Potosí, known as Villa Imperial de Potosí in the colonial period, is the capital city and a municipality of the Department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world at a nominal . , an indigenous prospector, is traditionally credited with the discovery of the Cerro Rico in 1545, which led to the founding and rapid growth of Potosí due to its extraordinary silver wealth.
For centuries, it was the location of the Spanish colonial silver mint. A considerable amount of the city's colonial architecture has been preserved in the historic center of the city, which—along with the globally important Cerro Rico de Potosí—are part of a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Potosí lies at the foot of the Cerro de PotosíNot to be mistaken with Cerro Potosí, Mexico—sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain")—a mountain popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore that dominates the city. The Cerro Rico is the reason for Potosí's historical importance since it was the major supply of silver for the Spanish Empire until Guanajuato in Mexico surpassed it in the 18th century. At the turn of the 16th/17th centuries, it was the second largest city in the world, after London.Hermann, Werner, Manfred, dtv-Atlas Weltgeschichte : von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, pp. 276
The silver was taken by llama and mule train to the Pacific coast, shipped north to Panama City, and carried by mule train across the isthmus of Panama to Nombre de Dios or Portobelo, whence it was taken to Spain on the Spanish treasure fleets. Some of the silver also made its way east to Buenos Aires, via the Rio de la Plata, or to Acapulco, Mexico, where it was sent via the Manila Galleons to buy Asian products.Schurz, William Lytle. The Manila Galleon, 1939. P 193. Cerro de Potosí's peak is above sea level.
Today, Potosí continues to be an important mining center, and is the largest urban center in the Department of Potosí. A growing city, Potosí is now famous for its well-preserved colonial architecture, and unusual geographic setting as one of the highest cities in the world. It features a rare cold highland climate, and is marked by its long dry period, and short but strong wet season. While famous for its dominance as a mining center in early Spanish colonial history, Potosí still sits at one of the largest silver deposit systems in the world.
Etymology
There is no authoritative etymology for the word Potosí. According to legend, in about 1462, Huayna Capac, the eleventh Sapa Inca of what by then was known as the Inca Empire "set out for Ccolque Porco and Andaccaua, the location of his mines from which were taken innumerable arrobas of silver" (an arroba is a Spanish unit of weight equivalent to approximately ). Before leaving there, he saw Potosí, and admiring its beauty and grandeur, he said (speaking to those of his Court):
It is believed that Potosí is a Quechua word. However, in Quechua the root p'otoj does not refer to a thunderous noise, whereas it does in Aymara. Thus, if Potosí encompasses the idea of a thunderous noise, the location would have an Aymaran root rather than a Quechuan.
The actual sharp structure of the term is contrary to the nature of both Aymara and Quechua. Another explanation, given by several Quechua speakers, is that potoq is an onomatopoeic word that reproduces the sound of the hammer against the ore, and oral tradition has it that the town derived its name from this word.
History
Colonial silver boom
Founded in 1545 as a mining town, it soon produced fabulous wealth, and the population eventually exceeded 200,000 people. The city gave rise to a Spanish expression, still in use: valer un Potosí ("to be worth a Potosí"), meaning "to be of great value". The rich mountain, Cerro Rico, produced an estimated 60% of all silver mined in the world during the second half of the 16th century. p. 29
Potosí miners at first mined the rich oxidized ores with native silver and silver chloride (cerargyrite) that could be fed directly into smelting furnaces. Especially successful were the small clay "flower pot" furnaces called guayras, which had been used by the Incas. By 1565, the miners had exhausted the direct-smelting ore, and silver production plummeted. Silver production was revived by the introduction of the patio process, invented by Spanish merchant Bartolomé de Medina in 1554. The patio process used mercury amalgamation to extract silver from lower-grade ores, and those containing silver sulfide (argentite), as was typical of the unoxidized ores found deeper in the mountain. In 1609, another mercury amalgamation method, the pan amalgamation process was invented in Potosí, and proved better-adapted to the conditions at Potosí.Ronald D. Crozier, “Silver processing in Spanish America; the patio process and beyond,” CIM Bulletin, July–Aug. 1993, v.86 n.972 p.86–91.
Spanish American mines were the world's most abundant sources of silver during this time period. Spanish America's ability to supply a great amount of silver and China's strong demand for this commodity which the Spanish supplied via Latin American trade with the Philippines using the Manila Galleons, resulted in a spectacular mining boom. The true champion of this boom in the silver industry was indeed the Spanish crown. By allowing private-sector entrepreneurs to operate mines under license and placing high taxes on mining profits, the Spanish empire was able to extract the greatest benefits. An example of a tax that was levied includes the quinto, a 20% severance tax on gross value. From the raw materials extracted from the mines, coins called pieces of eight were fashioned at the Potosí mint.
For Europeans, Peru–Bolivia was located in the Viceroyalty of Peru and was known as "Upper Peru" before becoming independent as part of Bolivia. Potosí was a mythical land of riches, it is mentioned in Miguel de Cervantes' famous novel, Don Quixote (second part, chap. LXXI) as a land of "extraordinary richness". One theory holds that the mint mark of Potosí (the letters "PTSI" superimposed on one another) is the origin of the dollar sign.
