Alberto Francisco Pradeau Photographs

Alberto Francisco Pradeau, dentist, historian, and numismatist, was born in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico on May 15, 1894 to French parents Albert Antoine Pradeau and Guadalupe Aviles Rochin. His father was born on January 7, 1866 in Issoudin, Indre, France and died in France on October 4, 1939. His mother was born on December 24, 1870 in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico and died in Los Angeles, California on December 18, 1935.

Pradeau received his primary education in his home town and his secondary education in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico. He migrated to the United States in 1916 and attended high schools in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of Southern California College of Dentistry in 1923, specializing in oral diseases. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in November of 1931.

Although Pradeau maintained a highly successful and lucrative dentistry office near Los Angeles, California, he spent much of his life investigating and writing the history of northern Mexico. His interest in the territory ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848 began in 1908 when he read Samuel Woodworth Cozzens' The Ancient Cibola, the Marvelous Country.

Beginning in 1928, Pradeau published a number of books on the Jesuit spiritual conquest of northwestern New Spain and Mexican numismatic history from pre-Columbian days to 1950. His work on the expulsion of the Jesuits, La Expulsion de los Jesuits de Sonora, Ostimuri y Sinaloa en 1767 (published in Mexico in 1959), is the standard and most recognized work on the subject. His interest in Mexican history also resulted in the 1976 publication of his most important work, an English translation of Father Juan Nentuig's Rudo Ensayo.

Pradeau's second specialty and all-consuming hobby was numismatics. He was awarded the American Numismatic Association's Medal of Merit in 1969 for his contribution to the American Numismatic Association and to numismatics. The Medal read There can be no separation of your name from the study of coins from our neighbor to the south, Mexico ... Your Numismatic History of Mexico, published in 1938, has been and still is recognized as a standard in the field.

At the age of 82 and recognized nationwide as the Dean of Mexican Numismatics, Pradeau was summoned to Florida in 1976 to authenticate Mel Fisher's 1971 discovery of the cargo of the sunken Spanish galleon, the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. When the Atocha sank off the Florida keys in 1622 during a fierce and violent hurricane, it was on its way from Cuba to Spain. According to the manifest found in an archive in Seville, Spain the Atocha carried 901 silver ingots, 250,000 silver coins, 161 pieces of gold bullion, an unknown quantity of contraband, and some gold and silver coins and personal belongings of some very wealthy merchants who were passengers. Pradeau later said that [i]t was on the of the most exciting events of my life to see and test the find from the Atocha. His painstaking 10-day efforts were rewarded when the treasure was authenticated and found to be worth millions of dollars.

Pradeau was twice married: first to Mary Ann Zellars on November 16, 1937 (divorced) and second to Martha Carolina Miller on January 7, 1951. Pradeau died on July 29, 1980 in Los Angeles, California.