From the 1550’s Potosi was at the center of the first explosive development of global intercontinental exchange creating the first true globalized economic and trading network. Since rain was unpredictable at Potosi, the Spanish viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo decided to construct in the nearby Kari mountain full scale reservoirs linked by canals and aqueducts to Potosí, a huge public works projects completed by thousands of Andean indigenous draftees. The mines, discovered in 1545 and still active today, are discussed in terms of their geology, discovery, productivity, labor history, and technological development. In 1563 this situation was transformed when a rich mercury mine was discovered at Huancavelica in central Peru. The cerro rico is from the Pedro de Cieza de Leon illustration of 1553, Smelting silver at Potosi. Within decades the miners reached the water table at 400 to 500 meters depth. It is one of the poorest cities in Peru today with a majority population composed of indigenous peoples. Hardware had to be imported from Spain: Ironware, nails, horseshoes, machetes, pickaxes, hinges, locks. The silver was then taken to the office assay office for recasting and stamping with weight, fineness, and the royal coat of arms. History & background information In the 16th century, the Spaniards discovered large quantities of silver in the Cerro Rico Mountains, surrounding Potosí. Legend attributes its name to potojchi or potocsi, a Quechua word meaning “deafening noise,” or “crash.”. 1607, Hispanic Society of America, New York. Today, the descendants of those slaves … Silver was critical to European trade with the Orient. Silver Mines is located at a historic mining operation and is known for its Precambrian granite and felsite rocks. Manila - Acapulco trans- Pacific trade route of the Manila Galleons, Spanish Manila Galleons (1565-1815) San Juan Capistrano Visitor Series, Part 2. The rich mountain, Cerro Rico, produced an estimated 60% of all silver mined in the world during the second half of the 16th century. In the 1630’s debased Potosi silver bars with the Potosi mark were rejected by bankers on the money markets of Genoa and Antwerp. Thousands of the indigenous people were forced to work at the mines, where many perished through accidents, brutal treatment, or poisoning by the mercury used in the extraction process. Spain had some of Europe’s richest iron deposits and Basque ironmongers became essential to Potosi. During November of the same year, south of Cuzco, a local cacique in the village of Tinta, José Gabriel Condorcanqui, taking the name Tupac Amaru ll, seized the local Spanish Corregidor, José de Arriaga, and executed him. ca. Silver was in great demand in India and China. The Potosi “P” had become a synonym for poison. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. We’re leaving Sucre with a bus that is taking us to Potosí – one of the highest cities in the world – in just over three hours. The man-Eating mines of Potosí On the Bolivian Altiplano, at more than 4000 meters above sea level, lies South America's most elevated town. The price of Spain’s wealth was paid for with the lives of indigenous South American and African slaves who worked in the mines. Professor Maxwell's Assistant Lucas Bertolo at the Potosi mines in November 2020. Andean caciques and kurakas (local indigenous head men) served as middlemen, fulfilling the labor quotas, responsible to Spanish magistrates (capitates de la Mita.) The great silver (and tin veins) of Bolivia’s Eastern Cordillera are the richest of both metals on the world. These forced labor drafts were only outlawed in 1812 and were declared over by Simon Bolivar in 1825. Silver Mines Recreation Area State Hwy D Fredericktown, MO Phone: (573) 438-5427 (Potosi/Fredericktown District Office) Closest Towns: Arcadia, Fredericktown, Ironton Directions: From Fredericktown: From the intersection of MO Hwy 72 and US Hwy 67, head West on Hwy 72 approx. The rise of silver production in Potosí also transformed the shipping in the Spanish Atlantic system. The annual production being about 300,000 lbs. Here you can buy goods to help the miners in their work. In 1545, a new Spanish mining town was founded in the Andes mountains of modern-day Bolivia, and for next 250 years, the mines of Potosí would fund the Spanish crown and its imperial ambitions. Mercury was essential to the processing of silver ore and was imported from the Almaden mines in La Mancha in Spain. The toll of death, disease and flight, meant that not all the miners at Potosi were Mitayos. © 2021 Atlas Obscura. A giant, bloody battle rages throughout the Bolivian Andes each year. Potosí: The Silver Mine that Changed the World. Founded in 1545 as a mining town, it soon produced fabulous wealth, and the population eventually exceeded 200,000 people. For the richest citizens, fresh fish arrived from the Pacific packed in ice. The growth of Potosi stimulated the regional economy. Silver Mines Recreation Area is named for the abandoned “Einstein Mine”, which was mined for Silver, Tungsten and Lead. The opening of the trade to the East, and particularly to China, by these two seaborne routes had dramatic consequences. Work at the Huancavelica mercury