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Guale Indians began reporting sitings of strange Anglo men on horseback

Source: The Debatable Land #557

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The shadow of Jamestown soon projected itself into the Carolina-Georgia back country. Ever since the days of the Roanoke colony the English settlers had talked of Spanish mines and west flowing rivers in the interior. These loadstones of adventure lured Englishman as well as Spaniard. Loquacious John Smith led the way to the falls of the James. Other Anglomen unknown to history soon followed his track and lengthened it toward the Spanish border.1 [Note: 1 For English activities see: Peter Force, Tracts and Other Paper Relating principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America, III, no. 11, p. 15 (Washington, 1844); Alvord and Bidgood, The First Explorations of the TransAllegheny Region by the Virginians, 1650-1674 (Cleveland, 1912), 103, 104.] Echoes of their movements reached Spanish circles, where a little fact got sadly mixed with much imagination. Guale Indians reported strange men on horseback, and ruddy faced foreigners who found favor with the Indian women. Fear of foreign intrusion was intertwined with an ever recurrent desire to seek the pearls of Cufitachiqui, or Boyano's Diamond Mountain.