Monday, October 31, 2016

Joseph Crawford - 1870 census

location: Pleasant Hill, Sabine Parish, Louisiana
date: August 10, 1870

Joseph Crawford  43  male  white  farmer  Tennessee
Elizabeth Crawford  38  female  white  keeping house  South Carolina
Lewis N Crawford  17  male  white  works on farm  Texas
Joseph Crawford  15  male  white  at school  Texas
Robert W Crawford  13  male  white  at school  Texas
Eddy B Crawford  4  male  white  Texas
Thomas J Springer  17  male  white  works on farm  Louisiana
Keziah Feamster  15  female  white  at home  Texas
Jones Roberson  23  male  mulatto  farm laborer  Texas
Booker Bland  20  male  mulatto  farm laborer  Texas
Hayes McWilliams  17  male  black  farm laborer  Texas
Charles Crawford  11  male  black  works on farm  Texas
Silves Jones  6  female  black  at home  Virginia



"United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M87N-BSR : 17 October 2014), Lewis M Crawford in household of Joseph Crawford, Louisiana, United States; citing p. 11, family 88, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 552,027.

Lewis Napoleon Crawford - death

location: Logansport, De Soto Parish, Lousiana
date: January 31, 1941

"Louisiana Deaths Index, 1850-1875, 1894-1956," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FSYK-2VJ : 12 December 2014), Lewis Napoleon Crawford, 31 Jan 1941; citing Logansport, De Soto, Louisiana, certificate number 533, State Archives, Baton Rouge; FHL microfilm 626,286.

Lewis Norman Napolean Crawford

birth: Febraury 2, 1854
location: Texas
death: January 31, 1941
location: Logansport, De Soto Parish, Louisiana

father:
mother:

spouse: Mattie Luma Whittlesey

1870 census

1900 census

death

burial

children with unknown:

Rupert Loyd Crawford - 1880
Maggie Crawford - 1881
Claud Crawford - 1883
Norman Crawford - 1885
Hubbard Crawford - 1887
Earl Crawford - 1892
Averil Winifred Crawford - 1895

Dylan Taylor's great-great-great-grandfather

Louis H Crawford - 1900 census

location: Shelby County, Texas
date: June 15, 1900

Louis Crawford  head  white  male  Feb 1854  46  widower  Texas  farmer
Louis Crawford  son  white  male  Mar 1880  20  single  Texas
Maggie Crawford  daughter  white  female  Sept 1881  18  single  Texas
Claud Crawford  son  white  male  Sept 1883  16  single  Texas
Norman Crawford  son  white  male  June 1885  14  single  Texas
Hubbard Crawford  son  white  male  Nov 1887  12  single  Texas
Earl Crawford  son  male  white  July 1892  7  single  Texas
Arvil Crawford  daughter  female  white  Aug 1895  4  single  Texas



Year: 1900; Census Place: Justice Precinct 2, Shelby, Texas; Roll: 1669; Page: 11B; Enumeration District:0087; FHL microfilm: 1241669

Earl Crawford - WWII draft card







The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Draft Registration Cards for Fourth Registration for Louisiana, 04/27/1942 - 04/27/1942; NAI Number: 576248; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147

Earl Crawford - WWI draft card





"United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918," database with images,FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZXF-PFZ : 12 December 2014), Earl Crawford, 1917-1918; citing Houston City no 4, Texas, United States, NARA microfilm publication M1509 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,953,726.

Earl Crawford

birth: August 30, 1892
location: Shelbyville, Shelby County, Texas
death: October 31, 1972
location: Laurel, Jones County, Mississippi

father: Louis Norman Napolean Crawford
mother:

spouse: Mary Atlas Truitt

1900 census

World War I draft card

1920 census

1930 census

1940 census

World War II draft card

burial

children with Mary Atlas Truitt:

Edna Earl Crawford - 1918
Helen Odell Crawford - 1920
Fred Benjamin Crawford - 1928
Mary Crawford - 1930
Walter Stuart Crawford - 1935

