Potosí

In the late sixteenth century, Potosí became the

economic heart – the jewel – of the Spanish empire. Potosi was, as Jack Weatherford states, “the first city of capitalism, for it supplied the primary ingredient of capitalism - money ...[it] made the money that irrevocably changed the economic complexion of the world.” 11 Even though the discovery of the Potosí silver mine represents one of the most important events in American colonization, its history is commonly overlooked and it does not have a well-deserved place in the history of the Atlantic world.

“I am rich Potosí, the treasure of the world, the king of the mountains and the envy of kings.”

These words were inscribed on the coat of arms granted by the Emperor Charles V to that fabled silver center of colonial Peru.

The Imperial village of Potosí is located in the Andean highlands, 1,300 feet above sea level. It was part of the Viceroyalty of Peru in present-day Bolivia. The official documents describing the first centuries of Potosí’s history can be found in the manuscript, Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí (The History of the Potosí Imperial Village) by Bartolomé de Arzáns Orsúa y Vela. These documents were organized and published in the eighteenth century (1705-1736); the entire 1200-page manuscript has been transcribed and published by Brown University Press.

In the official record, Potosí was discovered on 21 April 1545. However, there are several versions of the discovery of these mines. The best known storyis the one told by the Portuguese Antonio de Acosta.

According to Acosta, an Indigenous man named Hualca went looking for his lost llama

and ended up staying overnight in the Potosí mountain. When he woke up, he saw a shiny liquid -- silver melted by the fire he had lit to warm himself while he slept. Spanish authorities, already exploring the region for

gold and precious stones, quickly took notice of the discovery. Under the command of Spanish captain Juan Villaroel, they organized the first metal extraction. 12

The silver mountain of Potosí –

commonly known as Cerro Rico, or “rich hill” – was over 2,000 feet high. According to Weatherford, “this is the richest moutain ever

discovered anywhere on Earth.” 13 Beginning in 1545, this mountain produced silver for the treasuries of Europe at rate and volume unprecedend in human history. In an original document, Orsúa y Vela suggests that the amount of silver removed from Potosí could build a bridge from the village of Potosi to Spain! 14 It produced so much silver ore and required the labour of so many Indigenous slaves that Potosí was, for decades, the largest

city in the Americas. It was the first real city of the New World, reaching 120,000 inhabitants by 1573 and 160,000 by 1650. Potosí rivaled Old World cities such as London and Paris in

size. 15

“For the powerful emperor, for the wise king, this lofty mountain of silver could conquer the world.”

So read the engraving on an ornate shield sent by Spain’s King Felipe II in 1561 as a gift to the city of Potosí, in what is now southern Bolivia.

The official documents are unclear on production data, especially in the early years, when official records were often neglected. In addition, there is still confusion about the numbers and units of measurement

used to record extracted silver. Even with these challenges, the historian Valentine

Baldivieso estimates that, throughout the sixteenth century, Potosí produced 50% of the world silver. 16 This explains why the name Potosí became a synonym for fabulous and inexhaustible wealth after Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes used the phrase vale um Potosí, “worth a Potosí,” in his famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha. The expression was even used in English and it became the name of towns in Colorado and Nevada and

another mine in Mexico. 17

In the twenty-first century, Cerro

Rico continues to be explored. Another

artificial mountain grows in the valley beside Cerro Rico, rising from the millions of tons

of crushed rock, residue of four hundred years of uninterrupted exploration. Residents of Potosí call the artificial mountain Huakajchi – the mountain that cries. Huakajchi is now mined, or rather picked over, by people looking for “the crying,” the remnants of silver in the waste mountain of their

ancestors. Today, the once-prosperous Potosí

mountain is practically exhausted and no longerfamous. But, as Weatherford states,

“[Potosí] stands today as the first and probably most important monunment to captalism and to the ensuing industrial revolution and the urban boom made possible by the new capitalist system.” 18 Potosí supplied the silver that moved and revolutionized the economy of the colonial period, and, therefore, should not be forgotten or ignored when we study the history of the Atlantic world.

ALAN DE OLIVEIRA MAIH STUDENT