November 17 Book Blog Post

Howard J. Erlichman, Conquest, Tribute, and Trade: The Quest for Precious Metals and the Birth of Globalization

Hurbert Herring incisively puts forth why Latin America was explored, eventually conquered, and cultivated: "Hunger for precious metal was the propulsive force which cleared the way for the Spanish American empire."  [Hubert Herring, A History of Latin America: From the Beginnings to the Present.  3^rd Edition.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, p. 194.]

Without the eventual discovery and mining of the massive Latin American silver and gold deposits, the commodities which were eventually produced on the Continent (sugar, cacao, cochineal, cocaine,barbasco) would have never come into existence, as Herring explains:

Had America offered no other lure than fruitful valleys,

the few migrants would have gone no farther than the

valley of Anahuac and the green oases of the Pacific

coast.  But gold beckoned men across cruel deserts,

through savage jungles, and over forbidding mountain

passes.  (Ibid., p. 194)

“The pursuit of gold and silver,” writes Herring, “was the driving force which lengthened and broadened the lines of empire.”  Gold and silver, mankind’s primordial, preeminent monies were the catalyst for Latin America’s social, cultural and economic development:

                        Wherever mines were dug, cities grew and prospered. 

                        Farms multiplied to supply food for miners.  Textile mills

and small industries sprang up.  Trade increased.  A

middle class had its beginnings.  (Ibid., p. 195)

Because of its silver holdings, the city of Potosi (in later Bolivia), would rival Mexico City in its vitality and grandeur as Herring describes:

                         It [Potosi] was a city of baroque churches, costly palaces,

                         a fine theater, and gambling houses, and to it were drawn

                         daring speculators, hardy frontiersmen, and glamorous courtesans,

                         who vied with each other in amassing and wasting fortunes.

                          (Ibid.)

Even after the initial discovery and the establishment of Latin American colonies, precious metals remained the Americas' most important commodity not only as economic goods unto themselves, but they became an integral component of the cultural fabric which manifested itself in literature, art, and in the people's imagination. 

The silver mined in the New World and minted into pesos became the first world-wide currency whose stability and excellence lasted well into the nineteenth century as Carlos Marichal describes so well in his essay, "The Spanish-American Silver Peso: Export Commodity and Global Money of the Ancien Regime, 1550-1800," in the book he co-edited, From Silver to Cocaine.  The pesos not only fueled the Spanish Empire, but its benefits transcended beyond the elites enhancing the lives and well being of all.

The greatest impact that the precious metals had in terms of world history came about during the tumultuous sixteenth century, which is the subject of Howard J. Erlichman's massive study, Conquest, Tribute and Trade: The Quest for Precious Metals and the Birth of Globalization. Since the Spanish colonial possessions held the most gold and silver, they catapulted it into the dominant power of the age. Erlichman chronicles the action of the Spanish Crown as it used its new found wealth to keep Christendom together in Europe, augment its empire abroad, and maintain its preeminent financial status.  Despite the massive precious metal finds, by the end of the sixteenth century, financial power had shifted to the Dutch Republic.  Erlichman argues that this was due, in part, to the costly wars that Spain had engaged in which depleted its "national wealth." 

While the decisive role that the New World's mineral wealth played in global politics is the main thrust of the book, Erlichman devotes two fascinating chapters to the actual mining of the metals in New Spain.  He describes how silver production techniques, which were used in European mines, were not well suited to the "low quality ores" of Spanish America which "varied greatly in their geological properties."  (p. 243) Erlichman states: "Since native American metallurgists had rarely mined or smelted ores deeper than one hundred feet, it appeared that new types of smelting processes were needed to better exploit the two largest silver works in the New World."  (Ibid.)  The new mining technique – "silver amalgamation" – pioneered by Bartolome de Medina in Mexico "would make history" and in Erlichman's mind was "arguably the most profound technological innovation of the sixteenth century." (p. 245)

One of the most important aspects of Amy Butler Greenfield's study (A Perfect Red) was the critical role that native Americans played in cochineal's production,

". . . it was the Indian peasants, cultivating cochineal in thousands of small cactus patches, who produced most of the world's supply of the Mexican dyestuff – not only in the sixteenth century but through the entire period of Spanish rule."  (p.92)  And, it was only under their supervision that it flourished and eventually became a worldwide staple, ". . . cochineal seemed to do best when grown on family plots, perhaps because only small-scale growers had the patience and personal incentive to give it the painstaking attention it needed."  (pp. 91-92)

While not to the extent of indigenous cochineal producers that Greenfield describes, Erlichman does note that there were a number of native Americans involved in silver production:

                        . . .  the fact that at least one native Bolivian

                   had been part owner in one of the greatest

                   silver strikes of all time is of interest.  It defies

                   the notion that natives were excluded entirely

                   from the reward component of American

mining ventures. . . .   Gualpa Guanca and

hundreds of other native Americans defied

the odds by accumulating wealth, or at least

livelihoods, as owners or managers of mines,

smelters, and freighting business opportunities

were presented to anyone with the ability to

seize them.  (p. 25)

Native participation in mining whether entrepreneurial, as Erlichman shows, or as wage laborers runs counter to the Marxist theme found in many of this semester's readings (most notably Mintz) about native Americans being unaware or "alienated" from the production processes in which they took part.  Native Americans certainly realized what they were doing when they sought out business ventures in the mining industry.  Moreover, Erlichman points out that the Indians which worked in the mines received higher wages than those in other industries (albeit it was hard, backbreaking and dangerous work).  Whether they were alienated or not, native Americans understood that silver "was where it was at!"

In nearly every book assigned, when the issue of slavery was discussed, it and the Europeans who conducted it were thoroughly condemned.  The Coes were probably the most vociferous: "Until Paul III's papal bull, the Spaniards had no qualms about enslaving the native peoples of the Americas; in fact, that was an important part of Columbus's plan from the outset, . . . ."(p. 186) In another passage, they wrote: "In this heinous enterprise, . . .  all [European powers] joined happily and profitably: the profits were huge on a cargo of surviving blacks from African slave ports. . . ." (Ibid.)

What was never mentioned by the Coes, or only fleetingly, if at all, by the other authors, and certainly without the same vehemence, was that native Americans who had enslaved their fellow kinsmen for centuries prior to the Spanish arrival, continued to do so afterwards.  Erlichman shines another light on the institution: "Slavery, abolished theoretically by the New Laws of 1542, was also pervasive.  Native Indian merchants had no qualms about the slaving business and were happy to exchange fellow Indians and Africans to the highest bidder.  Some slave traders earned thousands of gold pesos in a single day." (p. 262)

Such balanced anecdotes can be found throughout Erlichman's informative tome.

The importance that Latin American precious metals played not only in native societies, but in global history was immense.  An entire commodities course on precious metals alone, incorporating an array of tangential subjects and issues of both economic and cultural aspects could be devised.  Howard Erlichman's, Conquest, Tribute, and Trade could easily fit into a course solely dedicated to a study of mankind's most cherished commodity or be a part of a more generalized look at Latin American commodities.