Dylan Taylor's great-great-grandfather

Friday, October 28, 2016

Banana Cultures

Soluri, John Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, & Environmental Change in Honduras & the United States. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
            Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, & Environmental Change in Honduras & the United States combines the fields of Environmental History and Economics to look at the transformation of the banana from a simple Honduran plant into a staple in American kitchens, and how the banana export trade changed cultural practices and biophysical processes that have shaped global economic institutions. In particular, Banana Cultures outlines the commodity chain analysis of the banana export trade which involves processing and transportation technologies that enabled banana companies to hasten the pace of production, distribution, and sale of bananas while cutting labor costs. The commodification of bananas made possible the mass consumption of the fruit in North America.
            The commodity chain analysis allows us to study how products change along their routes from production to consumption. The banana’s commodity chain begins on farms on the North Shore of Honduras and ends on North American tables. Capital and power were concentrated specifically in places between those farms and tables. Companies like the United Fruit Company and the Cuyamel Fruit Company exploited the resources located within this commodity chain and created a fruit for international mass consumption. The construction of railroads in Honduras decreased the transportation time of bananas, allowing the expansion of the export banana trade.
            Fruit companies also experimented with quality control measures as a way to standardize production processes. This step in the banana’s commodity chain evolved around the Gros Michel variety of banana, which because of its ultimate perishability would accrue and lose market price in just a few days. When North American markets became saturated with Gros Michel bananas, quality became important. Due to the eventual near-monopolization of banana transportation methods, fruit companies were able to control those quality standardization processes to a great extent.
            Prior to becoming commonplace in the United States, bananas were pop culture icons of the tropics. Bananas were associated with a cultural inferiority of the tropics and exotic peoples. Over the nineteenth century the symbolic meaning of the banana did not change, however the banana’s economic importance changed immensely. As stated above, the rise of fresh fruit consumption went hand in hand with a rise and shipping and transportation methods. Because of the fossil fuel era, the banana went from a novelty to a commodity in a relatively short period of time.
Advertising served an important step in the commodity chain of the banana. Notwithstanding its tropical origins, the banana helped define every-day consumer culture in the United States. Fruit company executives dealt with how to market bananas and make them more popular than ever. In 1944 the United Fruit Company launched a radio campaign featuring a singing banana dubbed Miss Chiquita. After the launch of Miss Chiquita, the Gros Michel banana was replaced by the Cavendish variety. The Cavendish and Miss Chiquita turned an agricultural commodity into a product that consumers could distinguish by brand name.
American women played perhaps the most important part in the marketing of bananas. Women were responsible for the grocery shopping in most American households and they primarily bore the responsibility of making meals. As such, fruit companies aimed advertising at American women. Recipe books and The Chiquita Banana Song helped send the message that not all bananas were the same, but that the Chiquita banana was superior. The United Fruit Company also published pamphlets extolling the nutritional benefits of the banana.
            Labor relations on the North Shore of Honduras evolved as the banana generated mass appeal in North America. Easy to cultivate and harvest, the banana was initially grown by small- and medium-scale growers. Banana growers experienced a quick and steady return on labor and capital investments. The North Shore actually experienced labor shortages in the early years of the export banana trade. In the early twentieth century, fruit companies began to dominate the landscape of banana farming. With banana plantations, control of railroads and steamships, and the ability to control quality standards, corporate fruit companies created a stranglehold on banana exportation. The story of Luis Cabelleno illustrates how a small-scale banana farmer was unable to keep up with market demand and quality standards while turning a profit. Cabelleno lost steadily lost business over a six-year period, eventually giving up banana cultivation.
            By the mid-twentieth century, labor relations had evolved on the North Shore to reflect the corporatization of the export banana trade. Fruit companies created temporary employment opportunities with cyclical layoffs during production cycles. Alongside the expansion of the Cavendish, packaging plants were able to hire women and children. On the other hand, plantation farming had a negative impact on the agricultural opportunities for the Honduran working class. It became all but impossible for ordinary laborers to find suitable land for farming. Artisan and worker organizations developed after conflicts for the only profitable lands remaining for farming.
            Temporary jobs created by the fruit companies’ expanding operations attracted the underemployed and employed. Olancho, Honduras citizen, Juan Gavilán, remembered the importance of personal contacts during the boom years of the export banana trade. A motivated laborer had little trouble finding and exchanging jobs on the banana plantations of the North Coast.
             The North Shore experienced drastic changes in the history of banana agricultural practices. Under the guiding hand of United States’ capital and technology, banana farming saw the transformation of small-scale banana farming into productive agricultural spaces. United States’ fruit companies initially focused cultivation efforts on Gros Michel. A bacterial plant disease, Panama disease, as it would be called, shifted those efforts away from Gros Michel and towards the Cavendish. After the onset of Panama disease fruit companies implemented a shift in plantation agriculture driven by banana biology, interconnected agroecosystems, and mass-market structures. Disease control became a primary focus of the fruit companies. At great expense disease-control equipment was installed on company plantations and non-company farms alike. Agricultural scientists were employed to study plant diseases, control methods, and prevention.
A major component in Banana Cultures is the disease control methods on banana plantations and the effects on laborers. With plant diseases like Panama disease and Sigatoka, fruit companies developed herbicides and insecticides to continue the export banana trade. Bordeaux mixture was made up of copper sulfate and used to combat Sigatoka. Laborers would be inundated with a mist of the Bordeaux mixture, leaving their skin and clothes a blue-green color. Cantalisio Andino worked on a North Shore banana plantation and reported the underside of his bed turning blue after working a Bordeaux sprayer. Laborers also reported respiratory illnesses that they attributed to the chemicals used on banana plantations. By the 1970s nearly every phase of banana production involved chemical involvement.

