page_title: Economic history of Mexico
section_title: Mining
hierarchical_section_title: Economic history of Mexico / Economy of New Spain, 1521–1821 / Mining
caption_attribution_description: English: Cinnabar Locality: Almadén, Almadén District, Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, Spain (Locality at mindat.org) Size: 4.0 x 1.5 x 1.5 cm. Gemmy and lustrous, deep cherry-red cinnabar crystals are aesthetically scattered on matrix on this excellent old-timer from the famous mercury mines of Almaden, Spain. The well-placed, complex crystal cluster is 1.0 cm wide. Ex. John Ydren Collection. Deutsch: Cinnabarit Fundort: Almadén, Distrikt Almadén, Ciudad Real, Kastilien-La Mancha, Spanien (Fundort bei mindat.org) Größe: 4.0 x 1.5 x 1.5 cm.
context_page_description: Mexico's economic history has been characterized since the colonial era by resource extraction, agriculture, and a relatively underdeveloped industrial sector. Economic elites in the colonial period were predominantly Spanish born, active as transatlantic merchants and silver mine owners and diversifying their investments with the landed estates. The largest sector of the population was indigenous subsistence farmers, who lived mainly in the center and south.
  New Spain was envisioned by the Spanish crown as a supplier of wealth to Iberia, which huge silver mines accomplished. A colonial economy to supply foodstuffs and products from ranching as well as a domestic textile industry meant that the economy supplied much of its own needs. Crown economic policy rattled American-born elites’ loyalty to Spain when in 1804 it instituted a policy to make mortgage holders pay immediately the principal on their loans, threatening the economic position of cash-strapped land owners. Independence in Mexico in 1821 was economically difficult for the country, with the loss of its supply of mercury from Spain in silver mines.
context_section_description: Silver became the motor of the Spanish colonial economy both in New Spain and in Peru. It was mined under license from the crown, with a fifth of the proceeds (quinto real) rendered to the crown. Although the Spaniards sought gold, and there were some small mines in Oaxaca and Michoacan, the big transformation in New Spain's economy came in the mid-sixteenth century with discoveries of large deposits of silver. Close to Mexico City, the Nahua settlement of Taxco was found in 1534 to have silver.
  But the biggest strikes were in the north outside the zone of dense indigenous communities and Spanish settlement. Zacatecas and later Guanajuato became the most important centers of silver production, but there were many others, including in Parral (Chihuahua) and later strikes in San Luis Potosí, optimistically named after the famous Potosí silver mine of Peru. Spaniards established of cities in the mining region as well as agrarian enterprises supplying foodstuffs and material goods necessary for the mining economy. For Mexico, which did not have a vast supply of trees to use as fuel to extract silver from ore by high heat, the invention in 1554 of the patio process that used mercury to chemically extract the silver from ore was a breakthrough. Spain had a mercury mine in Almadén whose mercury was exported to Mexico. (Peru had its own local source of mercury at Huancavelica). The higher the proportion of mercury in the process meant the higher the extraction of silver.
  The crown had a monopoly on mercury and set its price. During the Bourbon reforms of the eighteenth century, the crown increased mercury production at Almadén and lowered the price to miners by half resulting in a huge increase in Mexico's silver production.  As production costs dropped, mining became less risky so that there was a new surge of mine openings and improvements.
  In the eighteenth century, mining was professionalized and elevated in social prestige with the establishment of the royal college of mining and a miners' guild (consulado), making mining more respectable. The crown promulgated a new mining code that limited liability and protected patents as technical improvements were developed. Highly successful miners purchased titles of nobility in the eighteenth century, valorizing their status in society as well as bringing revenues to the crown.
  Wealth from Spanish mining fueled the transatlantic economy, with silver becoming the main precious metal in circulation worldwide. Although the northern mining did not itself become the main center of power in New Spain, the silver extracted there was the most important export from the colony. The control that the royal mints exerted over the uniform weight and quality of silver bars and coins made Spanish silver the most accepted and trusted currency.
  Many of the laborers in the silver mines were free wage earners drawn by high wages and the opportunity to acquire wealth for themselves through the pepena system which allowed miners to take especially promising ore for themselves. There was a brief period of mining in central and southern Mexico that mobilized indigenous men's involuntary labor by the repartimiento, but Mexico's mines developed in the north outside of the zone of dense indigenous settlement. They were ethnically mixed and mobile, becoming culturally part of the Hispanic sphere even if their origins were indigenous. Mine workers were generally well paid with a daily wage of 4 reales per day plus a share of the ore produced, the partido. In some cases, the partido was worth more than the daily wage. Mine owners sought to terminate the practice. Mine workers pushed back against mine owners, particularly in a 1766 strike at the Real del Monte mine, owned by the Conde de Regla, in which they closed down the mine and murdered a royal official. In the colonial period, mine workers were the elites of free workers,
caption: Cinnabar mercury amalgam from Almaden
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