Bloodshot Mountain

Robert Henrey

Description

Story of how a red-tinted volcanic dome in the South American Andes became the planet's largest silver mine and a symbol of unrivalled wealth and universal envy

Sujets

• Histoire
• Mining
• History of the Americas

Informations

• Publié par: Polperro Heritage Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780995736818
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Bloodshot Mountain
The World’s Greatest Silver Bonanza
Robert Henrey



© Robert Henrey 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The right of Robert Henrey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN 978-09957368-1-8
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Published in Great Britain
in 2017 by
Polperro Heritage Press
Clifton-upon-Teme, Worcestershire WR6 6DH
United Kingdom
www.polperropress.co.uk








Church of San Lorenzo: built in 1548 it is one of Potosí’s earliest churches but its sumptuous Quechua-baroque façade was not added until the first half of the 18th century.
(Photo by kind permission of Alamy)

Preface
T he Potosí story, remarkable as it is, is little known outside the Hispanic world and that is a great pity because it is more than a compelling piece of history. It is a story that eerily echoes some of the great challenges faced by our very own contemporary world: the unintended consequences of mass industrialization, disregard for the natural environment, our uneasy ambivalence regarding the nature of money, income inequality driven by technological change, the profound social changes brought about by an ever increasing ability to trade goods across oceans, and the momentous challenges involved in fostering meaningful and lasting human development.
This lack of awareness may have something to do with the parochial nature of culture: a reluctance perhaps to acknowledge that the story has a beginning that predates all other attempts by Europeans to settle the Americas. Then there is the Red Mountain’s remoteness. Sheer distance, the inhospitality of the High Andes, and isolation bred by three centuries of inward-looking Spanish colonial rule make it a challenging story to piece together. The very name Potosí – with the accent falling on the last syllable – hardly slips naturally off the tongue of English speakers. The Potosí epic is also intimately linked to events that took place in 16th and 17th century Europe: a seemingly distant time we perhaps instinctively shy away from for it was marked by harsh and profound divisiveness made all the more intense by depressingly violent religious conflict.
It is a story that evokes both glory and utter misery. Potosí’s silver for all its beguiling magnificence – all two billion ounces reputedly extracted from the bowels of its Red Mountain – is indeed shot with blood: the blood not only of those who labored to produce it, but also that of many of those whose lives it touched. Potosí gave rise to a devil-may-care culture that thrived on excess. Those with money spent it with abandonment in the pursuit of the good things of life – luxuries that invariably came from afar and at great cost. Potosí may have been the planet’s greatest depository of potential wealth but it was also the most extravagantly expensive place on earth. Those at the margins – including the Indians without whose labor none of this would have been possible – lived in abject poverty. It created a culture imbued with a deep appreciation of the transience and fragility of human existence: death was a daily reality as was a heightened awareness of man’s capacity for evil. It fostered a religious narrative within which miracles were woven into daily life and it inspired a rich folk tale tradition peopled by mystics and saints as well as by rogues and sinners.
The Imperial City of Potosí – a grandiloquent title granted in the mid 16th century by Charles V, the then Holy Roman Emperor, in recognition of his dire need for the ready cash dispensed by the Red Mountain – features in modern guidebooks. Visitors to this impoverished but stunningly beautiful Andean region tucked away in a remote corner of modern-day Bolivia are even urged to crawl down mine shafts that have yielded silver bearing ores for the best part of four and a half centuries and continue to do so – after a fashion. The same guidebooks suggest they also go searching for the forlorn remains of mercury mills and of the aqueducts that in Potosí’s heyday were their lifeline. Those fit enough are also encouraged to hike out of the city – gently because the altitude is a killer – into the hills beyond the Red Mountain. There they might be lucky and catch sight of vicuñas grazing the sparse grasses that grow in the boggy streambeds of canyons that engineers of a bygone era walled up in the hope of holding back precious water flowing down from even greater heights.
My own visit to Potosí began with the church of San Lorenzo known for its stunning façade – the work of 18th century local Indian stone carvers schooled in the Spanish baroque tradition. It features invitingly buxom, mini-skirted Indian maidens: the successive tiers of bountifully rounded petals making up their skirts speak of a land of plenty peopled by sensuous creatures living among exuberant shrubs and lush fruit trees. Bemused and delighted I eventually slipped out of the sun and through the open door into the darkened church. It was a weekday and I was surprised to find the pews half full. The priest had come down from the altar and was addressing the congregation. I had chanced, I soon realized, on a memorial mass. A framed photograph of the deceased had been set between two lit candles before the altar.
I sat in the back and listened.
The best way to honor the dead is to make this world of ours a better place for the living. Those who put up with a polluted environment and allow corrupt politicians to lord it over them only have themselves to blame. Eight million of our ancestors died of exhaustion laboring inside this Red Mountain of ours… and for what? Potosí ranks among the poorest cities anywhere in the Americas. It’s up to us to do something about the mercury that continues to pollute our air and our streams. If you want to honor the dead – work to make the world they lived in a better one.
After it was over and the widow had slipped her dead husband’s framed picture into a plastic shopping bag, I went up to the priest. I told him what I was up to and the very next day we ate lunch in a poky, friendly little rice and beans eatery in the nearby market.
He agreed with the guidebooks about going down a mine and searching for the vestiges of mercury mills. You have to if you really want to tell our story. See these things for yourself.
I asked him about Rocha, a 17th century larger-than-life character that had been charged with money manipulation and had been put to death with a swift turn of the garrote inside the old Potosí mint. Humans have throughout recorded history had all kinds of contradictory thoughts about the nature of money so I told him I wanted to also tell Rocha’s story. Go ahead, he said, but first you’ll have to give your readers some history. This parched, windswept mountain is steeped in history. You can’t possibly understand the present if you’re not open to listening to the past.












