Incan Silver and Spanish Exploitation

Incan Silver and Spanish Exploitation

The exploitation of the Incas under Spanish colonial institutions is a widely acknowledged abuse. Bartolome Arzans de Orsua y Vela in his book Tales of Potosi brings to light another dimension of this mistreatment: the Spaniards enabling of the abuse of coca by the exploited Indians as a means to increase productivity, which is an aspect that has been overlooked by many theorists up to this point. Abuse of coca expanded the wealth of the Spanish Crown through gains in Native productivity. In order to properly analyze Arzans de Orsua y Vela’s commentary, it is necessary to understand Spanish colonial institutions in relation to this topic. As noted in the textbook Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, “the Spaniards sought to exploit the wealth of indigenous empires,” and “the foremost measure of that wealth and power was the store of gold and silver that they could accumulate for themselves and the monarchs they served.” [1] In 1945 the Spaniards came across a mountain of silver at Cerro Rico de Potosi, and it became one of the Spanish Empires most lucrative conquests. The city that grew up around the mountain “was, for over a century, the largest city in the western hemisphere.”[2] The immense amount of silver obtained from this single Spanish colony “pumped so much silver into the networks of European commerce that it transformed Europe’s relationship to all of its trading partners, especially those in China and India. It also shook up trade and politics within Europe itself.”[3] In order to maximize profit from this silver deposit, a system of forced labor was utilized. Although Queen Isabella of Spain issued an edict in 1503 that prohibited chattel enslavement of Native Americans, “the Crown began to systematize grants or encomienda to conquistadors for control over Indian labor.”[4] Under these encomiendas, Spaniards could force Indians to work without pay in their mines. This system allowed for many

Cited: Arzans de Orsua y Vela, Bartolome. “Silver, the Devil, and the Coca Leaf in the Andes.” In Worlds Together Worlds Apart, edited by Jon Durbin. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2008. Assadourian, Carlos Sempat. “The Colonial Economy: The Transfer of the European System of Production to New Spain and Peru.” Journal of Latin American Studies 24 (1992): 55-68. Bingham, Hiram. “Potosi.” Bulletin of the American Geographical Society 43/1 (1911): 1-13. Cobb, Gwendolin B. “Supply and Transportation for the Potosi Mines, 1545-1640.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 29/1 (1949): 25-45. Grieshaber, Erwin P. “Hacienda-Indian Community Relations and Indian Acculturation: An Historiographical Essay.” Latin American Research Review 14/3 (1979): 107-128. Joralemon, Donald. “Coca in History and Political Economy.” American Anthropologist, New Series 97/4 (1995): 799-800. Rowe, John Howland. “The Incas Under Spanish Colonial Institutions.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 37/2 (1957): 155-199. Tandeter, Enrique. “Forced and Free Labour in Late Colonial Potosi.” Past & Present 93 (1981): 98-136. Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, Michael Tsin. Worlds Together Worlds Apart. Vol. 2, The Mongol Empire to the Present. Edited by Jon Durbin. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. [2] Hiram Bingham, “Potosi,” Bulletin of the American Geographical Society 43, no. 1 (1911): 1. [4] John Howland Rowe, “The Incas Under Spanish Colonial Institutions,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 37, No. 2 (1957): 170. [6] Carlos Sempat Assadourian, “The Colonial Economy: The Transfer of the European System of Production to New Spain and Peru,” Journal of Latin American Studies 24 (1992): 59. [8] Enrique Tandeter, “Forced and Free Labour in Late Colonial Potosi,” Past & Present 93 (1981): 105. [13] Erwin P. Grieshaber, “Hacienda-Indian Community Relations and Indian Acculturation: An Historiographical Essay,” Latin American Research Review 14, No. 3 (1979): 115. [17] Bartolome Arzans de Orsua y Vela, “Silver, the Devil, and the Coca Leaf in the Andes,” in Worlds Together Worlds Apart, Vol. 2, The Mongol Empire to the Present, edited by Jon Durbin. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008), 565. [18] Warwick Bray, et al., “Coca Chewing and High-Altitude Stress: A Spurious Correlation [and Comments and Reply],” Current Anthropology 24, No. 3 (1983): 271. [22] Gwendolin B. Cobb, “Supply and Transportation for the Potosi Mines, 1545-1640,” The Hispanic Historical Review 29, No. 1 (1949): 32. [25] Donald Joralemon, “Coca in History and Political Economy,” American Anthropologist New Series 97, No. 4 (1995): 799.