Ingenios and ingenuity

Rethinking Indigenous histories of silver in the colonial Andean mining industry

Bibliographic Data

ID12413845
AuthorsAllison Margaret Bigelow (0000-0002-7898-1537, University of Virginia, corresponding author), P Cruz (0000-0002-1349-6397, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas – Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina)
Year2021
Volume30
Issue4
Pages520-544
Publication date2021-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueColonial Latin American Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1060-9164 • E-ISSN: 1466-1802
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10609164.2021.1996989
OpenAlexW4206500421
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited24

Silver amalgamation technologies revolutionized the production of precious metals in the colonial Andes and throughout Latin America, changing the region and the global economy in ways that are almost impossible to fully comprehend even today. We know a great deal about the productive capacity of Potosí's amalgamation refineries (ingenios), but little of other aspects of workers' experiences within those walled environments. Most archaeological studies of ingenios focus on their material cultural remains; most literary studies of ingenio analyze the term's resonance within the conventions of baroque aesthetics. By combining methods of archaeological and literary study, this article sheds light on understudied aspects of family life, clandestine silver production, and definitions of scientific knowledge in the colonial Andean silver industry. Doing so enables us to tell a richer, more complete, and more complex story of the silver that circulated as coins within the global reaches of the early modern Spanish empire

Archaeology · Colonialism · Economy · Empire · Ethnology · Indigenous · Ingenuity · Latin Americans · Political science · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Latin American history and culture · Law · Philosophy · Ecology

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