Apparently discovered in 1545, the Cerro Rico is an eroded volcanic plug jutting up 4,782 m or nearly 16,000 feet above sea level, with half a dozen major and over a hundred minor vein systems, all phenomenally rich in silver. The first iconic image of the Cerro de Potosí appeared in the chronicle of Pedro de Cieza de León published in 1549. The improbable city at the foot of the mountain of silver amazed him, yet it was the Cerro Rico that really stood out for Cieza. He sketched the mountain and the town and delivered the sketch along with his manuscript to a publisher in Seville. The 1553 woodblock engraving soon circled the world, to be copied and altered to match the desires and fantasies of princes, investors and would-be discoverers.
Cerro rico de Potosi by Pedro de Cieza de León
Pedro de Cieza de León, Cerro de Potosí (Seville, 1553; courtesy of John Carter Brown Library at Brown University).
Kris Lane
Further reading
- Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela, B. (1965) Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí, 3 vols., edited by L. Hanke and G. Mendoza (Providence, RI: Brown University Press).
- Bakewell, P.J. (1985) Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545–1650 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press).
- Bakewell, P.J. (1987) Silver and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Potosí: The Life and Times of Antonio López de Quiroga (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press).
- Barragán Romano, R. (2019) Potosí global: viajando con sus primeras imágenes (1550–1650) (La Paz: Plural Editores).
- Bueuchler, R.M. (1981) The Mining Society of Potosí, 1776–1810 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).
- Capoche, L. (1959) Relación general de la Villa Imperial de Potosí [1585]. BAE 122. Edited Hanke (Madrid: Atlas).
- Cole, J. (1985) The Potosí Mita, 1573–1700: Compulsory Indian Labor in the Andes (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
- González Casasnovas, I. (2000) Las dudas de la corona: la política de repartimientos para la minería de Potosí (1680–1732) (Madrid: CSIC).
- Lane, K. (2019) Potosí: The Silver City That Changed the World (Oakland, CA: University of California Press).
- Mangan, J. (2005) Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potosí (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
- Tandeter, E. (1993) Coercion and Market: Silver Mining in Colonial Potosí, 1692–1826 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press).
