why not?  It had Yoachum on the front and 1822 on the back: United States of America/ One Dollar.

James Yoachum

The Yoachum silver dollar started being used all over the Ozarks, and everyone accepted them BECAUSE it had more pure silver in it than the real American currency.

Oh boy.

Then….THE GOVERNMENT— like the hungry beast that it is, decided that everyone needed to claim their land.They sent a surveying crew to draw out property lines and told everyone that they had to pay a filing fee. And yes, most everyone had Yoachum silver dollar, which of course, the government said was no good. And unless they paid in Government money, they would all lose title to their land.

That agent was run out of town by gunpoint. So, he wrote Washington, sent one of Yoachum’s silver coins, …and Washington saw… that there was silver in” them thar hills”, and wanted that mine.

So one agent went to James’ farm and wanted to know where the mine was. James, like any sensible person who knew he had a second amendment right, took out his gun and ran him off. .

But that agene came back, with eight other armed agents, and so James had to give up. But he refused to tell them where the mine was. Nevertheless James promised to NEVER make another coin again, and he died and the secret entrance to the silver mine filled with silver ingot is still somewhere lying in a cave, just waiting to be found.

Hey, spring is just around the corner, feel like a trip to Six Flags?

By all accounts, this is a true story. (LOL! Unless of course you visit snopes, where Soros has already mined the cave.)

I don’t know what you got out of this story, but I got out of it that I should BURY all my silver coins and never tell the government where it is, if they should ask.

But promise, that I will never make a single coin, because I’m a true American Patriot, and you have to SHOW ME you’re worthy to be my government because I’m from Missouri.

And IF I want to trade my old fur hat— I will.

(Story retold from Troy Taylor’s book, “Out Past the Campfire Light”

February 13, 2014 Posted by Joyanna Adams | American History, humor, Uncategorized | History, Humor | Leave a comment