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.

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