The Silver Mountain: Potosí and Spain's Global Currency

In 1545, a native Andean shepherd named Diego Huallpa stumbled upon a vein of pure silver on a barren mountain in the highlands of present-day Bolivia. That mountain, Cerro Rico — 'Rich Mountain' — would over the next three centuries pour forth an estimated 40,000 tons of silver, enough to build a bridge from Potosí to Madrid. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how a single mine transformed global economics: fueling the Spanish Empire's wars, financing the Manila Galleons that connected Asia to the Americas, and flooding the world with the first truly global currency. They unpack the brutal mit'a labor system that extracted the silver — and the lives — of millions of indigenous workers, the role of mercury from Huancavelica in the refining process, and the irony that much of this silver ended up in Ming Dynasty China via Acapulco and Manila. Drawing on recent scholarship, they also examine the environmental and demographic catastrophe that Potosí unleashed, and the lingering question: who really benefitted from this mountain of wealth? #Potosí #CerroRico #SilverMountain #SpanishEmpire #GlobalCurrency #Mita #Huancavelica #ManilaGalleons #AndeanHistory #ColonialMining #MingDynasty #GlobalTrade #History #FexingoHistory #Bolivia #DiegoHuallpa #SilverTrade #EarlyModern Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo