Bakewell Peter - A History of Latin America To 1825

THE BLACKWELL HISTORY OF THE WORLD

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*The Origins of Human Society
Peter Bogucki

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Burton Stein

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*A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia: Volume I
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A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia: Volume II
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A History of the Ancient Americas
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*A History of Latin America
Third edition: A History of Latin America to 1825
Peter Bakewell

Foundations of the Modern World
R.I. Moore

The Early Modern World
Sanjay Subrahmanyam

*The Birth of the Modern World
C. A. Bayly

The Crisis of the Modern World
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* Denotes title published

This Third edition first published 2010
2010 Peter Bakewell and Jacqueline Holler

Edition history: A History of Latin American; c.1450 to the Present, 2nd edition; Peter Bakewell; June 2003; Wiley-Blackwell A History of Latin America; Peter Bakewell; July 1997; Wiley-Blackwell

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bakewell, P. J. (Peter John), 1943
A history of Latin America to 1825 / by Peter Bakewell ; in collaboration with Jacqueline Holler. 3rd ed.
p. cm. (The Blackwell history of the world)
Previous ed.: A history of Latin America: c. 1450 to the present. 2004.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-8368-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Latin AmericaHistory. I. Holler, Jacqueline Zuzann, 1964 II. Bakewell, P. J. (Peter John), 1943 History of Latin America. III. Title.
F1410.B175 2010
980dc22

2009037492

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE

WE see here what was undoubtedly the most famous hill anywhere in the Spanish empire: the Cerro Rico, or Rich Hill, of Potos high up in the eastern Andes of what is now Bolivia. The source of the Cerros fame, and also of the envy that it inspired in Spains enemies, was the enormous amount of silver ore that it contained. Between 1545, when Spaniards first found ores here, and the 1650s, about half of the immense amount of silver that Spanish America produced came from Potos. Many mine openings can be seen below the peak of the Cerro. Herds of llamas carry ore down to refineries where the silver is extracted. By the late 1500s (probably the time of this picture) Potos had almost a hundred refineries. It was an industrial city. A typical refinery is in the foreground. Ore is finely crushed by a stamp-mill, and is then combined with mercury in the tanks at the bottom left. The silver in the resulting silvermercury amalgam can then be isolated by heating, which removes the mercury by evaporation. The refinery is operated by skilled native workers, probably wage laborers. Forced native workers did most of the actual mining.

For Max and Nicholas

par nobile fratrum

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