The urban complex in the remote Andes was important enough to be designated a Villa Imperial in the hierarchy of Spanish urban settlements. Although in mountainous terrain, the core of Potosí was laid out in the standard Spanish grid pattern, while the rancherias (Indigenous settlements on the northern flank of the Cerro Rico) were more haphazard. According to an anonymous description of the city, by 1603 some 6,000 Spaniards and other Europeans, 5,000 Africans, an unspecified number of people of mixed heritage and at least 120,000 native Andeans were resident in Potosi. The villa was governed by a Spanish corregidor, 2 Alcaldes and a town council of 19 men. At this time, it was the second largest city in the world, after London.Hermann, Werner, Manfred, dtv-Atlas Weltgeschichte : von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, pp. 276
In addition to five publicly employed scribes, some forty independent notaries documented and recorded commercial transactions as well as last wills and testaments. Since Potosí was of such economic importance to the Spanish Empire, the crown bureaucracy was a significant presence. Large churches, lavishly decorated inside, were built, and friars from the Dominican, Franciscans, Augustinians, Mercederians, and Jesuits were present, but no convent for women existed until 1650. There was an ecclesiastical court for legal issues regarding the clergy. The Inquisition had no tribunal in the city, but relied on a commissioner.Lane, Potosí, pp. 94–96
Labor Indigenous laborers were required to work in Potosí's silver mines through the Spanish mita system of forced labor, based on an analogous mit'a system traditional to pre-Hispanic Andean society (though the mit'a directed labor for public works and collective agricultural projects). Laborers were drawn from the native population of an area that encompassed almost 200,000 square miles.Bakewell, Peter (1984), Bethell, Leslie (ed.), "Mining in colonial Spanish America", The Cambridge History of Latin America: Volume 2: Colonial Latin America, The Cambridge History of Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2, pp. 105–152, , Thirteen thousand men were conscripted each year, constituting about one out of every seven adult males in the indigenous population.Burkholder, Mark A.; Johnson, Lyman L. (2019). Colonial Latin America (Tenth ed.). New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 83. . These mitayos faced harsh conditions in the mines, where they were often given the least desirable jobs. While more skilled laborers extracted the ore, mitayos were tasked with carrying it back to the surface in baskets, leather bags, or cloth sacks.Burkholder and Johnson, 155.Bakewell, 130.
These loads often weighed between 100 and 300 lbs, and the workers had to carry them up rickety ladders in steep, narrow shafts lit only by a candle tied to their foreheads.Bakewell, 130. Many of them died or were seriously injured due to falls, accidents, and the harsh conditions of the mine life. Illness was another danger: at such a high altitude, pneumonia was always a concern, especially given the extreme and rapid changes of temperature experienced by workers climbing from the heat of the deep shafts to the freezing elements of the surface at 16,000 feet, and mercury poisoning took the lives of many involved in the refining process.
The Potosí mita caused dramatic demographic shifts in the local indigenous population as wives and children moved with workers to Potosí while thousands more fled their traditional villages, forfeiting their ayllu land rights in order to escape the labor draft.Burkholder and Johnson, 125–126. In rough terms the area affected by these displacements went from Quito to Buenos Aires. By the late 17th century, upper Peru had lost nearly 50% of its indigenous population compared to a little over a century earlier.Burkholder and Johnson, 125–126. This only increased the burden on the remaining natives, and at some point in the 1600s, up to half of the eligible male population might find themselves working at Potosí. Nevertheless, the number of mitayos dropped to about 4,000 by 1689, prompting the Viceroy Duke of Palata to raise the number again through a new census and inclusion of new populations not subject to the mita (forasteros).Barragán Romano, R. (2016). Dynamics of Continuity and Change: Shifts in Labour Relations in the Potosí Mines (1680–1812). International Review of Social History, 61(S24), 93–114. doi:10.1017/S0020859016000511 It is suspected that Spanish authorities in Arica, Chuquisaca and Oruro may not have responded to calls by Potosí authorities to locate escapees since many of these had proved useful workforce in agricultural haciendas of influential Spaniards.
The reform failed, and the Duke's successor set the official number to 4,108 mitayos (1,367 active each week). In reality, the number of mitayos was even lower due to the increasing practice of buying oneself out of the obligation. For the remaining mita workforce, however, conditions remained harsh. Mine and mill owners notoriously ignored official regulations on provisions and especially withheld the money the Indians should receive as recompensation for their travel. Just the cost of traveling to Potosí and back could be more than a mitayo was paid in a year, and so many of them chose to remain in Potosí as wage workers when their mita was finished.Bakewell, 125. Former mitayos living in Potosí were not only exempt from the draft, but usually earned considerably more due to the valuable skills they had gained in permanent services.Tutino, John (2018). "Silver Capitalism and Indigenous Republics: Rebuilding Communities, 1500–1700". The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500–2000. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. p. 75. .