Many of the Indian nations prized gold, but they did so more in an aesthetic or religious sense than in a mercenary one. As the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega wrote in his commentaries on the life of the Incas, "there was neither gold nor silver coin, and these metals could not be considered otherwise than as super-fluous, since they could not be eaten, nor could one buy anything to eat with them."
He explains further that in a nation without markets or a money economy, gold and silver "were esteemed only for their beauty and brilliance". The best use the Incas could make of them was to decorate temples, palaces, and convents. Inca goldsmiths of Cuzco lined the walls and columns of the great Temple of the Sun in Cuzco with beaten gold, and they decorated the temple with five golden fountains. The emperor owned gardens in which stood examples of almost all his empire's animals and plants cast in gold and silver. This included even golden lizards, butterflies, and snakes darting among the golden flowers and corn stalks.
When Francisco Pizarro invaded the Andes and seized the Inca emperor Atahualpa in 1532, he demanded a room filled with gold as ransom, and the Incas paid it. Bearers from all over the empire gathered jewelry and stripped their temples to fill the room.
The gold of Atahualpa formed the greatest ransom ever paid. Even though the Incas complied, Pizarro nevertheless killed Atahualpa and continued to loot the country in search of even more gold.
Hernando de Soto crisscrossed the southeastern part of the United States from Florida and the Carolinas to the Mississippi River in search of gold.
Francisco V
