Event
Silver found at Potosí
Silver mining began in earnest at Cerro Rico above Potosí in the mid-1540s: Acosta, through Markham, says April 1545; Cieza says 1546 in Markham's English and 1547 in a modern Spanish edition.
- Dates
- 1545–1547
- Place
- Potosí
Silver mining began in earnest at Cerro Rico above Potosí in the mid-1540s: Acosta, through Markham, says April 1545; Cieza says 1546 in Markham’s English and 1547 in a modern Spanish edition.
Connections 5
involved
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Potosí
According to Pedro Cieza de León
Primary record
12
Cieza's year: 1546 in Markham's English, 1547 in Pease's Spanish.
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Potosí
Scholarship & press
3
Markham's footnote, citing Acosta: an Indian named Hualpa found the vein; a Spaniard, Villaroel, began to work it in April 1545.
- Crown of Castile According to Pedro Cieza de León Primary record 1
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Potosí
According to Pedro Cieza de León
Primary record
2
In Cieza's Spanish the Indians who went into a mine gave its holder a mark of silver, or two if it was rich, each week, and half a mark to encomenderos if the holder had no mine. Markham's English (quoted nowhere in this story) reverses it: the holder gives the Indians a mark.
appears in
- Chronicle of Peru (Cieza de León) According to Pedro Cieza de León Primary record 1
Timeline 1 date
- 1545–1547 Silver found at Potosí
Proof 3 sources
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The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de León, A.D. 1532-50, contained in the first part of his Chronicle of Peru (English translation by Clements R. Markham, Hakluyt Society, 1864), Hakluyt Society, London (scan on the Internet Archive), 1864.
Primary record
those which they have found in the hill of Potosi (concerning which I now desire to write) were never worked until the year 1546
From the year 1548 to 1551 the royal fifths were valued at more than three millions of ducats, which is more than the Spaniards got from Atahualpa
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Pedro de Cieza de León, Crónica del Perú, chapter 109 (Spanish, in Franklin Pease's modernised edition, Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2005; extract published by the Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades, UNAM), Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005.
Primary record
hasta que el año de mil quinientos y cuarenta y siete años
al que tenía mina, le daban los indios que en ella entraban un marco. Y si era muy rica dos cada semana.
Y si no tenía mina, a los señores encomenderos de indios les daban medio marco cada semana.
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The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de León: Markham's introduction and footnotes (Hakluyt Society, 1864), Hakluyt Society, London (scan on the Internet Archive), 1864.
Scholarship & press
The mines of Potosi were discovered by an Indian named Hualpa, a native of Chumbivilica near Cuzco.
the latter began to work the vein in April 1545
Page history 1 change
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