On the basis of an examination of the colonial mercury and silver production processes and related labor systems, Mercury, Mining, and Empire explores the effects of mercury pollution in colonial ...Huancavelica, Peru, and Potosí, in present-day Bolivia. The book presents a multifaceted and interwoven tale of what colonial exploitation of indigenous peoples and resources left in its wake. It is a socio-ecological history that explores the toxic interrelationships between mercury and silver production, urban environments, and the people who lived and worked in them. Nicholas A. Robins tells the story of how native peoples in the region were conscripted into the noxious ranks of foot soldiers of proto-globalism, and how their fate, and that of their communities, was-and still is-chained to it.
This is a history of precious-metals extractivism as lived in Cerro de San Pedro, a small gold- and silver-mining district in Mexico. Chronicling Cerro de San Pedro's operations from the time of the ...Spanish conquest to the present, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert transcends standard narratives of boom and bust to envision a multicentury series of mining cycles, first operated under Spanish rule, then by North American industry, and today in the post-NAFTA world of transnational capitalism. The depletion of a mine did not mark the end of its life, it turns out.
Evolving technology accelerated the flow of matter and energy moving through the extractive systems of exhausted mines and revived profitability over and over again in Mexico's mining districts. Studnicki-Gizbert demonstrates how this serial reanimation of a non-renewable resource was catalyzed by capital and supported by state policy and ideology and how each new cycle imposed ever more harmful consequences on both laborers and natural ecologies. At the same time, however, miners and their communities pursued a contending vision—a moral ecology—that defended the healthy reproduction of life and land. This book's breathtakingly long view brings important perspective to environmental justice conflicts around extraction in Latin America today.
For twenty-five years, Kendall Brown studied Potosí, Spanish America's greatest silver producer and perhaps the world's most famous mining district. He read about the flood of silver that flowed from ...its Cerro Rico and learned of the toil of its miners. Potosí symbolized fabulous wealth and unbelievable suffering. New World bullion stimulated the formation of the first world economy but at the same time it had profound consequences for labor, as mine operators and refiners resorted to extreme forms of coercion to secure workers. In many cases the environment also suffered devastating harm. All of this occurred in the name of wealth for individual entrepreneurs, companies, and the ruling states. Yet the question remains of how much economic development mining managed to produce in Latin America and what were its social and ecological consequences. Brown's focus on the legendary mines at Potosí and comparison of its operations to those of other mines in Latin America is a well-written and accessible study that is the first to span the colonial era to the present.
Encapsulating two decades of research, 'Polity and Ecology in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca' is the first major treatment of the lower Río Verde region of Oaxaca, investigating its social, ...political, and ecological history. Tracing Formative period developments from the earliest known evidence of human presence to the collapse of lower Río Viejo (the regions first centralized polity), the volume synthesizes the archaeological and paleoecological evidence from the valley. This period saw the earliest agricultural settlements in the region as well as the origins of sedentism and early village life, witnessed major changes in the lower Río Verdes floodplain and in environments along the coast that expanded the productivity of subsistence resources, and experience the emergence of social complexity. The book addresses theoretically significant questions of broad relevance such as the origins and spread of agriculture, the social negotiation of complex political formations, the effects of long-distance trade and interaction, the macroregional effects of landscape change, and prehispanic ideology and political power. Focusing on questions of interregional interaction, environmental change, and political centralization, 'Polity and Ecology in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca' provides a comprehensive understanding of the Formative period archaeology of this important and long neglected region of Oaxaca.
En 1716 se nombra como virrey del Perú al arzobispo Diego Morcillo, al cual la ciudad de Potosí rendirá un homenaje de tres días al pasar por ella, durante el viaje que emprende de Charcas a Lima ...para tomar posesión de su cargo.
