JCB Archive of Early American Images, accession number 08378, Cerro de Potosí.
This image depicts Potosí, one of the most important mining centers in colonial Latin America. The archival description of the image indicates that it was created in 1609 during the height of the Andean mining boom. The image depicts several figures working in the mines on the large mountain looming over the city. It is likely that many of these laborers were indigenous subjects serving their required colonial mita. Historian Kris Lane defines the mita as, “an hispanicized revival of the Inka corvee, or mit’a (literally ‘turn’).[1] This mita labor required Spain’s indigenous subjects to provide much of the forced labor that extracted the valuable mineral weath from mines like Potosí.
At the foot of the mountain, we can observe a bustling colonial town. While Spain imposed strict restrictions on where different colonial castas (legal catagories of race) could live, nearly all colonial urban centers were key centers of trade and activity. In his study of Quito, another Andean commercial center, Lane discovered that several legal and economic loopholes in Spanish law permitted indigenous and mestizo women to have more agency than many of their European and North American peers in operating businesses and commercial agencies in urban centers.[2] One can assume that, like in Quito, many of Potosí’s taverns, inns, and markets were owned by women as well.
Several churches are depicted in the drawing of Potosí. This is unsurprising considering the prominent role the Catholic Church had in colonial Latin American society. It is possible that residents and laborers in Potosí relied on the Church and its priests for help and charity under difficult conditions. Manuel Abad y Queipo, a priest in Mexico who composed a detailed description of social conditions there in 1799, describe the Church as a key advocate for the poor against corrupt and abusive colonial officials. Abad y Queipo wrote that, “the parish priests and their deputies…dedicated solely to the spiritual service and temporal support of these wretched people, win [Indian and mestizo] affection, gratitude, and respect by their ministries and works.”[3] However, it is important to note that Church officials could be just as corrupt as their government peers. Charles Walker has noted that conflicts between the interests of colonial official and the Church could also be commonplace and even sometimes set the stage for popular revolt like in the Tupac Amaru Rebellion.[4] It is also likely that many of Potosí’s residents had a more ambivalent relationship to the Church. Historia Matthew Restall argues that, despite converting to Catholicism, most indigenous communities in Spain’s colonies often continued pre-Hispanic traditions or combined their beliefs into Catholic religious practices.[5]
Works Cited:
Abad y Queipo, Manuel. “A Priest Reports on Social Conditions in Mexico.” In, Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Intepretations, edited by James A. Wood and Anna Rose Alexander, 16-21. 5th ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Lane, Kris. “Assessing Indian Labor in Quito.” In Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Intepretations, edited by James A. Wood and Anna Rose Alexander, 7-12. 5th ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Restall, Matthew. “The Myth of Completion.” In, Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Intepretations, edited by James A. Wood and Anna Rose Alexander, 21-25. 5th ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Walker, Charles F. The Tupac Amaru Rebellion. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2014.
Works Cited:
[1] Lane, “Assessing Indian Labor in Quito,” 11.
[2] Lane, “Assessing Indian Labor in Quito,” 9-10.
[3] Abad y Queipo, “A Priest Reports on Social Conditions in Mexico,” 18.
[4] Walker, Tupac Amaru Rebellion, 35-38.
[5] Restall, “The Myth of Completion,” 24-25.