mine for much of the sixteenth century was above ground using open cast techniques. The heavy metal liquid metal was packed in sheepskins and shipped to the Americas where the mercury was transported over the isthmus of Panama and shipped down the Pacific coast, taken by mules and llamas to Arica and then overland to Potosi. To service their trade routes, daft animals were required in vast numbers, llamas, and oxen, as well as specialized muleteers. They have 1,011M shares outstanding and … Coin minted from the silver of Potosi, 1768. Largest site of dinosaur footprints ever found includes more than 5,000 tracks. Under the terms of approved by the Cortes of Tomar of 1581 which provided legal sanction for Phillip ll’s seizure of the Portuguese crown, the two empires in America were to remain administratively separate. Between 1545 and 1810 Potosi’s silver contributed nearly 20% of all known silver produced in the world across 265 years. After 1565 silver from the Americas also crossed the Pacific Ocean to the Spanish entrepôt at Manila in the Philippines (named after King Philip ll of Spain) and on from Manila by Chinese junks to the Fujian in China where the port of Quanzhou was one of the world’s busiest shipbuilding and commercial centers of overseas and coastal trade with more than 100,000 Arab traders living in the area. The Mita system was under challenge as never before. The silver wasn’t fully depleted, however, and it is still mined to this day. or 200,00 kgs of pure silver was “reported” as processed in Potosi. The Viceroy Francisco Álvares de Toledo who had fought the Ottoman Turks in Tunis and opposed the rise of Protestantism in Germany, and was a close to the court of the (now retired) emperor Charles V, had been sent to Peru by Philip ll. The industrial infrastructure comprised 22 lagunas or reservoirs, from which a forced flow of water produced the hydraulic power to activate the 140 ingenios or mills to grind silver ore. The silver bars were brought to the mint from the Royal treasury office next door where the Royal Fifth was paid. 27.5 x 21.5 cm. The infamous silver mines of Potosi run for miles deep into Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain in Spanish, due to the astounding amount of silver extracted from it). Yet it is certainly the case that the Spaniards needed to overcome formidable obstacle in ordered to successfully exploit the mineral resources of the high Andes, overcoming obstacles of labor supply, distance, transportation, capital, and technical expertise. Because of the hellish conditions, many of the miners survive by drinking extremely strong alcohol, chewing coca leaves, and worshiping Tio — a god of the underworld who holds the power of life and death between his fingers. The featured graphic is of a Manila Spanish Galleon. He was right. Even Cervantes allu ded to these riches in his Don Quixote. Why or why not? Francisco Álvares de Toledo, fifth viceroy of Peru (public domain). Criterion (iv): Potosí is the one example par excellence of a major silver mine in modern times. Over the next 200 years, more than 40,000 tons of silver … 6000 such furnaces (guayra), set on pedestals to capture the wind, covered the hills around Potosi during the early years burning wood, charcoals, and llama dung. For centuries, Indian slaves mined the mountain's silver in brutal conditions to bankroll the Spanish empire. Winner will be selected at random on 05/01/2021. The article also treats the social and environmental consequences of nearly five hundred years of continuous mining … The new Republic of Bolivia in the high Andes took his name. The demands of the mining community for supplies, food and labor were so great that it opened up a whole spectrum of profitable opportunities and provoked a series of regional and international repercussions. The Potosi “piece of eight” was the world’s first global currency crossing frontiers and financing trade and wars. Many miners die in cave-ins or from silicosis, a serious disease that damages the lungs, and there’s been recent concern of the whole mine collapsing. By then the great days of Potosi were a thing of the past. The Einstein Silver Mining Company began mining in 1877, and mining ceased completely in 1946. A visit to the mine begins at the local market in the town. But the Andean rebellion flared and tens of thousands were killed. It took two months for the 2,000 indigenous people required for the labor draft of Chicuito, on the southwest shore of Lake Titicaca, together with their families, each with ten llamas, to travel the 300 miles to Potosi. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site. Anonymous Spanish. On the outskirts of a desert trading village high on the Andean plain, steel giants have been destroyed by salt winds. 