potosí silver mine primary sources

First Spanish edition, 1992.Find this resource: TePaske, John J. These ores were relatively abundant down to a certain level inside the Cerro Rico, but extracting them grew increasingly costly, especially after miners perforated the water table, which rose like a dome under the mountain.

Merchants, too, needed precious metals to move commodities from one realm to another, and to pay off investors in risky overseas commercial ventures. “Notes on the Regional Contribution to the Mita in Potosí in the Early Seventeenth Century.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 4.1 (1985): 65–76.Find this resource: Saignes, Thierry.

Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1993.Find this resource: Kindleberger, Charles P. Spenders and Hoarders: The World Distribution of Spanish American Silver, 1550–1750. PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY (oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory). In early modern times silver and gold were the most widely accepted forms of money, and this meant that kingdoms, empires, and principalities from England to China all desired streams of precious metals, both to add glamour to their courts and to expand their realms through warfare. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012.Find this resource: Numhauser, Paulina. Potosi’s mines were revived briefly in the first years of the 18th century, partly in response to French merchant interest during the 1703–1713 War of the Spanish Succession, but a disease epidemic in 1719–1720 proved disastrous, wiping out both workers and potential customers for imported goods. Tourists at the mine light a stick of dynamite, available from the local market for approximately $2.

Even so, the Royal Mint continued to operate long into the republican period, its equipment updated with the arrival of railroads.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Find this resource: La minería hispana e iberoamericana.

New York: Routledge, 2003.Find this resource: Mumford, Jeremy Ravi. Potosí: The Silver Mine that Changed the World. In short, the environmental costs of Potosí’s enormous productivity remain nearly impossible to calculate. It was a huge and revolutionary project, and it soon returned Potosí to great wealth. The mines, discovered in 1545 and still active today, are discussed in terms of their geology, discovery, productivity, labor history, and technological development. Potosí’s powerful mill owners, known as asogueros, nevertheless clung to their crown-mandated mita allotments, demanding cash payment in lieu of labor service. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.Find this resource: Cooke, Colin A., et al. To this day, a workers’ collective extracts minerals from the mine.

Local peoples produced not only gold and silver ornaments and utensils but also copper and arsenical bronze tools. Tin ores were extracted using pneumatic drills and dynamite, soon aided by electric ore carts and trams. The priest Alvaro Alonso Barba worked for many years in the early 1600s developing new refining processes for the ores of the Cerro Rico as well as for silver ores produced in dozens of more distant mining zones in the city’s hinterland.

Over twelve thousand mita workers, or mitayos, were expected to be in Potosí at any given time, and records show that for several decades such numbers were sustained. They blamed local mine owners and native Andeans for their alleged ignorance, assuming that all Potosí needed to return to its former glories was updated technologies and a few tax incentives. Relief came after 1848, when massive mercury deposits were discovered in California near San José just before the famous gold strike at Sutter’s Mill. Largest site of dinosaur footprints ever found includes more than 5,000 tracks. Steeped in alchemical theory, Barba nevertheless embraced experimentation and openly questioned authorities in a way that European contemporaries such as Francis Bacon might have appreciated. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, The Promise and Peril of Gold Mining on Spanish and Portuguese Imperial Frontiers, Mercury and Silver Mining in the Colonial Atlantic, Digital Innovations, Sources, and Interdisciplinary Approaches, History of Latin America and the Oceanic World, History of Northern and Andean Spanish America, The Environmental Health Council/El Consejo de Salud Ambiental.

It was a major offense to dodge quinto payments, particularly for large producers, but a significant percentage of silver clearly went untaxed.

Founded in 1575, the Casa Real de la Moneda began coining silver on a small scale, relying on a mix of drafted indigenous and enslaved African workers.

Potosí’s mines went through many cycles of boom and bust after 1545, yet amazingly they are still producing silver and other metals as of this writing (2015).

Near the center of the mountain, where temperatures were highest, tin minerals formed in abundance. Mexico, DF: FCE, 1979.Find this resource: Assadourian, Carlos Sempat. Potosí est une ville de Bolivie et la capitale du département de Potos í. The interior of the mine, called Pailaviri, is open to the public.

Many mineworkers were allowed to keep silver produced beyond their agreed-upon quota, which paid for basic comforts and in some cases permitted wealth accumulation.

These generally reddish, oxidized ores near the surface, some containing over 40 percent silver, fueled Potosí’s initial bonanza.

These were made possible with the construction of rail lines, which linked mining towns of the Andean highlands like Oruro and Potosí to the Pacific coast. It proved more difficult than expected to “aim” a tunnel at a distant vein system. “Los ‘expertos’ de la Corona. The Incas inherited an ancient mining and metallurgical tradition, and the Spanish took full advantage of this fact after conquest began in 1532. Aside from consuming a huge quantity of imported iron and steel, most of it from the Basque region of Spain, Potosinos purchased vast amounts of textiles from Europe, China, and the Indian subcontinent. Only the prospect of personal bonanza or high wages has tended to induce people to try their hand at mining, whether in ancient or recent times. Before long, however, it appears that native Andeans who were not vassals of Spaniards or other Europeans began to work for themselves or for others in exchange for wages—usually a share of ore or refined silver.

A tour starts with a visit to the miners' market to buy gifts for the miners like coca leaves, cigarettes or dynamite.

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