The decades after the conquest, in the Caribbean and on the continent, were under the sign of gold. Silver began to play a leading role after the discovery of Potosí (1545) and Zacatecas (1546) and, especially from the 1570s, when amalgamation with mercury or patio method spread. . Previously, the deposits of Zumpango, Sultepec and Taxco in Mexico and those of Porco in Peru had been exploited. In Mexico, gold deposits were quickly abandoned in the face of the increased appeal of silver. The most important gold or placer mines were found in the Andean zone:New Granada (Colombia and Venezuela), Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Many continued to be exploited throughout the colonial period, although their yields were not as spectacular as those of Potosí.
Potosí deposit
Despite the importance of gold, the metal par excellence was silver. During the 16th and 17th centuries, silver production was dominated by the deposits of Potosí, in Upper Peru (now Bolivia). In the 18th century New Spain would occupy that place when the minted silver quadrupled between 1700 and 1770. Along with Zacatecas, some sites discovered in the 16th century stood out, such as Guanajuato, Real del Monte, San Luis Potosí or Sombrerete. The primacy of potosina silver for years meant that in upper Peru the fifth real (20% of production) was paid until 1736 instead of the tithe (10%), paid in Mexico since 1660.
Facilidadesdeexploitaciondelosdepositos
Alexander von Humboldt, after his trip to America, pointed out that American mines were distinguished from European ones by their ease of exploitation . What was that ease if the Mexican deposits were hundreds or thousands of kilometers from the capital, if Potosí "was the mouth of hell" and Huancavelica "a public slaughterhouse." The answer is the low cost of exploitation and the availability of labor, despite the predominance of wage labor in Mexico and the mita in Upper and Lower Peru. Although in American terms mining wages were high, compared to Europeans they were still low. Potosí was more than 4,000 meters high, and most of the Mexican mines were outside the area of domination of the old Aztec Empire. The problems of regularly supplying the royal mines with food, mining supplies and labor were numerous. The difficulty increased in the north of New Spain due to the lack of communication routes and the lower population density, which made it necessary to recruit indigenous workers in the Central Valley and in areas located further south. The exploitation of the mines varied from one region to another. In Mexico, the mines (at the end of the 18th century there were almost 3,000) used to be exploited by means of a perpendicular shaft excavated from the surface to the seam, while in Peru it was normal for them to follow the seam all the way.
Exploitation of the Mines
Despite its low contribution to income, mining had a great capacity to drag the colonial economy. For years, its study was conditioned by commercial relations with the metropolis. Hamilton's work on the arrival of American gold and silver in Spain limited the study of colonial mining to its international dimension, giving production secondary attention. According to Castilian law, the property of the mines belonged to the Crown, which ceded its exploitation. This right materialized with the continuous exploitation of the deposits and the payment of the royal fifth. In the second half of the 16th century it was determined that a mine occupied the subsoil of an area no larger than 120 yards by 60. As the land was measured on the surface, there were numerous conflicts over its layout and ownership, and two centuries later it was ordered The measurement was made underground. To avoid large exploitations, private individuals were prohibited from owning contiguous mines, although companies could exploit up to four mines and three individuals who had discovered a vein.
Getting Silver
Silver production focused on two operations:the extraction of the ore and its subsequent refining to obtain the metal silver . Two entrepreneurs participated in this process:the miner or owner of the mine and the azoguero or owner of the mill that ground the ore, who were rarely the same person. Once the metal was refined, silver pineapples were obtained, which were then reduced to bars or ingots and, finally, if necessary, they were coined. The main key to its profitability was the exploitation of the indigenous labor force, whose basic task was to extract the ore from the galleries and move it to the mine entrance. Mining and milling were the operations that required the most workers.
