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Kris Lane, Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019)

Hermis Reyes & Giancarlo Valdetaro


Potosí’s cosmopolitan journey during the Age of Discovery was as steep and rugged as its own mountains. Booms and busts created crests and troughs of productivity indicating economic success throughout its paradoxical development. Both Europe and Asia were experiencing bullion famine; the aftermath of Black Death drove up demand for currency as Europe had begun to recover (5). This global coincidence acted as Potosí’s springboard into the world stage. Around 1545, Diego Gualpa discovered silver in Potosí. The Spanish immediately looked to Potosí as silver sustained and supported armies (31). After discovery, Potosí experienced three bust and boom cycles starting in 1545, slightly declining before Don Francisco de Toledo’s intervention in the 1570s, peaking in 1592, declining again until 1740, and reviving until 1800 when an abrupt crash occurred (158). With cooperation among Andeans and Spaniards worsening as a result of Spanish greed, the age of wind soon transformed into an age of iron with the help of Toledo’s great machine. In 1568 King Phillip II sent Toledo to the Andes, and he subsequently reformed the Andean silver industry throughout the 1570s (67). Toledo’s great machine expanded the commodity chain with the addition of the ore-crushing mill industry, the mercury amalgamation industry, and the royal mint industry. Toledo’s establishment of the royal mint, fully operational in 1575, boosted silver as a global commodity (84). By the time Toledo

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Interior of the silver mines, the "mouth of hell," by Theodor De Bry

returned to Spain in 1580, the mita labor draft expanded in response to the growing industries. However, by the 1620s, while mint production skyrocketed, silver production dropped, hinting at the vulnerabilities of the silver commodity chain (128). Broadly speaking, after 1600 the commodity chain would be disadvantaged by the three scourges: the Basque-Vicuña War from 1622-1625, the 1626 flood, and the Royal Mint Scandal of 1649 (117). These scourges exacerbated administrative conflict within Potosí, destroyed existing infrastructure, and devalued Potosí mint’s credibility and worth. This period of decline was saved by the 1702-13 War of Spanish Succession, as French and English turned their attention to Potosí during a period of dynastic conflict. Ultimately the Spanish kept Potosí, yet it only had one short-lived boom after 1806. Napoleon’s 1808 sacking of Madrid introduced a potential for independence, especially after the 1810 Buenos Aires rebellion, destroying the future of silver mining in Potosí (177). British attempts to invest in Potosí after Simon Bolivar’s liberation, were met with difficulties as their stock declined due to the financial trouble in London (187). As a result, interest in Potosí had immensely declined until future gold rushes would end up replacing silver as an even more valuable commodity.

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Silver bars from Potosí

Although the British expeditionary force was unsuccessful in its imperialist aims, the fact that it was thwarted by conditions in London as opposed to facts on the ground in Potosí, demonstrates how once Spaniards arrived in South America –and especially once Diego Gualpa stumbled upon the Cerro Rico–there was no taking Potosí off the shelf of the global market (22). From that moment onward, the city and the world were inextricably linked. Its status as the lynchpin of a newly globalized economy made it one of the world’s first truly cosmopolitan cities, with forcefully dislocated Africans and indigenous Andeans living alongside Spanish immigrants and their descendants under a social order dictated by the Spanish crown and regional government but navigated at different levels of success by all residents of the city. Prior to the arrival of Viceroy Toledo, the skill and knowledge of Andeans meant that they effectively controlled Potosí’s mining industry (52). With this positioning, and the influx of wealth during the city’s first boom, long-standing social structures dating back to the Inca were often subverted, allowing for members of some formerly less-powerful ethnic groups and some women to climb the socioeconomic ladder (54). In addition, new industries and economic activity were created to meet the city’s growing demands, such as arrieros (mule drivers) and local alcohol production (56-58). Furthermore, especially before the introduction of la mita, the practice of mineworkers taking some

ore for themselves as a sort of pay supplement (called corpa) helped spur additional demand for commodities like clothing, jewelry, and other luxury items. All of this was only possible because of silver’s centrality not only to Spain, but the rest of the world. The demand from nations as far away as China, in addition to Potosí’s colonial rulers, created the demand and trade that would make it the world’s first truly cosmopolitan city.

 

In the end, that global interconnectedness is what made the silver trade anchored in Potosí so unique. For the first time in history, the toil of laborers on one side of the world could affect nations’ manufacturing industries prospects, permit bellicose foreign policy, reverse severe trade imbalances, and even sink entire economies on the other side of the world. Potosí showed for the first time how the flap of a butterfly’s wing in one area could cause a hurricane elsewhere. Lane supports this by calling out Eurocentrism in analysts of global affairs, who disregard generations of preexisting Andean geographic understanding (xiv). Lane reflects on how capitalistic effects of the commodity chain further intertwined Potosí in world affairs. Potosí’s success made it a paradoxical center of theater, literacy, religion, gambling, brothels, and taverns; a true cosmopolitan city. The religious aspect of global interconnectedness is prevalent within Potosí’s development. Its appearance during the gradual Catholic-Protestant split made it increasingly susceptible to being used as ammo against the Spanish whenever conflict arose. Potosí, referring to the Spanish-enforced mita that brought these improvements, was labelled the ‘mouth of hell’ by Spain’s rivals. As a result, instead of focusing on its overall cosmopolitan growth, Protestant enemies of Catholicism, in their efforts to expand their global influence, used Potosí to advance the “black legend of innate Spanish greed and cruelty” (44). This labelling not only worked against Potosí’s success, but endured, persisting even after independence. There were many aspects of Potosí that have influenced modern-day political geography, socio-economic divides, and religious standings, making it especially unique in a world of increased interconnections and commoditization.

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The city of Potosí with the cerro rico in the background

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