“Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute”: Involuntary Mine Labor and Indigenous Society in Central New Spain

Abstract

A L T H O U G H Spanish invaders of Mesoamerica were seeking gold, it was silver that made New Spain a populous central area of colonialism. Large-scale silver extraction began after 1550, and, by end of sixteenth century, bullion (some of it gold but most silver) represented 8o percent of early Mexico's total exports. The industry would have its ups and downs, but by independence colony had produced 300 million marks of silver, equivalent to about two and a half billion ounces.' While best known and most thoroughly studied source of this precious metal is Mexican North, New Spain also had significant silver mining centers at its heart. Important among them was Taxco, usually ranked fourth or fifth in overall output; in 1590 its refiners used more mercury than their counterparts anywhere else, including Zacatecas. It was in Taxco that celebrated don Jose de la Borda, known in eighteenth century as the first miner of world, made his fortune at Chontalpa, a silver mine that produced over two million pesos during its most productive years in eighteenth century.2 Unlike northern Mexican mines, Taxco was located in a thickly