Workers in obtaining silver
There were two main types of workers:sweepers and porters, the ratio between the two depending on the depth of the mine. In Potosí, the most qualified workers were hired in the free labor market (minga), while the unskilled were in the mita. In Zacatecas, the indigenous people were mostly hired "naboríes" and to a lesser extent, they came from repartimientos or were black slaves. The salaries of the barreteros were higher as they were more specialized. The introduction of gunpowder from the eighteenth century led to the appearance of a new specialist in charge of its handling and detonation. Extraction also required abundant capital to build galleries, drill drainage channels to prevent flooding, and buy the necessary supplies.
Types of silver extraction
In the middle of the 16th century, the extraction of silver began, obtained by smelting. In Peru, small indigenous ovens were used, huayras (wind in Quechua), whose technique was controlled by the yanaconas. The method required very rich or high grade ores (the percentage of metal present in the ore) and had two drawbacks:it did not extract all the metal and it was very expensive due to its consumption of vegetable energy, coal and wood. As the forests near the mines were depleted, coal and wood had to be imported from further afield, with its negative impact on operating costs. In 1555 the patio method was developed. , amalgamation with quicksilver or mercury, which allowed the processing of lower grade minerals. Bartolomé Medina experimented with it in the Mexican mines of Pachuca and at the beginning of the 1570s it was incorporated by the mining company of Potosi. The introduction of the "yard method" revolutionized mining and, to a certain extent, involved its professionalization by requiring greater investment to build hydraulic or animal-drawn mills, or new tunnels. The process could last up to two months, and from its introduction a third of the metal was obtained by smelting. The ground mineral was reduced to powder and, after being dried in a patio, the origin of the name, small mounds were formed to which salt and mercury were added, bearing in mind that a silver frame required three to four quicksilver. Finally the silver was separated from the mercury by heat. Its advantage was the simplicity of the equipment and technology required, coupled with low energy consumption, while its drawbacks were slowness and dependence on quicksilver. In Peru, the Huancavelica quicksilver mine was discovered, which was fully exploited during the 16th and 17th centuries, although in the middle of the 18th century its production decreased. In Mexico, quicksilver had to be imported from Europe, especially from Almadén, in Ciudad Real, and Idria.
Exports of precious metals
The Mexican historian Lucas Alamán had stated after independence that:without [silver] mining, agriculture, internal trade, or any industrious occupation, they prosper; the population decreases or stagnates, consumption declines and all this is followed by the annihilation of foreign trade . Between 1561 and 1600, 85% of the value of colonial exports corresponded to mining products, gold and silver, reducing that percentage by 5% in the following 50 years. At the end of the colonial period, the export of precious metals fluctuated between 75% and 90%, depending on the region. The dominant nature of mining production does not refer to its contribution to colonial income, which, if it were possible to measure it, was much lower than agriculture or manufacturing. The same thing happened with the occupation of the active population in agriculture and manufacturing, higher than in mining.
Impactofminingonotherbusinesssectors
In each space there was a regional specialization of work, since the supply of labor, raw materials, supplies, food and clothing to the reals of mines boosted the growth of regional economies. The mining poles were never isolated enclaves supplied from abroad. Peter Bakewell explained the role of the deposits in northern Mexico as drivers of regional development, and François Chevalier showed the relationship between silver mining and the growth of the northern and Bajio haciendas. The demand of the mining poles —food for the workers or supplies for the production of silver— was basically covered with products from the domestic market. In Potosí the main exception was the points of the barretas and some other iron instrument, in Mexico mercury had to be added. Except for some exporting ports linked to international trade, the intensity of the exchanges of each region with others in the same space exceeded that carried out with foreign markets. For the proper functioning of the system, the metropolis articulated a long-distance communications network, the system of fleets and galleons, which connected with the main exporting ports. At the same time, it prohibited access to its colonies to the European powers, establishing a monopoly and the prohibition of trade to those who were not subjects of the monarchy. To prevent a certain autonomous development, it prohibited or placed important obstacles to the colonies to relate to other American regions, justifying such measures by the competition between intercolonial trade and metropolitan production and Sevillian trade, direct beneficiaries of the monopoly The prohibition of intercolonial trade it sought to prevent the exit of silver to uncontrolled circuits from the metropolis.