What are some quality sources to learn more about the Spanish silver mines in the New World?

by RandomCaucasian

If there is any discussion of potatoes in the sources it would be a big bonus.

CommodoreCoCo

A couple recommendations:

  • We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us. by June Nash is more of a modern ethnography, but gets into the history of the exploitation of labor in Andean mines. Definitely my top book on the subject.

  • The Devil's Miner is a documentary (I think on Netflix?) that also describes the horrific modern conditions. It's a good look at religious syncretism as well.

  • *Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potosi" by Jane Mangan gets more at the colonial period and, as the title suggests, is a more social history.

  • Coercion and Market: Silver Mining in Colonial Potosi by Enrique Tatender is a dryer read than Mangan and less up-to-date (pub. 1993, Mangan's is 2005), but that doesn't result in things being wrong as much as it does things just not being in there.

  • The Potosi Mita, 1573-1700: Compulsory Indian Labor in the Andes by Jeffery Cole is one I have not read but I have frequently seen cited.