Subterranean Worlds: Under the Earth in the Early Americas (JCB Digital Catalogue)

The establishment of large-scale mining in the Americas was a product of Iberian colonization. Mining and metallurgy, however, formed an important part of many pre-Columbian cultures, and indigenous mining knowledge and technologies continued into the colonial era. Over the centuries, distinctive colonial mining cultures took shape that drew on European, indigenous, and also African practices.

Visual representations of mine interiors in colonial Latin America are relatively scarce in early modern imprints. A significant number of images, however, especially of Potosí's famous silver mountain, circulated widely in seventeenth and eighteenth century European publications.

Maps and plans depicting the exterior and interior spaces of mines were rare in Latin America until the eighteenth century, and overwhelmingly these maps exist in manuscript form only. Nevertheless, many published maps of the Americas, the vast majority of which were published in northern Europe, clearly reveal their makers' preoccupation with the metallic wealth that lay or was imagined to lie beneath the earth's surface.

Colonial texts abound with discussions of mining labor. Although many discussions revolved around the question of how to secure and discipline laborers, some members of colonial society questioned the morality of compelling people to work below ground. In the highland mining regions of Peru and Mexico, the workforce was principally composed of indigenous draft laborers and wage laborers. In low-lying tropical regions where gold was mined, for example in Brazil, African slaves usually constituted the main source of labor.

Throughout the colonial period the Spanish crown encouraged its subjects in America to prospect for minerals and to work mines. Mining codes varied from one region to another but all were intended to ensure a steady labor supply, maximize the flow of bullion into royal coffers, and minimize the circulation of untaxed precious metals. In the eighteenth century Spain's American empire witnessed widespread efforts to reform the mining industry. Although the supply and management of labor continued to be central to mining legislation, late colonial mining codes and commentaries also reveal a growing preoccupation with technological modernization.

In colonial Spanish America, the authors of mining and metallurgical treatises drew on many centuries of Mediterranean and northern European knowledge, and simultaneously contributed to the emergence of distinctive colonial forms of knowledge and technical expertise. Just as European mining texts crossed the Atlantic and circulated in colonial Latin America, knowledge that took shape in the New World traveled in the opposite direction to be disseminated in Europe.

Colonial reflections on America's mineral wealth took shape within wider currents of thought about the natural history and geology of the continent. Detailed descriptions of minerals and discussions of their formation and distribution appear in natural histories from the late sixteenth century onward. Enlightenment era Europeans who condemned American nature as inferior and Creole patriots who defended that nature both pointed to the characteristics of America's subterranean realms in making their arguments.

Growing numbers of travelers from Europe and the United States arrived in Latin America in the early decades of the nineteenth century as the region underwent transition from colonial rule to independence. For many visitors, the prospect of investing in mining ventures in the newly independent nations was a powerful draw. Ironically, while many eighteenth century European commentators identified the centrality of mining in Latin America's colonial economies as a sign of backwardness, early nineteenth century travel accounts abound with animated descriptions of mineral wealth.

This exhibition was curated by Heidi Scott, with assistance from Kenneth C. Ward.

During the migration of our legacy catalogs and past exhibitions into Americana, there are occasionally items that cannot be immediately included in our new environment. This may happen for two reasons: the item in question is not yet cataloged, or it was lent by another institution.
Any items that are not integrated into Americana are included in this section and added to our processing queue.

Spain, Código carolino de ordenanzas reales de las minas de Potosí ([1794]).
This voluminous manuscript mining code, intended for use at Potosí, never received royal approval. The draft ordinances, however, reflect the colonial administration's desire to implement closer regulation of labor conditions with a view to ensuring labor supply and productivity. Ordinance number 5 stipulates that mine owners must provide secure and comfortable housing for the indigenous draft laborers