On the basis of an examination of the colonial mercury and silver production processes and related labor systems, Mercury, Mining, and Empire explores the effects of mercury pollution in colonial Huancavelica, Peru, and Potosí, in present-day Bolivia. The book presents a multifaceted and interwoven tale of what colonial exploitation of indigenous peoples and resources left in its wake. It is a socio-ecological history that explores the toxic interrelationships between mercury and silver production, urban environments, and the people who lived and worked in them. Nicholas A. Robins tells the story of how native peoples in the region were conscripted into the noxious ranks of foot soldiers of proto-globalism, and how their fate, and that of their communities, was—and still is—chained to it.
On the basis of an examination of the colonial mercury and silver production processes and related labor systems, Mercury, Mining, and Empire explores the effects of mercury pollution in colonial Huancavelica, Peru, and Potosí, in present-day Bolivia. The book presents a multifaceted and interwoven tale of what colonial exploitation of indigenous peoples and resources left in its wake. It is a socio-ecological history that explores the toxic interrelationships between mercury and silver production, urban environments, and the people who lived and worked in them. Nicholas A. Robins tells the story of how native peoples in the region were conscripted into the noxious ranks of foot soldiers of proto-globalism, and how their fate, and that of their communities, was—and still is—chained to it.
Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes
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Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes
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Overview
On the basis of an examination of the colonial mercury and silver production processes and related labor systems, Mercury, Mining, and Empire explores the effects of mercury pollution in colonial Huancavelica, Peru, and Potosí, in present-day Bolivia. The book presents a multifaceted and interwoven tale of what colonial exploitation of indigenous peoples and resources left in its wake. It is a socio-ecological history that explores the toxic interrelationships between mercury and silver production, urban environments, and the people who lived and worked in them. Nicholas A. Robins tells the story of how native peoples in the region were conscripted into the noxious ranks of foot soldiers of proto-globalism, and how their fate, and that of their communities, was—and still is—chained to it.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253005380 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/25/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 316 |
| Sales rank: | 300,776 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Nicholas A. Robins is a lecturer in the Department of History at North Carolina State University. He is author of Native Insurgencies and the Genocidal Impulse in the Americas (IUP, 2005) and editor (with Adam Jones) of Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice (IUP, 2009), among other works.
Read an Excerpt
Mercury, Mining, and Empire
The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes
By Nicholas A. Robins
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2011 Nicholas A. RobinsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-35651-2
CHAPTER 1
Amalgamating an Empire
* * *
When Francisco Pizarro and his band of conquerors landed on the coast of Peru in 1532 they, like many of their compatriots, were inspired in no small measure by the legendary success of Hernán Cortés in New Spain. In 1521, following an epic and bloody saga, Cortés and his followers finally conquered the Aztec empire. Their victory rendered to Spain, and themselves, one of the New World's most powerful empires and its seemingly infinite riches. Like Cortés and thousands of conquistadores throughout the Americas, Pizarro and his followers were generally men of modest means and little formal education, whose independent spirits were matched by their ruthless ambition.
Unlike most of their contemporaries, however, Pizarro and his men would encounter a highly developed civilization whose achievements in constructing roads, bridges, and buildings astonished them. Taking a page from Cortés' playbook, Pizarro would exploit internal divisions within native society and hold a native king, Atahualpa, hostage in order to wrest control of his empire. After Pizarro promised to spare the Inca king's life in exchange for filling three rooms with tons of gold and silver, the conqueror then ordered him killed, fearing he was plotting an uprising. The sheer amount of gold and silver that Atahualpa was able to gather before being garroted demonstrated beyond any doubt to the Spaniards that the empire they had seized was endowed with almost unimaginable wealth.
Having seized and pillaged a kingdom, the conquistadores set about the more time-consuming tasks of bringing the native peoples under their control, nominally converting them, and putting them to work. The primary instrument for this during the post-conquest period was the encomienda, a system under which colonial authorities would place Indians in a given geographic area under Spanish control. While the Spanish encomenderos were obligated to Christianize their charges, they were also entitled to receive tribute and labor from them. Mass baptisms in a language few Indians understood became a prelude for service for a new, foreign, and seemingly insatiable master.
As in New Spain after the conquest, the crown sought to assert its control over Peru and its wayward and conflict-prone conquistadores. Reflecting the immense wealth of the region, the region was elevated in 1541 to viceroyalty status, with jurisdiction reaching from what is today Colombia south to Chile and Argentina, and eastward from the Pacific Ocean to contemporary Paraguay. Fearing the rise of a New World nobility that would escape their control, and in an effort to limit rampant abuses against the Indians, the next year the crown decreed the New Laws, which called for the phasing out of the encomienda system. When Peru's first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, arrived in Lima in May 1544 and refused to suspend the New Laws, the conquerors organized a rebellion.
