to trade gold for beads and other trinkets, but the amount of gold that the natives had was not enough for Cortez. Fortunately for the Spanish, the natives knew where there was abundant gold – it was in the hands of the Aztecs, who were the most powerful civilisation in Central America at the time and who had a history of great cruelty in pursuing their geo-political aims. Unfortunately for the Aztecs the Conquistadors were even crueller and more ruthless than they were.
Initially the Spanish got on well with the Aztecs – the Aztecs showed great respect to their guests, being particularly impressed by their exotic white skin and formidable weapons and armour. The Aztecs were also happy to feed their gold lust, as they saw no value in the metal itself except as a raw material with which to make artefacts, and many of these artefacts were willingly given as presents to the Spanish. In the end gold lust drove Cortez to sack the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and, through a combination of the sword and European diseases introduced by the Spanish, he destroyed the Aztec civilisation.
Hernando Cortez (1485-1547)
Cortez was one of the earliest and most infamous of Spain’s conquistadors who ravaged Central America in the early 16th century. His interest in Latin America was twofold – political and economic – reflecting his background as well-born but financially straitened. Like many Spaniards of that era Cortez was interested in gold and silver but unlike many of his contemporaries he eventually financed a number of precious metal mines in Cuba and Mexico.
Cortez was born in Medellin in Badajoz in northern Spain, his father Martin was an army officer and his mother Maria was a cousin of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru. Cortez was educated at the University of Salamanca where it is believed he studied law. He did not complete his studies but at the age of 19 he sailed to Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic today) where he practiced as a notary. In 1509 he took part in the invasion of Cuba, where he materially enhanced his standing as a forceful leader; this led to administrative power within the new Cuban government and the allotment of land and other assets. It was at this stage that Cortez became involved in mining for the first time when he established an alluvial gold operation at Cuvanacan on the Duaban river in the east of the island, using a workforce of indigenous slaves that he had been allocated. The mining investment and his livestock operation generated great wealth for Cortez and he established a large estate and house near the mine workings.
By now he was a substantial figure in Spain’s Caribbean colonies and his former supporter the governor, Diego Velazquez, became jealous of his success. This was despite the fact that he had married Velazquez’s sister-in-law, Catalina Zuarez. Cortez was unfortunately a serial womaniser and was rumoured to have had a large number of children with both native and Spanish women. Catalina died childless in 1522 and in 1529 he married Juana Ramirez, with whom he had several children. Cortez, anxious for new challenges and perhaps realising that he had outgrown Cuba, raised an expedition to invade Mexico in 1519 where the Aztec empire was at its zenith, and sailed without final clearance from Velazquez. There he established a relationship with the Aztec king, Montezuma II, which Cortez turned to his considerable advantage as he acquired huge wealth in the form of gold and silver for the Spanish Crown.
Whilst Cortez much admired the advanced state of the Aztec civilisation he was ruthless in his treatment of both Montezuma and the Aztec people, essentially ripping the heart out of the civilisation through a combination of imported diseases like smallpox and the slaughter of countless natives. He eventually toppled Montezuma, destroying the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, and establishing Mexico City in its place.
It was after this that Cortez turned once more to mining, discovering silver in the Taxco district and gold in the Oaxaco and Michoacan districts. As in Cuba, these mining activities earned Cortez further huge wealth but this was a wealth and influence that worried the authorities. For this reason, as negative comment rose about his burgeoning power, Cortez returned to Spain to plead his case with the king, Charles V, and the king gave him support. But when he returned to Mexico his powers, which had included the position of governor, were greatly reduced – though he was retained as captain general – and he turned instead to exploring Mexico.
In 1541 Cortez returned to Spain to try and resurrect his reputation but he was the subject of legal actions and was shunned by the king. His financial situation was weakened by his fight to save his reputation and after several frustrating years in Spain he eventually decided to return to Mexico. His health was now failing and he died of pleurisy before he could sail. Cortez remains a controversial character, clever and brave but also cruel and ruthless, a loving father but a deeply flawed human being. His economic success was overshadowed by his political activities, particularly as a conquistador, but his role as a developer of gold and silver mines in Mexico and Cuba makes him perhaps Spain’s first known mining baron.
Gold and silver; the downfall of Spain
Mexico, however, was to yield the Spanish far more than just the gold artefacts of the Aztecs; in 1524 silver was discovered near Acapulco. Over the next three centuries before independence movements swept the Spanish from Latin America, Spain’s colonies are thought to have delivered as much as $8 billion worth of silver to the Crown. Production in Mexico alone had reached 9 million ozs a year by the 18th century. During this period of Spanish hegemony the gold price was worth around 15 times that of silver and silver in volume was shipped to Spain in a ratio to gold of about 10 to 1. That means that in monetary terms silver was not far behind gold in value to the Spanish treasury.
Over 150 years from the mid-1400s to the early 1600s inflation in Western Europe saw consumer prices rise by 600%. The arrival of large quantities of gold and silver from Latin America, particularly Mexico and Peru, was thought to have been a major influence in this inflationary period. Certainly the Spanish economy became increasingly enfeebled due to inflation and the problems of its overseas possessions, and its European Empire was dismantled in 1714 following the Treaty of Utrecht.
Following Cortez, the Conquistadors had not finished with Latin America’s great civilisations and within a few years Pizzaro led a small force of well-armed Spaniards into Peru where he confronted the Incas and their king, Atahualpa, in 1532. As with Mexico so with Peru – the Incas had extensively mined gold over the centuries and fashioned a large collection of artefacts. Atahualpa was prepared to gather these together as tribute for the invading Spaniards, but though a substantial quantity of gold artefacts were delivered to Pizarro he was not satisfied. He believed he had been duped and he had the Inca king executed. As with the Aztecs and other indigenous Latin American civilisations, the coming of the Spanish spelled the virtual extinction of the Incas.
It is fashionable today to decry the British for the establishment of their empire but the Spanish, with their gold lust and religious fervour, were equally as guilty – they destroyed many of those they had subjugated. When their American colonies wrested independence from Spain the new nations were culturally and demographically largely Spanish; Britain’s colonies when granted independence in most cases returned to their original indigenous state. The great cultural treasures like the Taj Mahal in India survived intact, while the Inca cities were reduced to ruins and their fabulous gold artefacts melted down and sent back to Europe where the ensuing inflation reduced Spain to almost third-world status.
But how had the gold, which the Conquistadors looted, been mined?
Mining methods
The main mining method employed by the Spanish was alluvial panning and dredging of the rivers and streams of western South America, which yielded large quantities of free gold. There is little evidence of any widespread underground mining until later; as we will see further on with African copper mining, the native miner was clearly reluctant to dig deep in pursuit of the metals he sought. When silver was discovered in Mexico, however, the veins did often plunge and required the sinking of shafts
