GOLD MINES 
of some 280,000 souls, or less than one to every square 
mile. 
The region forming the present State of Goyaz was 
first explored in 1647 by Manoel Correa, a native of Sao 
Paulo, and in 1682 by another Paulista, Bartholomeu 
Beuno de Silva, who both were prospecting for gold. 
The latter was successful in locating gold mines and in 
making friends with the local Indians of the Goyaz tribe, 
from whom the province then took its name. Some 
forty-three years later, de Silva returned to Sao Paulo 
with 918 ounces of gold. The news of these goldfields 
quickly attracted a great number of adventurers to Goyaz. 
The country then saw its most prosperous days, especially 
in and near Villa Boa, the present city of Goyaz, where 
gold was said to have been plentiful in those days. 
The enterprising Bartholomeu Bueno de Silva re¬ 
turned to Goyaz in 1781 as a Capitao Mor, or Grand 
Captain, with the right to dispose of land. In 1822 
Goyaz was recognized as a province of the Empire, and 
subsequently in 1869 it became one of the States of the 
Union, with autonomy as regards local affairs under its 
own Constitution, approved by the Federal Constituent 
Assembly in 1891. 
Cattle, horse, and mule breeding on a small scale was 
the chief source of income of that magnificent State — 
an income which in less indolent hands might be increased 
ten-thousand-fold or more. Its horses and mules found 
a ready market in the adjacent State of Matto Grosso 
and from there went into Bolivia, while the States of 
Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo were the chief buyers of 
pigs, toucinho (dried pork fat), dried beef, hides raw and 
cured, cheese, lard, etc. 
Goyaz prided itself greatly on its horses, which 
enjoyed a certain fame all over Brazil. Perhaps they 
were in a way as good as any produced in the Republic. 
With a little study and care in the breeding, they might 
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