Ccantumarcani

Ccantumarcani lies beneath the great mountain of Potosí, a cold highland place transformed by the discovery of silver. The conical Cerro Rico rises above the settlement, its mineral veins making Potosí one of the richest and most populous cities of Spanish America. A vast mining landscape of shafts, mills, reservoirs and roads grew around the mountain.

After silver began to be exploited by the Spanish in 1545, the town expanded rapidly. Viceroy Francisco de Toledo reorganised mining labour in the 1570s, requiring Indigenous communities across a wide region to send workers under the mita. Mercury amalgamation and water-powered mills made it possible to process large quantities of ore, and production reached its height after 1580. The mills and reservoirs formed an elaborate system around the mountain, bringing water to the machinery that crushed and treated the ore. This wealth rested on dangerous and exhausting work, as well as the displacement of people brought to the mines.

Silver from Potosí circulated throughout the Spanish empire and beyond, while the city drew merchants, artisans and labourers from distant places. Its mint turned metal into coin, and its churches and convents expressed the wealth concentrated at the foot of the mountain. Behind the splendour stood the demands of the mines, which shaped the lives of communities across the southern Andes for generations.