Colonial Latin America (Temporal Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas K Smit.

This paper will present preliminary results from excavations at Santa Barbara, the central labor encampment for the mercury mines of Huancavelica. Located in the Central Peruvian Andes, Huancavelica was the largest source of mercury in the Western Hemisphere and a critical source of wealth for Spain’s colonial empire. The Spanish administration mobilized labor through the infamous mita, a rotational labor tax that required colonial provinces to send one-seventh of their population to work in the...