Quote Originally Posted by gazhekwe View Post
Gold wasn't even all that valuable on these continents until the white people got here. Lots of things had more value, commodities like nutritious grains, animals for work and food, metals that you could use to build or cook or plant and tend crops, fire, water. Gold is only good for beauty and power. Beauty comes from many other things. Power comes from hording to increase value for one's own benefit over the benefit of others, a purely imperial colonial import.
It's like diamonds. There are millions of the things on the planet. What makes them valuble, is the fact that one family hordes them, controls them, and squeaks them out a few @ a time. Oh, and the fact they "say" they're valuble.