Potosf

A city and region located in the eastern range of the Andes Mountains in southern Bolivia, the name Potosf became synonymous with the production of silver for the Spanish Empire during the colonial era.

One of the most famous silver mining centers of the Spanish Empire, the Villa Imperial of Potosf developed around one of the richest silver deposits in the Andes Mountains. In 1545 the Spanish discovered rich silver ore deposits in Cerro Rico, and the town of Potosf quickly grew on the northern slope as a support center for the mining operations. Most of its inhabitants engaged in activities to support the production of silver, such as mining and refining the raw mineral into ingots and bars. The workers for these activities came from indigenous draft labor called the REPARTIMIENTO, a system developed from the Incan mitia, which assigned laborers on a temporary basis to perform community service.

The ore obtained from Cerro Rico supplied more than 50 percent of Spain’s American silver production before 1650. Its most productive decade occurred from 1575 to 1585. The Spanish refined most of the ore mined from Cerro Rico in 80 mills located in the vicinity. By 1600 most of the easily reached ore had been mined, but the Spanish found veins in the surrounding area and continued to exploit the lower grade ore left in Cerro Rico. The remaining silver proved more expensive to acquire and refine, but the process continued to be profitable. The silver acquired from Potosf helped to make Spain a world power in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the wealth it helped to create for Spain enticed other European powers into colonizing the Americas.

Further reading: Peter Bakewell, Miners of the Red Mountains: Indian Labor in Potosi, 1545-1650 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984);-,

“Mining in Colonial Spanish America,” in Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 110-151; Jeffery A. Cole, The Potosi Mita, 1573-1700 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985); Enrique Tandeter, Coercion and Market: Silver Mining in Colonial Potosi, 1662-1826 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993).

—Dixie Ray Haggard