Minas - History Lab

Need for blacks for the mines

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

Letters from the city of Mexico addressed to King Philip IV, communicating various issues relating to the need for blacks and mulattos to work in the mines, the inconveniences suffered by Mexican trade and the consulate, the harm suffered by the farmers as a result of the removal of the repartimientos of Indians and the sale of aguardiente to the Indians.

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Black Trade in Cuba

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:11 +0000

Report at the request of the Council of the Indies on the request of the neighbours of Cuba to supply the provinces of America with blacks.

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Dossier on establishing ironworks in the Philippines

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:51 +0000

This is a dossier containing several documents about forge masters and tools for their creation in the colony of the Philippines. The file contains different documents such as: Extracts, Letters, Decrees, Minutes of royal order…

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Cadastre of the Ensenada

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:42 +0000

Between 1750 and 1754 all the towns in “las Castillas” were subjected to an interrogation consisting of the following 40 questions: Name of the town (question 1); jurisdiction (2); extension and limits (3); types of land (4, 5); trees (6, 7, 8 and 13); measures of surface and capacity used (9, 10); species, quantity and value of fruits (11, 12, 14 and 16); tithes and first fruits (15); mines, salt mines, mills and other “artefacts” (17); livestock (18, 19 and 20); census of population, with neighbours, labourers, solemnly poor (21, 35 and 36), census of clerics (38) and convents (39); houses and other buildings (22); goods belonging to the commons (23), sisas and arbitrios (24), expenses of the commons, such as salaries, festivals, paving, fountains (25), taxes (26 and 27); industrial and commercial activities, with the utility of the goods or services produced: taverns, inns, shops, bakeries, butchers, bridges, boats on rivers, markets and fairs (29), hospitals (30), money changers and merchants (31), shopkeepers, doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, notaries, muleteers etc. (32); masons, stonemasons, masons, stonemasons, blacksmiths, cobblers etc. (33, 34); ships (37); alienated goods (28) and the King’s own revenues (40); the answers to these questions are obtained following a previously regulated process. This panoramic view of the Kingdom is a small part of a larger survey, the so-called Cadastre of the Marquis de la Ensenada, set in motion by Royal Decree of Ferdinand VI on 10 October 1749, as a preliminary step to fiscal reform, replacing the complicated and unjust provincial revenues with a single tax, the so-called Contribution. The Single Tax was never implemented, but it has left an important volume of documentation in our archives, the General Answers are kept in various State Archives. The General Archive of Simancas holds the complete certified copy of the replies of the 13,000 localities of the Crown of Castile. Preservation reasons led to the initiation of the microfilming process. In the 1980s, the 545 books of General Answers kept in Simancas were microfilmed. The frequent consultation of these collections and the need to facilitate access made digitisation advisable, which was carried out by the Document Reproduction Service (SRDAE) from microfilm during 2004 and 2005. The result is 350,000 images of documents with very neat calligraphic handwriting, easy to read and with hardly any abbreviations; very few pages have legibility problems, such as faded inks or ink transfer from the back. These images are now available on this page.

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Quicksilver mines in New Spain

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:14 +0000

Quicksilver, or mercury, is a metal obtained from the mineral known as cinnabar, which was decisive in the processing of silver, and was therefore of vital importance to the miners of New Spain. The extraction of quicksilver was a monopoly of the Crown and was mainly supplied from the Peninsula, which sometimes caused shortages and difficulties, mainly due to wars and complications in maritime transport. It was in the 16th century when Bartolomé de Medina introduced the method of amalgamation with quicksilver, a method that was very successful and which revolutionised American metallurgy. This technique spread to all the mining centres in the Americas until the 19th century. The mines from which the Crown mainly supplied this metal were Almadén, in Spain, and Huancavelica, in Peru. During the 17th century in New Spain, despite some difficulties in the exploitation of the mercury mines existing in this viceroyalty, such as the lack of manpower, the scarcity of knowledge and metallurgical preparation or the lack of capital to cover the costs, some of them were exploited.

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Quicksilver mines in Almadén

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:14 +0000

Quicksilver, or mercury, is a metal obtained from the mineral called cinnabar, which was decisive for the processing of silver, and was therefore of vital importance for the production of this metal. It was in the 16th century when Bartolomé de Medina unveiled the method of amalgamation with quicksilver, a method which was very successful and which brought about a revolution in metallurgy. The Spanish Crown obtained most of its supplies of quicksilver from the mines of Almadén in Spain and Huancavelica in Peru. Almadén’s cinnabar reserves had been exploited since ancient times. In modern times, from the beginning of the 16th century, the mines were perpetually incorporated into the Crown of Castile. Until the mid-17th century, the mines were exploited by private individuals who obtained a right granted by the Crown of Castile. From 1645 onwards, the mine returned to the hands of the State, and a process of slow reforms and the appointment of superintendents began. The upper part of the selected resource depicts the furnaces used to separate the quicksilver. From one of them starts a row of aludels (terracotta pipes) used for the condensation of the mercury vapour that ends in the condensation chamber. The lower part of the print shows the tools and implements for working and processing the quicksilver, such as a balance, pieces of metal, hammer and chisel, cart, wood for holding the baskets, a bag of badana, aludeles, earthenware vessel for storing the mercury, basket and mould for shaping. The drawing is a copy by José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, published by Antoine de Jussieu. Antoine de Jussieu was sent to Spain by the Duke of Orleans to collect plant species for the gardens of Paris. Together with his brother Bernard, he visited the Almadén mines in 1717 and 1719, and presented a Memoir to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. The translation of this Memoir was made by José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, who also copied the prints that were published in it, under the title “Observations on what is practised in Almadén in Spain to extract quicksilver and on the nature of the illnesses of those who work by Mr. Jussieu, on 15 November 1778”.

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