The complicated dynamic between fruit companies, laborers, Cavendish banana plants, and plant diseases prompted the greater use of fertilizers and herbicides to boost banana yields. All the while, mass market appeal in North America continued to grow. 

Friday, October 21, 2016

Selman Smith - 1910 census

1910 census
location: Leagueville, Henderson County, Texas
date: April 25, 1910

Sellman D Smith  head  male  white  20  single  Texas  farmer
Anna G Smith  sister  female  white  30  single  Texas
Sallie B Smith  sister  female  white  32  single  Texas
Una B Smith  sister  female  white  17  single  Texas
Ollie V Huston  female  white  17  single  Texas



Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.


Thursday, October 13, 2016

Mary Atlas Truitt Crawford

birth: August 18, 1896
location: Texas
death: May 14, 1963
location: Monahans, Ward County, Texas

father: Alfred Joshua Truitt
mother: Bertie Truitt

spouse: Earl Crawford

1920 census

1930 census

1940 census

portrait

burial

children with Earl Crawford:

Edna Earl Crawford - 1918
Helen Odell Crawford - 1920
Fred Benjamin Crawford - 1928
Mary Crawford - 1930
Walter Stuart Crawford - 1935

Dylan Taylor's great-great-grandmother

Mary Atlas Truitt Crawford portrait


Earl Crawford - 1940 census

1940 census
location: Red River Parish, Louisiana
date: April 20, 1940

Earl Crawford  head  male  white  49  married  Louisiana
Mary T Crawford  wife  female  white  37  married  Louisiana
Earl Jr. Crawford  son  male  white  13  single  Louisiana
Fred Crawford  son  male  white  12  single  Louisiana
Mary Crawford  daughter  female  white  10  single  Louisiana
Walter Crawford  son  male  white  5  single  Louisiana




Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Andrew Jackson Adrian

birth: May 20, 1859
location: Smith County, Texas
death:
location: July 12, 1927

father: John David German Adrian
mother: Sarah Turner

spouse: Mary Chandler

1860 census

1870 census

article

burial

children with Mary Chandler:

German Crawford Adrian - 1888
Mary Gaudie Adrian - 1891
Sarah R Adrian - 1894
Millie A Adrian - 1895
William Bertis Adrian - 1899
Andrew B Adrian - 1902
John Buchanan Adrian - 1904
Clara George Adrian - 1908
Claudia Elizabeth Adrian - 1911


Friday, October 7, 2016

Arrests Made in Drug Raid on Residence


The Cherokeean, (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 140, No. 38, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 27, 1988 pg. 3