Repasando las principales fuentes de la entrada del virrey en dicha ciudad -el gran cuadro del pintor boliviano Melchor Pérez de Holguín que custodia el Museo de América de Madrid; la relación escrita por Juan de la Torre, el artífice de las loas y decorados del recibimiento; y la crónica de Bartolomé Arzans de Ursúa y Vela en su Historia de la Villa Imperial- sorprende la inserción de datos contradictorios y alusiones veladas a la suerte del virrey -que solo lo fue durante apenas 50 días-, al juego de pasiones enfrentadas durante las fiestas de recepción -codicia vs. soberbia, vicios públicos vs. vicios privados- pero, sobre todo, al “gravísimo daño” a la cohesión comunitaria de la ciudad y sus habitantes que el nombramiento del ambicioso obispo desencadena.
La emblemática y las metáforas desplegadas parece contar “otra historia” que no concuerda con la exaltación de la corona imperial a la que las ceremonias de recepción de virreyes se destinaban. Al contrario, Faetón, Ícaro, el coloso de Rodas, la muerte misma que todo lo iguala, figurados en los tapices que cuelgan a modo de emblemas disuasorios, pretenden recordarle al virrey que la soberbia es un arte vacío si no lucha en la prosperidad común.
El artículo analiza la defensa que los grupos de poder asentados en dos ciudades marcadas por la actividad minera hicieron de su preeminencia entre 1786 y 1821. Nos centramos en las competencias de ...las instituciones locales, el prestigio que habían adquirido a lo largo del tiempo y los intentos del reformismo borbónico y del liberalismo por tratar de disminuirlos. A partir de lo anterior, se identifican las prácticas que pretendieron mantener en medio de los cambios que se presentaron en el periodo analizado, así como aquellas de las que abrevaron para defender esa preeminencia. Partimos del hecho de que el cabildo fue la institución más importante desde la que esos grupos actuaron, pero también buscaron controlar las instituciones creadas por el reformismo borbónico, por las eventualidades de 1808 y el constitucionalismo gaditano.
The southern part of the Mesa Central (MC) province, Mexico, is formed of several Cenozoic volcanic complexes. The Sierra de San Miguelito Complex (SSMC) is in the south-eastern part of the MC. The ...SSMC consists of: (1) mafic volcanic rocks of porphyritic texture and trachybasalt/basalt compositions; (2) intermediate volcanic rocks of porphyritic texture and basaltic-trachyandesite, basaltic andesite and andesite compositions; and (3) silicic volcanic rocks of porphyritic texture and rhyolite composition. New 40Ar/39Ar dating results, in combination with major- and trace-element data, and Sr-Nd-Pb isotope data, are used to investigate the petrogenesis and geodynamic evolution of SSMC. The 40Ar/39Ar radiometric age data constrains the magmatic events in the SSMC to between 34 and 21 Ma. Chondrite-normalized rare-earth element patterns are distinct for each volcanic succession; mafic and intermediate lavas have relatively flat light rare earth element (LREE) and large ion lithophile element (LILE) patterns, whereas the silicic volcanic rocks show enrichment in LREE and high field strength elements (HFSE). Within each volcanic phase, the total rare-earth element concentrations increase from mafic to silicic, and the size of the negative Eu anomalies progressively increase (Eu/Eu* from 0.02 to 1.04). The initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios are widely distributed (from 0.70344 to 0.71973) whereas the initial 143Nd/144Nd ratios are somewhat low and show a narrower range (0.51245 to 0.51287), indicating the mafic magmas derived from a slightly heterogeneous source. Geochemical modelling of the mafic volcanic rocks reveals two sources of magma: (1) a parental magmas generated from melting underlying lithospheric mantle; and (2) a second lithospheric melt contaminated by lower crust. Intermediate magmas evolved from assimilation and fractional crystallization (AFC) processes of both lithospheric melts, at shallower levels. The silicic volcanic rocks in the area, however, were probably derived from partial melting of sedimentary rocks within the upper–middle continental crust. New multidimensional tectonic discrimination diagrams, combined with the magmatic model, indicates that volcanic activities in the region were generated in an extensional environment.
•The SSMC is represented by minor mafic and mainly intermediate and silicic rocks.•40Ar/39Ar data show magmatic events occurred between 34 and 21 Ma in an extensional regime.•Partial melting of the lithospheric mantle generated the mafic volcanic rocks.•Intermediate rocks evolved through AFC processes of the lithospheric melts.
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