Bolivia - Vale un Potosi or a $

That is the famous Cerro Rico de Potosi. For those who don't know it is famous, I’ll explain.

In the mid-16^th century, while the Spaniards were going about conquering South America, they heard some Inca rumors about a mountain made of silver.  However, the Inca gods had decreed that this silver not be mined. Being very interested in silver and not the views of Inca gods, the Spaniards ventured into this area in what is now Bolivia looking for silver. (Also, the Inca put greater value in gold; it was the Spaniards who attributed great value to silver). Legend has it that a shepherd tending his sheep one night lit a fire and could see the glow of silver from the rocks of the mountain. In any event, the mountain turned out to be the world’s largest silver deposit and became the major source of silver during the period of the Spanish Empire. The city gave rise to a Spanish expression, still in use today: “vale un Potosí,” ("to be worth a Potosí"), meaning "to be of great value".  Similarly, Cervantes in Don Quixote referred to Potosi as fabulously wealthy. 

This is silver ore from Potosi. At peak production during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the ore contained up to 40% silver. The town of Potosi at the base of the mountain was founded in 1545 and quickly became the second largest city in the Americas.  Also, the elevation of the city is 13,343 feet (yes, people live and work here at over 13,000 feet). 

By 1891, low silver prices prompted the change to mining tin (see Cochabamba post), which continued until 1985. There are no longer any major mining operations on the hill, although the deposit has not been completely exhausted. Local individual miners form small associations to obtain mining rights and continue to mine in small, collective operations with old equipment and in questionable safety conditions. As an ancillary, profit-making sideline, they also conduct mine tours where visitors, for a fee, can venture into unsafe conditions and watch local miners working in terrible conditions. Actually, the mine and mining techniques are not all that different from the old Burgin mine near Eureka, Utah, where I worked during college (hard rock mining really hasn't changed all that much), although we at least had electric motors (mine train engines) to move the ore cars and did care about safety and proper ventilation.  While in Potosi, we did not have time to do the mine tour anyway.

A  sculpture and model in our hotel lobby of a miner pushing an ore car in the Potosi mine. The miner is made from pieces of mining equipment.

Early on the Spaniards decided to construct a mint in Potosi, La Casa de la Moneda (the house of the money), and the first mint was constructed in 1592. This was the first mint in the Americas.  Potosi quickly became the most important source of the Spanish dollar, known as piece of eight or “peso de ocho” or “real de a ocho” because it was worth eight Spanish reales. The original mint was later replaced by another mint, built between 1753 and 1773. A mint was also later built in Mexico in San Luis de Potosi (named after Potosi in Bolivia). 

Because of the care and consistency in which the dollars were minted, with uniformity in size and silver content, the Spanish dollar was widely used by many countries as the first truly international currency. These coins from Potosi were extensively used in the United States during the colonial period. In fact the Spanish dollar was the coin upon which the United States silver dollar was based.

To identify the source, coins minted in Potosi were marked with the letters PTSI, but the letters were placed upon each other. There are many theories for the source of the dollar sign $, but one of the more credible is that it is derived from this mark.

The Casa de la Moneda is a vast, elegant, and strikingly beautiful building that takes up a whole city block. In addition to items of the mint of historical interest, important paintings and sculptures are displayed. We took the tour (in Spanish), which was very interesting. 

Upon entering the first courtyard you’re greeted by the sight of a stone fountain and a freaky mask of Bacchus, hung there in 1865 at the beginning of the War of Independence, with the intention of covering a royal plate. It has become a town icon (known as the mascarón).

For about the first hundred years everything was done essentially with hammers, but this machinery imported from Spain was later installed. The purpose of all the gears is simply to smash small ingots of silver into thin slabs from which the coins would be cut (known as laminating).

This is below the laminating machinery and provides the power to turn the gears. Originally, horses were used, but they could not handle the heavy work in the high altitude, and so mules were brought in.

A big pile of silver dollars in Potosi wasn't really of much value to the Spanish empire. The coins needed to be shipped to Spain and for that special secure boxes were required. Here's a picture of one. The underside of the lid shows the intricate locking system that could nevertheless be opened with a single key (that was usually hidden on the box).The silver dollars made their way by llama and mule trains to Chile on the Pacific coast, then by ship to Panama, across the isthmus overland to the Atlantic and then on to Spain in the Spanish treasure fleets.

Incidentally, in 1953, the last coins were minted here. Bolivian coins are now minted in Chile and Canada from cheap copper and zinc. Bills are printed in France. 

Potosi is an old and once fabulously wealthy town. While it's most prosperous days are in the past, it is still a nice town, especially its central plazas and old churches.

Our hotel was just a few blocks from the main plaza, via a pedestrian mall known as the boulevard.

These are students from a nearby school marching in support of various environmental issues. The signs were what you would expect, but some of the little kids were dressed up like little animals and were really cute. I think it was also some sort of holiday.