**WORKING DRAFT - DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR'S PERMISSION** Luis Capoche's General Description of the Mining Camp and Imperial Villa of Potosí, and of the Most Pressing Things for its Governance (1585) With supplementary documents relevant to the early history of Potosí. [Luis Capoche, Relación general del asiento y Villa Imperial de Potosí y de las cosas mas importantes a su gobierno, dirigida al Excmo. Sr. don Hernando de Torres y Portugal, conde del Villar y virrey del Perú. 1585 (from the edition edited by Lewis Hanke, published as vol. 122 in the series Biblioteca de Autores Españoles. Madrid: Atlas, 1959). Original ms. in AGI Charcas 134] Supplementary Documents: 'The mines of Potosí: the miserable condition of the Indian miners,' in letter of 1 July 1550, Fr. Domingo de Santo Tomás to the Council of the Indies (in José María Vargas, Fr. Domingo de Santo Tomás, defensor y apostol de los indios del Perú: Su vida y sus escritos. Quito: Editorial Santo Domingo, 1937, pp.15-21. Orig. ms. in AGI Lima 113) 1. 'Account of the Mountain of Potosí and its Discovery.' [Relación del Cerro de Potosí y su Descubrimiento, 1572, Rodrigo de la Fuente Santangel, clérigo presbítero (in BAE 185 1965, 357-61, orig. in Biblioteca Nacional Madrid, ms. vol. J.58., 6ff.)] 2. 'A Very Particular Description of the Mountain and Mines of Potosí, and of their Quality and Workings.' [Relación muy particular del Cerro y minas de Potosí y de su Calidad y labores, por Nicolás del Benino, dirigida a don Francisco de Toledo, virrey del Peru, en 1573 (fragment of an account with preceding letter, also in BN Madrid Mss. vol. J.58, ff.26-32.] 3. 'Description of the Villa and Mines of Potosí in the year 1603.' [anonymous – in BAE 185 1965, 372-85, and start of Hispanic Society of America ms. with accompanying images] 4. 'The Eighth Wonder of the World.' Selections from Fray Diego de Ocaña's Viaje por el Nuevo Mundo de Guadalupe a Potosí, 1599-1605. [see also his sketch of the cerro] 5. 'Of the Rich and famous Mountain of Potosí and of its grandezas' and 'Of the Imperial Villa of Santiago de Potosí.' Selections from Martín de Murúa's Historia General del Perú, 1616 (Getty Manuscript). [see also the colored image from the Galvin ms.] 6. 'How the mines of Potosí were discovered.' 1553. Selections from Pedro de Cieza de León, Crónica del Peru, Primera Parte. ed. Franklin Pease G.Y. Lima: PUCE Fondo Editorial, 1984, pp. 288-93. 7. 'Of the Hill of Potosí.' c.1605. Reginaldo de Lizárraga, Descripción del Perú, Tucumán, Río de la Plata y Chile. Ed. Ignacio Ballesteros. Madrid: Historia 16, 1986, pp. 222-33. 8. 'Of the richness of silver ores in this province...' Lic. Pedro Ramírez del Aguila, from Noticias políticas de Indias y relación descriptiva de la Ciudad de La Plata metropoli de las Provincias de las Charcas y nuevo Reyno de Toledo en las occidentales del gran imperio del Pirú. 1639. trans. Jaime Urioste Arana. Sucre: División de Extensión Universitaria, 1978. [orig. ms. in Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN] 'Relacion de los agravios que reciven los indios que ay desde cerca del Cuzco hasta Potosi...' P. Antonio de Ayans, SJ, 1596. [in ed. Ruben Vargas Ugarte, Pareceres juridicos en asuntos de Indias. Lima: 1951, vol.37, pp.35-88. Vargas U. gives no source for this one, so we don't know where it is. With Lima Jesuits?] Translated, annotated, and with an introduction by Kris Lane, Dept. of History, Tulane University, USA (comments and suggestions to [email protected]) (31 Oct. 2010 - 25 May 2016 - most recent addition is Ramirez del Aguila, add next BAE items on ores and refining processes; Grandezas...) Frontispiece: Martín de Murúa's 1590 image of the Cerro Rico de Potosí with pillars held by "El Inca" (Galvin Ms. f.141v.) Introductory Study "Such is the power of money, for the sake of which men do and suffer so much." - José de Acosta, describing Potosí in his c.1590 Natural & Moral History of the Indies, Duke UP ed., p.181 According to several Spanish writers it was early in the year 1545 that a native Andean man known either as Gualpa or Guanca happened upon an outcrop of silver ore while chasing either a llama, a guanaco, or a deer up the side of a conical red peak in the southern highlands of what is today the landlocked Republic of Bolivia. The reddish mountain, possibly known as Potoc'chi, was not terribly high by Andean standards, but at just under 5,000 meters above sea level it did command an impressive view. The horizon was dominated by lumpy, barren puna, with glimpses of vast salt flats