In the coming months, Viceroy Núñez would be forced from office, jailed, and released en route to Panama. He lost no time returning to Peru, where Gonzalo Pizarro had been sworn in as governor, and who went in pursuit of the deposed viceroy. In January 1546 Pizarro defeated Núñez' forces outside of Quito, crowning their victory by decapitating the viceroy. The following year, a new governor sent from Spain, the cleric Pedro de Gasca, arrived in Peru. The New Laws had been modified somewhat to assuage encomendero opposition, and Gasca combined an offer of a general pardon with the threat of force to divide Gonzalo Pizarro's followers and bring many of them to his side. His emphasis on politics and diplomacy worked, and by December 1547, Gonzalo Pizarro had surrendered and been executed. Power was back in royal hands, and by 1550 Gasca had returned to Spain, having ceded his powers to the Lima a udiencia, or court with legislative and executive functions.
Disease and Demographics
As the Spanish were engaged in their internecine struggles, the indigenous population of the Andes was experiencing a demographic free fall of unprecedented proportions. The conquest and ensuing civil war among the Spaniards, along with overwork, drought, and famine, cost thousands of native lives. This, however, paled in comparison to the mortality wrought by disease on a population which had no immunity to a plethora of new pathogens. Pestilence both preceded and facilitated the conquest of the Inca. Between 1524 and 1531 smallpox and influenza spread southward from Panama, carried by merchants, messengers, and other travelers, who unwittingly laced their path with death and despair. Among the casualties was the Inca king Huayna Capac and members of his family, who perished from smallpox in 1524. Huayna Capac's death set off a succession battle between the half-brothers Atahualpa and Huascar, which the conquistadores stepped into in 1532 and successfully exploited.
The ensuing collapse of the population almost defies the imagination and was, according to one scholar, "in terms of the number of people who died, the greatest human catastrophe in history." In the region of present-day Peru, the total population fell from approximately 9,000,000 people in 1520 to about 1,000,000 in 1580, reaching a nadir of only 600,000 in 1620. This demographic implosion of 93 percent was caused primarily by measles, smallpox, influenza, typhus, and plague, with nine epidemics ravaging the region between 1572 and 1635. There were regional variations, however, as some communities in the hot coastal lowlands literally disappeared, while highland inhabitants often fared somewhat better as a result of cooler temperatures, less contact with Spaniards, and more dispersed populations. Reflecting this, in the highlands of present-day Bolivia, the population fell by approximately 60 percent between 1532 and 1550, and 75 percent overall between 1532 and 1720.
Witnessing death became a way of life in the early colony, and a Dominican friar wrote in 1550 that "of the people, livestock, towns, buildings ... and everything else that was in this land when entered ten years ago ... there is not at present half, and of many of these things, not even a quarter ... such that if ... things are not remedied, shortly ... there will be no one left to remedy them." It was not only disease that depopulated towns but also flight to unconquered regions and emigration to cities, where diseases spread with even more facility. In the 1680s Viceroy Navarra y Rocaful alluded to the desolation of the countryside when he wrote that "for many years it has been recognized the great depopulation that has come to the towns of these ... provinces of Peru ... it is not possible to maintain the kingdom with only the main cities." While many contemporaries recognized the roles that disease and flight from Spanish domination and abuse played in the depopulation of the region, others had different, self-serving theories. The Dominican Reginaldo de Lizárraga was, for example, convinced that the widespread drinking of chicha, a fermented corn drink, had "consumed the Indians in the valleys, in the plains, and will consume the few that remain."
The Rise of Potosí
It was in this context of upheaval, civil war, and demographic implosion that Potosí emerged. The Incas had long mined silver in the nearby region of Porco, and Hernando Pizarro, among others, had moved quickly to exploit these deposits, often by dispatching encomienda Indians to extract and refine the ore. In 1544 or early 1545, an Indian from the region of Cuzco, named Gualpa, was leading his llama train back to Porco from the town of La Plata with a cargo of foodstuffs when he stopped in what would soon be Potosí. Accounts differ, but Gualpa ascended the Cerro Rico in pursuit of either prey or an errant llama. Climbing the steep hill, he is said to have grabbed a shrub to steady himself, uprooting it in the process. With the keen eye of a miner, he recognized that the soil in which it had grown was laden with silver. What he could not see, however, were the myriad changes that this chance event would have both in Peru and the world.
