Mines of Silver and Gold in the AmericasPeter John Bakewell This volume focuses on Latin America, since it was mainly there that Europeans (or their colonial descendants) actually engaged in mining in the 16th-19th centuries; elsewhere they traded metals mined by others. The principal metals produced, and in prodigious quantities, were silver, in the Spanish colonies, and gold, mainly in Brazil in the 18th century. These articles analyse the volume and pattern of production and the forms of labour found in mining. Particular attention is given to the technologies of extraction and refining, notably the adoption of the mercury amalgamation process: this had a major impact, driving down silver production costs; because the mercury mines were a royal monopoly, it also handed control to the Spanish crown. |
Contents
Wangara Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth | 1 |
Early Silver Mining in New Spain 15311555 | 57 |
The Silver Boom of the 1570s | 75 |
Copyright | |
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African Akan amalgamation Andean Archivo Audiencia Bakewell Bartolomé de Medina Bighu BL table Bonduku Brading Brazil camps capital Cerro Charcas colonial period copper costs crown decline district draft labourers early economy eighteenth century Elmina entrepreneurs European forasteros forced labourers FREE LABOUR Goiás gold growth Guadalajara Hacienda Historia Ibid Indian ingenios Juula king late Lima Madrid Malian merchants mercury metal metallurgy Mexico City Michoacán migrants million pesos mills Minas Gerais Minería miners mining areas mining industry mita mitayos Oruro output owners Pachuca Pasco patio process percent Peru Peru's Peruvian pesos Plata Portuguese Probanza profits quintales quotas refineries refining region Relación royal São Paulo seventeenth century Seville silver industry Silver Mining silver production sixteenth century slaves smelting Spain Spaniards Spanish America Sultepec supply Tandeter Tarascan Taxco tion Toledo town trade veinteno Velasco Viceroy viceroyalty Visita wages Wangara West workers yanaconas Zacatecas