Thursday, October 6, 2016

William Walter Kidd

birth: November 7, 1835
location: Tennessee
death: January 20, 1933
location: Amarillo, Potter County, Texas

father: Thomas D Kidd
mother: Susan Rankin

spouse: Monterrey Jane Pate

1850 census

letter to W. A. Kidd - 1926

burial

children with Monterrey Jane Pate:


William Walter Kidd to W. A. Kidd letter - 1926

Former Tyler Man 93 Years Old, Coming for a Visit
A few of our older citizens perhaps can recall W. W. Kidd who in the late sixties – and on up to the latter eighties, or early nineties, was a resident of Tyler. He was a carpenter, a famous carpenter. Some of his handiwork still stands. He did the wood-work on Marvin church; he built the H. H. Rowland residence which for many years stood at the end of North Broadway, and was when built accounted the finest residence in East Texas.
W. W. Kidd moved away from Tyler between 35 and 40 years ago. A few days ago W. A. Kidd of our city noted the mention of a W. W. Kidd in a newspaper, the item indicating that the subject resided at Amarillo. Mr. Kidd here addressed an enquiry to the Amarillo Postmaster. The letter was turned over to the W. W. Kidd of that city. The following is a letter received in reply to that enquiry, and The Journal reproduces it, knowing that many of the older resident here will be glad to hear from the former Tyler citizen.
Mr. W. A. Kidd,
Tyler, Texas
My dear Nephew –
Mr. Kenyon, who is our Postmaster and neighbor, handed me your letter, and I am surely glad to hear from you. I have been wanting to write you for a long time, but didn’t know the address of any of you boys. I am still in good health. I will be 93 years old in November.
My daughter and I are thinking of taking a trip in the car thru Southern Texas this fall, as I have a son residing at Austin who is a Presbyterian evangelist; and, if we do take that trip, we will stop by Tyler and spend two or three days with you and other relatives there, as I would like so much to see all of you.
Where are Pat and George and the other brothers and their children? I would be so glad to have you write and tell me about all of them.
Our town is on a big boom on account of the oil fields.
With much love and kind wishes to you and all the relatives, I am
Your Uncle,
W. W. Kidd,
910 Pierce St., Amarillo, June 5.

The Tyler Journal (Tyler, Tex.), Vol. 2, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, June 11, 1926

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Nancy Copeland Garner

birth: June 19, 1819
location: North Carolina
death: October 6, 1894
location: Smith County, Mississippi

father: Reuben Copeland
mother: Mary Woodard

spouse: Nathan B Garner

1850 census

1860 census

1870 census

1880 census

burial

children with Nathan B Garner:

Eliza Jane Garner - 1841
Wiley J Garner - 1854
Samuel Joseph Garner - 1857

children's great-great-great-great-grandmother

Rufus Duncan Blackwell - 1930 census

1930 census
location: Smith County, Mississippi
date: April 8, 1930

Duncan R Blackwell  head  male  white  59  married  age @ 1st marriage: 22  Mississippi
Daily M Blackwell  wife  female  white  57  married  age @ 1st marriage: 22  Mississippi
Grover M Blackwell  son  male  white  24  married  age @ 1st marriage: 22  Mississippi
Mack Blackwell  son  male  white  19  single  Mississippi
Margret M Blackwell  daughter-in-law  female  white  19  married  age @ 1st marriage: 17  Mississippi



"United States Census, 1930", database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X9M8-PN8 : 8 December 2015), Dock R Blackwell, 1930.

Rufus Duncan Blackwell - 1940 census

location: Smith County, Mississippi
date: April 23, 1940

R D Blackwell  head  male  white  69  married  Mississippi
Adalia Blackwell  wife  female  white  67  married  Mississippi



"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VB3Q-DBM : accessed 4 October 2016), R D Blackwell, Beat 2, Smith, Mississippi, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 65-7, sheet 11A, family 172, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2065.

