Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545-1650 - Paperback

by Peter Bakewell (Author)

Assumptions and speculation about the Spanish conquerors' treatment of the indigenous miners at Potisí, Peru, have long obscured the complexity of the motives in mining there. Peter Bakewell's innovative study incorporates the Indians' viewpoint, finding that they were willing to work for the Spaniards. Many of them quickly combined their technical skills and individual initiative to become the first silver mining entrepreneurs of Potosí. Although Indian entrepreneurship declined after the 1750s, a substantial portion of the native work force retained more control over its condition of labor and life than previously recognized.

Front Jacket

In this study Bakewell reexamines Indian-Spanish relations to suggest new aspects of the social and economic history of early colonial Peru.