Para beneficiar la plata: labor, role, and status in a silver refinery during the First century of spanish imperialism in the town of Porco

Abstract

Before the Spanish conquest, the town of Porco, in the Department of Potosí in modern-day Bolivia, was the site of one of the most important Inca mining projects. During the viceregal period it became the focus of the first Spanish silver mining operations of the in the Andes. This region offers an excellent opportunity for historical archeology to ask questions about the relationship between the states that organized such mining projects and the workers who exploited the ore. Such an undertaking grants us a better understanding of the dynamics that had a profound impact on the origins of the modern Andean economy. This article presents ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence in order to discuss the organization of colonial labor categories, and the development of the changing social roles and status of skilled workers associated with the south-central Andean mining industry. In doing so, I trace the regional transitions in labor from the Inca to Spanish empires. Excavations at the colonial site of Ferro Ingenio, a silver refinery in the San Juan Valley, southwest of the village of Porco, shed new light on labor in the first century of Spanish colonialism and how skilled indigenous workers negotiated their positions within colonial society.