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Pressed into bars the residual amalgam was then placed into small conical furnaces where the mercury was vaporized and recovered, though one quarter of the mercury was lost in the processing of silver ore. Chinese porcelains and silks, damasks and satins, were exchanged for Spanish American silver in Manila which became a great entrepôt because of its fortuitous location at the intersection of two economic systems: The Chinese zone where silver was expensive and the Americas where silver was cheap. In a report entitled ‘History Echoes in the Mines of Potosi’, Becky Branford (BBC News Online) relates the scale of the Spanish mining operation, which over three centuries extracted “more than 62,000 metric tonnes (137 million pounds) of silver that provided the Spanish aristocracy with a lifestyle of profligate opulence and, because it was used to pay off many Spanish debts to neighbours, … Offer subject to change without notice. Flooding was a constant problem, only partly overcome by such crude methods as hoisting out the water in leather buckets and the use of primitive pumps. In 1572 some had machinery 18 feet in diameter and a foot wide connected to an axle to lift and drop six stamp hammers. Potosi is located about 150 kilometres southwest of the ‘white city’ of Sucre. Silver Mines of Potosí, Potosi, One of the main tourist attractions of Potosi in Bolivia is the Cerro Rico. See. But a consequence of the establishment of the trans-Pacific round trip route was that one third of the silver produced in Spanish America between 1565 and 1815 went to the Far East by the Manila galleons, complementing the Portuguese dominated route from Europe around Africa and across the Indian Ocean through the Malacca Straits and into the South China Sea to the mouth of the Pearl River to Macao and Canton. or 136.000 kgs through the 1640s. The great advantage of the amalgamation over smelting was that it made the exploitation of lower grade silver ores profitable and greatly extended the range that could be worked, and salt mixed with mercury was used to extract fine grains from silver from what had before been worthless host rock. At Potosi mining methods were primitive. The Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade, puerto galera - phillipines.com, East Asia in the sixteenth century: Malacca, China and Japan. No less vital were the bulky raw materials required by the silver mining and processing establishments- iron, salt, lead and litharge, copper sulfate and mercury. Prevailing southerly winds made it almost impossible to reach Peru from Panama except in January and February. This was an exaggeration. Much of the Spanish American bullion and coin ended up in India and China, and often by way of the ports and caravans of the Near East and Central Asia. Access to the mines (Potosi reached a depth of 750 feet by 1600) was by ladders of twisted rawhide with wooden rungs, wide enough to permit two files of workers to climb up and down at the same time. Per the Colorado State University, History of Porco and Potosi: Historical research suggests that well before the Inca invasion around 1,000 AD, Porco was the location of silver mines as well as an important ritual center that attracted pilgrims from throughout the southern Andes. 1585. The silver ore was loosened by hammers, picks and crowbars, and carried in hide sacks, weighing 100 pounds a time, to the surface. The water came from the warm mineral springs on the road to Oruro, where the “Ojo del Inca” (the Inca’s Baths) at Tarapaya provided the reagents to the dozens of early refineries. Like the other rebel leaders he was sentenced to a gruesome death, and like Tupac Amaru ll, he was torn apart by horses and his body part displayed where his “crimes” had been most egregious in Spanish eyes. The smelting of coin material and the cutting, preparing the coin blanks for stamping was carried out by indigenous draftees and enslaved Africans at the Casa de la Moneda. Over the next 200 years, more than 40,000 tons of silver were shipped out of the town, making the Spanish Empire one of the richest the world had ever seen. During the sixteenth century the population of Potosi grew to over 200,000 and its silver mine became the source of 60% of the world’s silver. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Silver was also carried via the Rio de la Plata (the “silver river”) following the reestablishment of Buenos Aires in 1580. Whether we should visit or … Mate tea, held to be of medicinal value, was brought to Potosi from Paraguay. The now almost legendary silver mines in the Alto Plano of Upper Peru (now Bolivia) provided the name for subsequent mining It is estimated that eighty-five percent of the silver produced in the central Ande… He was the only viceroy to visit Potosi. In an effort to be in compliance with GDPR we are providing you with the latest documentation about how we collect, use, share and secure your information, we want to make you aware of our updated privacy policy here. It is a cold and barren landscape. During the sixteenth century the population of Potosi grew to over 200,000 and its silver mine became the source of 60% of the world’s silver. 