Spanish American Silver Circuits
Potosi to Seville: early modern global drain
Spanish imperial silver from Potosi and the Mexican mines underwrote European credit, Asian trade balances, and Iberian state power. Indigenous and African forced labor supplied the metal that recapitalized early modern Europe.
Damage
Potosi-centered silver circuits financed empire while destroying Andean labor under mita drafts.
Lives lost
Hundreds of thousands to millions affected by mine labor, disease, and forced drafts (order-of-magnitude)
Value lost
Hemispheric silver plunder underwriting Spanish and European war finance
Record Points
- Between 1500 and 1800 the Americas shipped an estimated 150,000 tonnes of silver into global circulation.
- The mita labor draft rotated Andean communities into lethal shifts in the Potosi mines and the Huancavelica mercury pits.
- Silver landing at Seville and Cadiz flowed onward to Genoese, Dutch, and later London bankers who financed European states.
- Manila galleon circuits carried American silver to China, tying Andean extraction to Asian commodity markets.
- Later Spanish decline obscured how foundational this drain was to the monetary base of European capitalism.
Perpetrator(s)
Victims
Indigenous AmericasBoliviaMexicoPeru