CHAPTER ONE
Lands To The South
HISTORY from Greek ϊ στωρ means inquiry as well as witnessing and judgment. Herodotus in his Histories (5th century BC) was the first not only to systematically describe the past but also offer explanations for what had occurred.
But let the knight errant search all the corners of the world; let him enter into the most intricate labyrinths; attempt the impossible at each step he takes; resist in empty wastelands the burning rays of the sun in summer; and in winter the harsh rigors of freezing winds. ¹ Don Quixote explaining the principles of knight errantry to the skeptical knight of the Green Coat: Cervantes: DON QUIXOTE (Part II, Chapter XVII)
C olumbus’ four journeys to and from the Caribbean and the conquest of Mexico notwithstanding, it’s fair to say that in the early decades of the 16th century Europeans had only the vaguest of intimations as to what lands lay to the south of what was already being referred to as the New World. By now they suspected it wasn’t China – no Columbus had not discovered a short cut to the vast empire ruled by the great Khan and tantalizingly described in the 14th century best seller attributed to Marco Polo. They also knew it would be devilishly difficult to venture south from the Caribbean. The coastal jungle was hopelessly dense and inhabited – albeit sparsely – by men who in the eyes of 16th century Europeans were outright ‘savages’, undoubtedly hostile, and visibly lacking in the refinements displayed by Mexico’s erstwhile ruling class. They would also have been aware that the Portuguese had landed ships as early as 1500 along the southwestern shores of the Atlantic and set eyes on a seemingly vast landmass rich in attractively colored brazil wood trees. By the mid 1520s the well informed would also have learned of perhaps the most famous sea voyage ever undertaken. It had lasted three years and set off westward from Andalusia as a five-ship expedition captained by Magellan, a Portuguese master in the service of the Spanish Crown. It had met with disaster after disaster. Magellan had been killed in a skirmish with the local inhabitants of an archipelago that would eventually be called the Philippines and only one of the original five ships had made it back home: it was crewed by a mere eighteen of the more than two hundred sailors that had signed up for the expedition. It had, however, circumnavigated the globe: a