Rufus Duncan Blackwell - 1920 census

location: Smith County, Mississippi
date: January 19, 1920

Rufus D Blackwell  head  male  white  48  married  Mississippi
Hilmer Blackwell  wife  female  white  46  married  Mississippi
Hattie Blackwell  daughter  female  white  19  single  Mississippi
Grover Blackwell  son  male  white  14  single  Mississippi
Olur Blackwell  son  male  white  12  single  Mississippi
Mack Blackwell  son  male  white  10  single  Mississippi
William Taylor  son-in-law  male  white  24  married  Mississippi
Myrtle Taylor  daughter  female  white  17  single  Mississippi



"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M43H-9LH : 14 December 2015), Rufus D Blackwell, Laurel Ward 4, Jones, Mississippi, United States; citing sheet 21B, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,820,881.

Mercury, Mining, and Empire

Robins, Nicholas A. Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
Nicholas A. Robins is a professor of Latin American studies at North Carolina State University. His 2011 work, Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes provides a social and environmental history of the effects of mercury and silver mining on the people, economy, and environment in the mining towns of Huancavelica, Peru and Potosí, Bolivia. In addition to the histories of Huancavelica and Potosí and the effects of mining, the “Black Legend” and the caste-based system of labor drafting known as mita figure prominently in the thesis of Mercury, Mining, and Empire.
            Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas is given credit for publicizing what would ultimately become known as the “black legend.” The black legend is a historical portrayal of Spain as rapacious and callously exploitative of Amerindians. With the publications of Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias and Apologética historia sumaria, Las Casas supported the belief in the authentic humanity of the Indians and affirmed the view of the encroaching Spaniards as overly ambitious, imperialistic, and cruel. Bordering on treason, La Casas questioned the legitimacy of the Spanish conquest of Latin America because of the atrocities and exploitations committed against the Amerindians. Many Spanish policies aimed to culturally destroy and imperil the indigenous population. The policies were multifaceted, consistent, and enduring, and resulted in the cultural and linguistic destruction of the Amerindians. The genocidal nature of Spanish imperialism affected every part of the indigenous society throughout the Americas. In opposition to the black legend and La Casas, many of his contemporaries and some twentieth-century historians advocated the “white legend,” the ethnocentric view that the Spanish brought civilization and Catholicism to the Americas, thus bettering the Amerindians and their ways of life.
Without the plentiful and steady Amerindian population of laborers, mining and refining silver- and mercury-bearing ores would have been impossible for Spanish pursuits. As viceroy of Peru, prolific lawmaker Francisco de Toledo revolutionized the Latin American labor system by enacting a labor draft based on the Incaic system of temporary forced labor for public works, or mita. The difference in mita and absolute slavery is that the mitayo, or person serving in the mita, would only work for a temporary amount of time and would receive remuneration for their labor. Official drafts of the mita were based on a percentage of the population required eligible men to serve rotating shifts at refining and mining locations in the surrounding provinces, consequently making the mita a community obligation. The mita only applied to originarios, or those who lived in the communities in which they were born. As such, forasteros, or foreigners, were not required to serve the mita because they did not retain the right to cultivate community lands. The effects of this required labor led to enormous population shifts. Men fled their towns to become forasteros in other towns in order to avoid the mita. Women and children followed mitayos to Huancavelica and Potosí. In many cases, after their service in the mita had ended, instead of returning poor, hungry, and ill, mitayos and their families would stay in the towns as forasteros where they would be exempt from the mita, could choose their own work, have better prospects to earn better wages, and be largely free of the clergy.
The Catholic Church held an interesting position with regards to the mita labor system.
In general, the clergy supported the draft, regulated the mita, and accepted the legitimacy of the forced labor of the mitayos. Informed by an Aristotelian view of the world where there are masters and slaves, clerics believed that the Indians were born to be slaves. Indian labor was for the common public good and so considered acceptable. From the church’s standpoint, Huancavelica and Potosí were placed in Spanish hands by God through divine will to aid Spanish efforts of spreading Catholicism. After the mitayo’s term of service had ended, clergy members also exploited their labor. Mitayos would be expected to tend to the clergy’s animals and pastures, along with the expected exorbitant monetary tributes. Eventually, with depopulation of indigenous communities due to relocation or flight of eligible mitayos, the Catholic Church also experienced the troubling effect of the mita with a shortage of people available to be burdened with steep fees for Mass, funerals, and marriages.  
