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 PotosÃ, Bolivia. In addition to the histories
of Huancavelica and Potosà 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 BrevÃsima 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 PotosÃ.
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 PotosÃ
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 Potosà 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
PotosÃ.
Additionally,
the natural environments surrounding Huancavelica and Potosà 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 Potosà 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 PotosÃ
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
PotosÃ, disappeared from the landscape.
Violence
in Huancavelica and Potosà 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 Potosà 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 PotosÃ. As a protector of the Indians,
VictorÃan 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 PotosÃ. Productivity in PotosÃ
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 Potosà and mercury amalgamated in Huancavalica, African slaves could
have theoretically been brought back to Huancavelica and Potosà to labor
alongside Indian mitayos. Finally, mercury and silver mined from Huancavelica
and Potosà elevated Spain to the status of a world power.
Although
there were other mining towns in Latin America, Huancavelica and Potosà 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 Potosà 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.
