THE CITIES OF GOLD

In 711 A.D. the Visigoths in the south of France which was called Gaul, and in Spain and Portugal were under persecution from the Muslims. The Iberian s were also Visigoths who were fleeing into the western sea. They migrated to the island of Madeiras, the Canary Islands, to the Carand to Florida. The Christian Visigoths who departed in twenty ships, under the Archbishop of Porto, along with six Bishops and five thousand of their parishioners became legendary in history to this day. The Legends state that they were going to an Island called Mantilla.

In 750 A.D. Latin documents were found in Iberia written by a Monk during the persecution, who refers to the Sete Cidades or the Seven Cities as seven Christian communities each under the rule of one of the bishops. Upon making landfall they burnt the twenty ships to severe their ties to the mainland. The Bishops were never heard from again nor was the route to the new land.

Throughout the age of discovery explorers searched high and low for the lost cities, most commonly refered to as the Lost Cities of Gold. Some of the conquistadors thought that the legends of El Dorado were linked to the Sete Cidades. Some of these conquistadors were said to search as far as Kansas and Missouri for the lost Colony. Others followed the path into the mineral rich mountains of Peru and Ecuador.

Bernard Teller asked King Alfonzo the V of Portugal to authorize a voyage in 1473 based on several charts of the Northern Coast Line of Brazil and several Barrier islands that also have the general dynamics of the Azore Island chain, as a possible location for the Sete Cidades. Many feel these were based on the Monks Latin Documents discovered in Porto Portugal 750 A.D. These documents are also known as the Iberian Documents. Paolo del Pozzo Tuscanelli, a Genovese cosmographer declared that Antilla and Sete Cidades existed along the margins of the Atlantic

near the Azores Archipelago. History has shown the settlement of the Seven Cities in a volcanic crater in the Azores on the island of Sao Miguel. In the crater lies four lakes and many volcanic structures. The crater was formed thirty six thousand years ago. The name of the area within the Crater is called Sete Cidades.

Today the population of the area of Sete Cidades is 858. Geologists say there have been seventeen thousand volcanic eruptions in the last five thousand years.

Historians feel that this area meets the description of the island of Antilla, and is most likely where the expedition would go with twenty ships as a fleet and not get lost. In the year 711 A.D. they probably would not have ventured to the Caribbean because this was a voyage of exile, and not discovery.

Historians and geologists feel that the volcanic crater with its four lakes and lush vegetation would provide excellent agriculture, fishing, and climate to support the five thousand displaced Christians in an area that hasn’t been visited by the persecution of Christians so prominent in the first century. Geologist feel that the seven cities were most likely destroyed in a volcanic eruption.