Mining, Money and Markets in the Early Modern Atlantic by Renate Pieper & Claudia de Lozanne Jefferies & Markus Denzel

Mining, Money and Markets in the Early Modern Atlantic by Renate Pieper & Claudia de Lozanne Jefferies & Markus Denzel

Author:Renate Pieper & Claudia de Lozanne Jefferies & Markus Denzel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030238940
Publisher: Springer International Publishing


Summary and Discussion: America as a Trigger for the Advancement of Europe

At the height of the (first) American silver boom in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown promoted a precious metal mining sector in Spain. The most able mining experts, often originating from America, were employed by the Spanish Crown to search for and promote Spanish precious metal mines. These efforts met with little success and Spanish mining endeavours turned out to be largely fruitless and loss-making, but the royal authorities continued to subsidise the precious metal sector and promote mining institutions for almost half a century. While historiography has given valuable insights into the technological and administrative landscape of the early modern Spanish mining sector, it has not sufficiently addressed the reasons for this paradoxical strategy.

This article demonstrates that the Spanish Crown maintained and promoted a precious metal sector in Spain as a response to the influx of American silver, having recognised its reliance on the American mining sector and the risks stemming from its dependence. In an effort to ameliorate the risk of losing this important but unreliable financial lifeline, the Crown pursued a strategy of diversification, investing in a loss-making mining sector in the Spanish mainland.

The initial trigger for the promotion of mining institutions in Iberia was the insecurity inherent in transporting silver across the Atlantic, demonstrated in 1594 when the silver fleet was unable to make its return to Seville due to bad weather. The Crown—already under financial strain due to its expensive military endeavours—did not receive any remittances from America, resulting in a budget shortfall of a quarter. Painfully aware of its weakness, the Crown immediately chose to re-establish the peninsular Spanish mining administration. The newly appointed General Administrator, together with a team of officials, aimed to discover precious metal mines and prompt people to work them. At the same time, technological deficiencies and problems in American mines created and exacerbated existing risks. One example was the case of a special ore composition in Peru called negrillos. The local miners were unable to refine those ores and rumours began to spread that the most valuable mine in the Spanish Empire was about to be depleted. In response, the royal mining experts in Spain searched for a technological solution and the effort to promote Spanish mainland mines continued in the hopes of swiftly offsetting the shortfall. Besides the technological and logistical risks of American silver, the supply of mercury was also understood to be problematic. After the discovery of the amalgamation process, the distribution of mercury to silver mines in America gained great importance. However, when problems hampered production in the primary American mercury mine at Huancavelica, the Spanish Crown once again made use of their mining institutions in Spain to improve the mercury output in the Spanish mine of Almadén as well as contemplating the import of mercury from Central Europe and even China.

The promotion of Spanish precious metals lasted until the 1640s when Spain was hampered by political chaos and the depression that had settled into silver production in America.



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