framed by distant cordilleras. According to most early accounts, there was no evidence of Inca or other pre- Hispanic mining activity on the red mountain's flanks. Not far off, about a half-day's journey southwest, were the former Inca mines of Porco, where Gualpa or Guanca was working as a yanacona or personal retainer for his Spanish overlord, whose surname was Villaroel. Porco's silver mines were rich, but most had quickly flooded due to the high water table, driving up costs and diminishing returns. It was standard Spanish practice in the Americas following classical and medieval religious examples to say animals had led innocent native youths and maidens to treasure, which the civilized and worthy Spanish themselves then benefited from and put to good use. Fortunately, we have an account that seems to be from Mr. Gualpa himself, or as close to him as we may get. In 1572, on orders of just-arrived Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, a Spanish priest interviewed the nearly seventy-year-old man as he lay dying in his home. He was by this time known as don Diego Gualpa, the 'don' signifying noble ancestry. He claimed to have been from the Cusco-area province of Chumbivilcas, a retainer for the ill-fated Inca Huascar, a keeper of sacred feathers. He was also at Cajamarca, he said, when Francisco Pizarro and his followers captured the Inca Atawallpa in November of 1532. The namesake Gualpa there attached himself to a Portuguese soldier who used him but also protected him and he ended up in Porco mining silver a few years later. (see Matienzo cap. 8 on Porco/Potosi yanaconas vs. other types) Gualpa was indeed a yanacona, and he claimed that he and others routinely passed the hill or mountain of Potosi (he does not call it Potoc'chi) on their way back and forth between Porco and La Plata, or Chuquisaca, a more temperate town and soon to be regional capital on the eastern slope of the Andes. Gonzalo Pizarro, the marquis's younger brother, had even ordered some test diggings opened low on the mountain's slopes, but they had not produced results. The occasion Diego Gualpa gave for his discovery of the great mines of the Cerro Rico was that he and a friend had been sent to the mountain's summit to search for an offering, or huaca, dedicated to the mountain's spirit. The pair did indeed find an offering, he claimed, which they removed and took down the hill to deliver to their Spanish masters. Presumably it included gold and silver objects, but the testimony offers no details. On the way downhill the two were separated, according to don Diego Gualpa, who said he was hit by a gust of wind so powerful it flattened him and nearly knocked him out. As he lifted himself up he saw that one of his hands was marked by a greasy, dark soil that he recognized right away as pay dirt. He brought several pounds of it to Porco to refine and found it quite rich, but his current master and other Spaniards were not convinced that the ore had come from the hill already called Potosi. Finally, one Spaniard accompanied Gualpa back to the hill, but again the wind kicked up, and was soon so fierce that it dashed the Spaniard to the ground and blew off his hat, angering him so much that he began to beat and curse Gualpa. The two soon returned to Porco, where word of Gualpa's discovery reached the man called Villaroel, a Spaniard who moved quickly to stake claims, aided by his yanacona named Chalco. No llamas nor deer nor upturned roots appear in Gualpa's story, but wind figures prominently. Wayra, the Quechua word for wind, would continue to be providential in Potosi for several decades. Yet even this seemingly native account of Potosi's discovery smacks of Catholic legend, of the innocent yokel who witnesses an apparition, only to struggle desperately with supposedly learned authorities to prove it. (thank Ken M. for this, via W. Christian) The first Spanish conquistadors in the Andes, including the brothers Gonzalo and Hernando Pizarro, had been led to the Porco mines soon after the fall of the Inca empire, and in 1545, when Gualpa found silver ore on Potoc'chi, the so-called Peruvian Civil War was in full swing. We learn from several testimonies that the early miners of Potosi were pillaged by both crown and rebel forces. The uprising ended in 1548 with the capture and execution of Gonzalo Pizarro. The citizens of Potosi and Porco henceforth went out of their way to proclaim their loyalty to the crown, and one of the Rich Hill's four major veins was named for the royalist captain Diego Centeno, killer of several Pizarro partisans.