In the coming months, Gualpa furtively returned many times to the hill, gathering and refining its rich ore. Although he tried to keep the source of his new and increasingly apparent wealth secret, Gualpa yielded to the pleas of his friend Guanca and brought him to the site. Disagreements soon arose, however, as Guanca complained about the hardness of the rock that he had agreed to mine. Unable to overcome their differences, Guanca told his master, Juan de Villarroel, of the discovery and the two formally registered a claim on one of the richest veins in the Cerro Rico in April 1545.
Just as Gualpa was pushed aside by the one with whom he shared his secret, so too was Guanca soon sidelined by Villarroel. In September 1545, Villarroel and seventy-five other Spaniards gathered to formally found the city of Potosí. Things got off to a rough start as control of the town shifted between royalists and rebels during the civil war, although it began to develop on a more stable footing in 1548 following the death of Gonzalo Pizarro. A plentiful spring water supply was vital to the subsequent growth of the town. Not only were there excellent springs just outside of town but also, as a Dominican friar observed, "One hardly finds a block that does not have many springs, nor houses without wells, and in the streets many [springs] spew forth water." A dirty, ramshackle boomtown sprang up as people flocked from Porco and La Plata to prospect and stake their claims on the hill. By 1548 its population had already reached 14,000 people living in about 2,500 hastily constructed, straw-roofed houses. One writer at the time noted the contrast between the town's tremendous wealth and ostentatiously dressed Spaniards and their houses which were "the worst in this region ... simple, low ... disorderly ... and small."
What this shoddy town on the barren altiplano lacked in aesthetics, it offered in opportunity. Just as prospectors, miners, and refiners were attracted to Potosí, so were merchants, artisans, and moneylenders. At almost 12,000 feet above sea level, no crops were grown in the immediate area, and everything from food and tools to clothes and furniture were brought upland by mule and llama train. The high prices for which the town was soon known reflected not only transportation costs but also the abundance of silver and the profligate ways of those who had it. Despite their disdain for engaging in commerce, many Spaniards could not resist the profits to be made and had Indian servants sell their goods for them. Potosí quickly became home to the largest market in the Andes, where tens of thousands of pesos were exchanged each day. As Potosí prospered and the name of the town became synonymous with wealth, its residents increasingly chafed at external control, whether from Spain, Lima, or La Plata. As a result, in November 1561, its leading residents were glad to purchase their independence from the jurisdiction of La Plata, paying 79,000 pesos to the crown for the right to form their own city council. Reflecting the rising tide of their fortune and their pride, Potosí was granted its own coat of arms in 1563.
Although the Cerro Rico was the font from which such legendary riches flowed, the Spaniards were entirely dependent on the native peoples who mined and refined it. In addition to encomendero Indians sent by their masters to produce silver, thousands more came willingly. Like the Spaniards, they were drawn by the quality of the ore and the relative ease with which it was extracted. Many of these Indians were known as yanaconas, which in the early colonial period referred to Indians who had a Spanish master who was not an encomendero. They did not pay tribute nor were they subject to an Indian overlord, and as a result yanaconas had somewhat more freedom than the encomienda Indians.
In the years before amalgamation was introduced, yanaconas often ran smelting operations and employed encomienda Indians as assistants, although both groups also mined the ore. They would enter into an agreement with a Spanish mine owner to work a given section of the mine, measured in varas, which is roughly equivalent to a yard. Known collectively as indios varas, these Indians provided their own tools, sacks, and supplies, except for the crowbar which was supplied by the mine owner. Only willing to work the richest veins, they would pay a premium of up to a pound of silver a week to the mine owner, and, in the case of encomienda Indians, a pound a month to their master, and otherwise keep the ore they extracted. While some Indians would refine it themselves, most would take it to a native smelter who would refine it for a fee. Overall, in the days before the mercury amalgamation process, the Indians in Potosí made a relatively good living as miners, refiners, transporters, and merchants.
The most skilled, and often lucrative, occupation was that of a refiner. One resident of Potosí would later recall how many Indian refiners would "become wealthy and bring to their lands a great quantity of this silver. And this was the reason why so many thousands of Indians from many parts of the realm came to this town." As elsewhere in the Andes, during this time the Indians generally employed traditional smelters, called guayras, to refine the ore. Although in pre-Hispanic times most were constructed of stone, after the conquest they were usually portable. Made of ceramic, they measured anywhere from three to six feet high, were wider at the top than the bottom, and had ventilation slits on the sides. At the base was an opening to load fuel, which generally consisted of wood, charcoal, or llama or other dung. Inside, the refiner would stoke a fire and place ground ore of differing qualities in a vessel above the flame for about two full days, repeatedly removing impurities and collecting the silver and lead which remained.
