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   On the 21st day of November 1736, Captain Don Juan Bautista de Anza, Judicial Mayor of the province of Sonora, was called upon to make a ruling on a tax issue concerning an enormous silver nugget that had been found in the Arizonac Territory.  This territory had been founded 6 years earlier by Don Gabriel Prudhon de Beltran Heider y Mujica.  The Arizonac was a Pima Indian Village at the had waters of a stream.  The Indians referred to the area as Alishonac, the place of a small waterfall.  (Ali means small and shonac means waterfall.)  The Spanish turned Alishonac into Arizonac.  Then in 1742 Matias Angel de la Mota Padilla wrote "Historia de la Provincia de la Nueva Galicia" (History of the New Territory) and in his report he left out the "C" in Arizonac" and so the area became known as Arizona ... but back to the story of the fabled silver nugget.

   At this time this nugget weight 200 arrobas (one arroba is equal to 25 pounds), so the nugget was 5,000 pounds of nearly pure silver.  The tax problem centered around the issue of whether this was a naturally occurring nugget, or whether something that large had been smelted and so could be claimed as a buried treasure.  If it was a man made treasure, it would be taxed at a much higher rate.  Keep in mind that at this time silver was about as valuable as gold.  It seems that nobody had ever heard of such a large silver nugget.  Claims were made that this giant nugget was man made, perhaps part of a cache the Aztecs had hidden away.  It was a huge controversy, with a lot of money at stake.

   A Yaqui Indian, Antonio Siraumea, had made a mining claim to the silver and the area of the location of the stone.  The original nugget was too big to remove so Antonio had taken a piece weighing about 22 kilos to a merchant to sell, and that was when the tax question came up.  This was when the formal inquiry was arranged and sent to investigate the nugget and make a ruling.  At this time the largest natural silver nugget on record weighed 125 kilos.  This nugget had been found by Joseph Fermin de Almazan about four miles from the location where the disputed nugget had been found.

   The first ruling made, after Captain Anza made his report, was that the Aztecs had made the silver from the mines and had hidden it there.  Captain Anza disagreed with this ruling and ordered a new investigation.  On July 13, 1736, Captain Joseph de Mesa reported back that indeed the silver nugget was natural and furthermore, there were several other large pieces that had been found in that area.  On August 8, 1736, Captain Anza returned to the location of the large nugget with 5 mining experts and on the 14th of August, he declared that the nugget was not a hidden treasure and it can be removed for sale as a mining claim.  The silver rush was on and the small mining town of Planchas de Plata rose and fell as many mining towns do.  But as the legend tells, the area North of the Arizonac would hence forward be known as what we call Arizona.

   The nugget controversy continued for many years, a third investigation was ordered by the King of Spain, on May 28, 1741.  By then Captain Anza had died under "questionable circumstances that were still under investigation" and a 275 pound silver nugget was on display at the Palacio de Mineria (Palace of Mining) in Mexico City.  This nugget later disappeared during the revolution against the French. 

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