13,000 were obligated to work in Potosi where they would be distributed to mines, stamp mills, or to various tasks in the city. Around 30,000 African slaves were also brought to the city, where they were forced to work and die as human mules. To get to the Philippines from New Spain (Mexico) was relatively easy and the route was established in the 1540s. By 1531 silver imports into Seville passed gold by weight and by 1561 silver imports surpassed gold by value. The city came into existence after the discovery of silver there in 1545 and quickly became famous for its wealth. The Parian District in Manila, Manila, 1671, Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, Spain, Potosi today (November 2020); Photo by Lucas Bertolo. Luis Capoche writing in 1585 observed that “nothing in the way of food can be produced in Potosi or the surrounding areas except some potatoes (which grow like truffles) and green barley, which does not form grain because the cold is continuous…”. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. The Europeans produced nothing in the way of manufactured goods than the Asians did not produce better – weapons excluded. The silver mine started in 1877 and closed in 1946. Enjoy kayaking, canoeing, swimming, hiking and picnicking year-round. Competition to Spanish domination arose from the Protestant Dutch and from the French and from the English in Europe and in Asia and in the Americas. products such as cochineal, silk, tobacco, indigo, and hides became increasing important components of Spanish American trade with Europe. The re-export of silver from Spain to the Middle East, India, and China, and from Acapulco to Manila and on to China, also became profitable for Europeans in comparative terms: Silver-gold ratios (units of gold to one in silver) was 1/6 in China, 1/8 in India, and 1/12 in Europe. Although precious metals composed the highest percentage of the value of cargoes from the New World. The silver rich veins of the “Cerro Rico” are about a meter wide on average and the vines dive steeply into the mountain from the surface. The fleet bound for the isthmian Caribbean port of Nombre de Dios, known as Galeones, left San Lucar, the port of Seville, in mid-April. But above all the sliver of Potosí was desired in Asia, India and above all to China. Potosi silver mine in Bolivia was set up by the Spanish with slave labour in 1545. He was captured in October 1781. Tourists at the mine light a stick of dynamite, available from the local market for approximately $2. The flow of Spanish American silver to Asia via Europe was facilitated when in December of 1580 Philip ll of Spain arrived in Lisbon to claim the crown of Portugal as Philip l of Portugal. Cerro Rico (Spanish for "rich mountain"), Cerro Potosí ("Potosí mountain") or Sumaq Urqu (Quechua sumaq "beautiful, good, pleasant", urqu "mountain", "beautiful (good or pleasant) mountain") is a mountain in the Andes near the Bolivian city of Potosí. It was at the core of the Spanish Empire’s great wealth. He had also been a small coca dealer who knew his way around the Andean mountains. Labor in the Peruvian mines was almost exclusively provided by the indigenous population. English traders of the East India Company were beginning to find another locally produced (and far more destructive) and profitable Indian export that the Chinese loved as much as silver: opium. The 1597 fleet for New Spain for example carried 2 2,050 casks of wine, 14,120 arrobas of olive oil,14,101 quintiles of bulk iron. The rapid introduction of the most modern technology was a characteristic of these early years of European colonial activity in the Americas. Watercolor on parchment. Quite frankly, after all these years, the former “rich” mountain hardly has any more treasures to give. A network of communications thus developed which joined the mining centers to the colonial capital, the seaports, and their regional supply zones. By the mid-seventeenth century Potosi itself was faltering under the weight of declining mines, broken dams, and a great scandal at its core, in Potosi’s mint, where a colossal debasement scam undermined confidence in the value of the currency. El Tio, meaning “the Uncle,” appears as a devilish creature, and his statues in the mines are given offerings of cigarettes, strong alcohol, and coca leaves. In 1592, 444,000 lbs. Potosí, Bolivia, with Potosí Mountain in the background. The ships retired once they had loaded or unloaded their cargoes to the well-fortified port of Cartagena on the northern coast of South America. Routing and timing were governed by prevailing natural conditions. Potosi became the engine of an international network which ended Eurasia’s bullion famine after 1550 and provided the silver flows that reached westwards across the Atlantic Ocean from South America via the isthmus of Panama to Spain and Europe, and to the east from Seville in Spain and Lisbon in Portugal to the Ottoman and Safavid Empires and to Mughal India and to China under the Ming and Qing dynasties. Portugal regained its independence from Spain in 1640 and with the assistance of the virulently anti-Catholic English Republic of Oliver Cromwell and of the English Fleet under the Parliamentarian Admiral Blake. The air blast was provided by sheep or goat skin bellows. From the depths of this amazing mountain, huge amounts of silver have been extracted since 1545.. Tours, tourism and hotels in Bolivia Cerro Rico, which is popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, is famous for providing vast quantities of silver for Spain during the period of the New World Spanish Empire. 1615. Simply stephanite and wire silver, and pretty cool!
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