In addition to relocation and flight, the health effects of mercury and silver mining contributed to the desolation of the native Amerindian population. Poor working conditions in the mines of Huancavelica and Potosí made mining deadly work for mitayos. The advent of amalgamation-based process of mercury refinement brought another dimension of danger to laborers. Laborers were in direct contact with mercury. This contact created acute exposure to mercury and led to chronic poisoning. Rockslides, cave-ins, falling ore, and carbon monoxide were constant threats to laborers. Ingestion of silica and mercury vapors led to coughs and certain early death for mitayos. As a result of mercury exposure, birth defects and deformities were common in Huancavelica and Potosí.
Additionally, the natural environments surrounding Huancavelica and Potosí suffered extensive ecological damage as a result of smelting and mining operations. In the early years of silver and mercury mining efforts laborers used the native kenua tree as fuel for smelting. In both Huancavelica and Potosí the kenua forests were depleted by the seventeenth century. The ichu plant was also used as fuel and it, too, was quickly denuded from the landscape. Perhaps the most significant environmental and ecological disaster of mercury and silver mining in Huancavelica and Potosí are the ongoing effects of soil contamination. High levels of mercury can still be observed in the soils of these mining communities today. Furthermore, native animals around Cerro Rico, the mountain where mining and refining took place in Potosí, disappeared from the landscape.
Violence in Huancavelica and Potosí was also directly related to mercury exposure and intoxication. Crimes of passion, debts, and minor disagreements were all made worse by madness as a result of mercury poisoning. The phrase “Mad Hatter’s disease” originated in felt production because of the mercury that the felt was treated with. After wearing the felt hats, wearers would often exhibit the symptoms of madness related to mercury toxicity. The opening vignette in Mercury, Mining, and Empire describing the madness exhibited by an elderly cleric named Juan Antonio de los Santos is indicative of someone suffering acute mercury poisoning. Father de los Santos’ rage, threats to parishioners, excess saliva, and overall insanity combined with residence in Potosí provides compelling evidence that even residents who were not actively engaged in mining operations were affected by the toxic nature of mercury and silver mining.
The late seventeenth century saw the decline of mining and refining operations and an end to the mita in Huancavelica and Potosí. As a protector of the Indians, Victorían de Villaba brought a sincere interest in protecting the Indians in his province, unlike his predecessors. A former professor of law at the University of Huesca, Villaba launched an attack on the mita upon his arrival. Echoing the black legend, Villaba challenged the fact that the mita was for the public good pointing to the enormous toll it took on the indigenous population. He countered that instead of the crown and wider society, miners and refiners received the most benefit, all at the expense of the Indians. Villaba also disputed the Aristotelian view that the natives were lazy. With a lawyer’s argumentative brilliance, Villaba pointed out that even if the Indians were lazy, that was no reason to force them into labor. In 1809, a war for independence consumed the region and interrupted the labor supply to Potosí. Productivity in Potosí suffered, and finally by 1819 the labor system that had sustained a silver empire was abolished.
Mercury, Mining, and Empire fundamentally argues that the silver mines of Latin America were an integral component in the rise of modern global capitalism. New trade routes created to import and export silver, mercury, and any other product associated with their production in Latin America set the foundation for the industrial revolution and helped to maintain a global economy for centuries. The silver mined in Latin America created the profligate spending of the Spanish Empire. This unprecedented and massive flood of New World silver sparked high inflation in the Old World during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bough with silver refined in Potosí and mercury amalgamated in Huancavalica, African slaves could have theoretically been brought back to Huancavelica and Potosí to labor alongside Indian mitayos. Finally, mercury and silver mined from Huancavelica and Potosí elevated Spain to the status of a world power.

Although there were other mining towns in Latin America, Huancavelica and Potosí are different because of the nature and scale of the mining operations located there. The toxicity of mercury and the ever-present silica in the air were standard in the two towns. Along with the environmental and ecological toil placed on Huancavelica and Potosí and the surrounding areas, the price of Spanish imperialism was greatest on the indigenous population of Latin America. The depopulation, cultural breakdown, linguistic cessation, and the lasting effects of mercury and silver mining created a lasting disaster for Latin America.