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Mercury amalgamation and the mita transform Potosí

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Under Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, Potosí was reorganised on two foundations: the patio process, which used mercury to extract silver from ores too poor to smelt, and the mita, a rotational labour draft compelling highland communities across a vast catchment to supply men to the mines and refineries. Output rose sharply. So did mortality, and so did the dependence of the whole system on the mercury mine at Huancavelica, hundreds of kilometres away — the silver of the Americas was governed by the production of a different metal at a different mountain.

A node is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.

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Evidence · 1
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 2
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 27 blocks · 1 evidence · 32 related

  1. Story
  2. Under Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, Potosí was reorganised on two foundations: the patio process, which used mercury to extract silver from ores too poor to smelt, and the mita, a rotational labour draft compelling highland communities across a vast catchment to supply men to the mines and refineries. Output rose sharply. So did mortality, and so did the dependence of the whole system on the mercury mine at Huancavelica, hundreds of kilometres away — the silver of the Americas was governed by the production of a different metal at a different mountain.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Silver
  5. Potosí
  6. Mercury amalgamation and the mita transform Potosí
  7. Connections
  8. Potosí
  9. Silver
  10. Silver
  11. Silver ore is registered at the Cerro Rico of Potosí
  12. Mercury amalgamation and the mita transform Potosí
  13. Tea
  14. The Columbian Exchange
  15. Manila
  16. Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou
  17. Opium
  18. Qing trade confined to Canton
  19. Commutation Act cuts British tea duty
  20. The Opium Wars
  21. Treaty of Nanking
  22. Potosí
  23. Silver ore is registered at the Cerro Rico of Potosí
  24. Manila is founded as the eastern terminus
  25. Mercury amalgamation and the mita transform Potosí
  26. Evidence
  27. The standard study of the labour system at Potosí, including the mita draft, wage labour and the organisation of mining and refining after the introduction of mercury amalgamation. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted in this session. Cited for the structure of the labour system; no population, output or mortality figure is asserted from it in this pack because none could be checked.
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No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.

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/atlas?object=EVT_POTOSI_AMALGAMATION_1570s&experience=EVT_POTOSI_AMALGAMATION_1570s