This lead—silver mix would then be smelted a second time over the course of another day. The third and final smelting was often done in people's homes in a round stone furnace called a tocochimbo. About a yard in diameter and stoked by blowing into copper, reed, or other pipes, the refiner would heat the mixture, blow off any frothing impurities, and be left with silver. While profitable for the refiner, this was a highly toxic process given the amount of lead in these richest of ores. Although the historical record is largely silent on the issue, the operators of guayras and tocochimbos, both in the pre-Hispanic and early colonial periods, in all likelihood suffered from high rates of lead poisoning.
The guayra formed the backbone of the early mining economy in the Andes and was responsible for the initial torrent of silver which flowed to Spain and Europe before the advent of the mercury amalgamation process in the 1570s. Just as the conquistadores depended on a breeze to propel them to the Americas, they also depended on the wind for the production of silver. To operate properly, the guayra required a steady, moderate air current, which a bellows could not offer, to generate the high heat necessary to extract the silver from the ore. The trick was the right amount of wind, for too much would burn the fuel without transferring the necessary heat to the ore, and too little would not generate sufficient heat. The portability of the colonial guayras allowed their operators to place them in the most advantageous location, which was often on hilltops.
Such was the dependence on a good wind that when it would cease for a few days, Potosí's clergy would lead religious processions and prayers for a steady breeze. From Potosí, the sparkling sight was spectacular, with up to 6,000 guayras operating at a time. One contemporary waxed that the "guayras are placed on the summits and bases of the hills ... that ... surround this town ... some placed neatly on the ... pinnacles ... like lanterns, and others placed confusedly on the slopes and ravines, all together they make a joyful and pleasant sight." It was thanks to the guayra and its native operators that, as one miner put it, "so much silver flowed in that town that ... it appeared a thing of fables ... and dreams."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mercury, Mining, and Empire by Nicholas A. Robins. Copyright © 2011 Nicholas A. Robins. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Amalgamating an Empire
2. Toxic Travails: Mining in Huancavelica
3. Blood Silver
4. Connecting the Drops: The Wider Human and Environmental Costs
5. From Corrosion to Collapse: The Destruction of Native Communities
Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
An astonishing history of the destruction of colonial Indian communities in Peru and Bolivia. Robins has woven deep archival research with modern science to identify and interpret the consequences of silver production and toxic exposure to mercury. This is trans-disciplinary research at its very best.
This is interdisciplinary history at its best. A path-breaking study that . . . will certainly be a 'must-read' book.
Robins (North Carolina State Univ.) reconstructs the practically unknown history of the environmental and health consequences of mining mercury in colonial Peru and Bolivia. Using a wide range of primary documents and an impressive interdisciplinary approach, the author illustrates the dramatic impact of mercury on mineworkers, mining towns, and the local ecosystem. Through the analysis of colonial sources (chronicles, letters, and archival documentation) as well as the use of scientific methods, Robins is able to estimate the mercury concentrations in the mines of Huancavelica and Potosí and the impact on workers' and residents' health, arguing that mercury was responsible for the death and poisoning of 'hundreds of thousands of people' at the time. Placing this environmental story in the larger history of Spanish colonization and colonial mining, the author shows the relationship between mercury poisoning and the exploitation of indigenous people through the mita system—the labor draft that forced Andean communities to provide labor for mining. Overall, this is a fantastic book that brings together environmental, labor, and colonial history, confirming the contributions of environmental studies to understanding the past. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students/faculty. —Choice
Robins (North Carolina State Univ.) reconstructs the practically unknown history of the environmental and health consequences of mining mercury in colonial Peru and Bolivia. Using a wide range of primary documents and an impressive interdisciplinary approach, the author illustrates the dramatic impact of mercury on mineworkers, mining towns, and the local ecosystem. Through the analysis of colonial sources (chronicles, letters, and archival documentation) as well as the use of scientific methods, Robins is able to estimate the mercury concentrations in the mines of Huancavelica and Potosí and the impact on workers' and residents' health, arguing that mercury was responsible for the death and poisoning of 'hundreds of thousands of people' at the time. Placing this environmental story in the larger history of Spanish colonization and colonial mining, the author shows the relationship between mercury poisoning and the exploitation of indigenous people through the mita system—the labor draft that forced Andean communities to provide labor for mining. Overall, this is a fantastic book that brings together environmental, labor, and colonial history, confirming the contributions of environmental studies to understanding the past. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students/faculty. —Choice