Silver ore is registered at the Cerro Rico of Potosí
Ore of extraordinary richness was registered on the mountain above what became Potosí, in the high Andes of what is now Bolivia. Early workings used indigenous smelting technology and exploited the richest surface ore; the industrial phase came a generation later with mercury amalgamation. Potosí became the single largest source of silver in the world and the origin point of a bullion flow that reached Seville, Amsterdam, Istanbul and Canton.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosi, 1545–1650
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.
University of New Mexico Press · 1984 · Partly verified
Peter J. Bakewell, Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosi, 1545–1650 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984)
Recorded on Potosí
- Silver ore is registered at the Cerro Rico of Potosí
- Manila is founded as the eastern terminus
- Qing trade confined to Canton
- Commutation Act cuts British tea duty
- The Opium Wars
- Treaty of Nanking
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Treaty of Nanking · 1842-08-29
- The Opium Wars · 1839–1860
- Commutation Act cuts British tea duty · 1784
- Qing trade confined to Canton · 1757
- Manila is founded as the eastern terminus · 1571