Editor's Note: One of 15 parts, this article and the installments that follow revisit the historical record and reference figures of the past to show how mining, minerals, and metals have profoundly influenced conflict, religion, technology, economics, and mass migration on both macro- and microscales. The papers were prepared exclusively for JOM based on a keynote lecture delivered by the author to the International Symposium on Mining, which was held September 1997 in Fairbanks, Alaska.

INTRODUCTION

Francisco Pizarro first heard of gold in lands to the south when he saw the Pacific Ocean with Balboa in 1513. He was moved to action in 1522 when Pascal de Andagoya returned to Panama from Colombia with news of Indians with gold ornaments from Biru (Peru).

Pizarro and Diego de Almagro formed a partnership to exploit Peru and spent 1524-1527 exploring the coast south of Panama. Other financial backers also became involved, primarily the cleric Hernando de Luque and Licenciado de Espinosa, an influential man at court .l Pizarro's first ship was one that Balboa had built for the same purpose but never used, since he was executed in 1519 by Predrarias, the governor of Darien, after being arrested by Pizarro.

By 1528, the partners had obtained enough evidence of gold to be found and Indians to be converted to justify Pizarro traveling to Spain to obtain authorization from the crown for the conquest of Peru. One clause of the royal license that he received stipulated the number of ecclesiastics to accompany him:

"While lawyers and attorneys, on the other hand, whose presence was considered as boding ill to the harmony of the new settlements, were strictly prohibited from setting foot in them."2

The crown was interested in converting the Indians, but Pizarro was not. He told a priest that he was not concerned about the souls of the Indians, saying, "I have come to take away from them their gold."3

THE CONQUEST

Pizarro conquered Peru in 1532; his success was partly because outlying provinces opposed the ruling Inca. Just prior to Pizarro's invasion, Huayna Capac, the lord of the Incas, had, on his death bed, designated two of his sons to rule jointly, but with specific areas of control. Father Bernabe Cobo suggests that this was probably a decision of rebellious military leaders.4 Confusion and mistrust were rampant, and in a war of succession, Atahualpa prevailed over his brother, Huascar, and had him imprisoned in Cuzco.

There is no significant evidence that Atahualpa saw Pizarro as a threat; Atahualpa had just conquered an empire and had hundreds of thousands of soldiers under his command. He kept track of the strangers with curiosity, emptied the town of Cajamarca, and waited at his nearby camp. Pizarro occupied Cajamarca, concealed everyone around the central square, and then invited Atahualpa to visit him. The Inca, accompanied by 6,000 unarmed warriors, finally entered the empty square. A priest appeared and lectured the Inca ruler on the need for conversion to Christianity. Atahualpa scorned the priest's words and the bible. Thousands of the unarmed Incas were slaughtered, and Atahualpa was made prisoner. For his freedom, the Inca promised to fill an apartment (7 m x 5 m) with gold to a height he could reach and another room twice over with silver. Atahual-pa's great grandfather, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui had obtained most of it from his mine at Vilcabamba (northeast of Cuzco). Cobo said of these mines,

"With the silver and gold they took out of them, they accumulated in Cuzco the wealth that the Spaniards found."5

The ransom was delivered, but Atahualpa remained prisoner until he was garroted in the town square several months later. Pizarro was murdered in 1541. Historian Innes wrote,

"He destroyed a fruitful empire, bringing nothing but disaster, contributing nothing. He represents the dark side of man.... Despite his base qualities, Francisco Pizarro remains a perversely heroic figure."6

Within a two-year period, the Spanish looted Peru of about nine tonnes of gold and 68 tonnes of silver.7 There were later finds, such as those of Quesada from the Chibchas of Bogota, but eventually, with ready-to-melt silver and gold virtually exhausted, the Spaniards turned to mining. Southeast of Lake Titicaca, the rich Potosi silver mine was opened in 1545; when the rich veins had been depleted, the amalgam process was introduced by means of mercury brought in from the Huancavelica mine south of Lima. Thousands died in these two mines. Fuentes described Potosi,

"In the sixteenth century, American mines multiplied Europe's silver reserves by seven. The mining center at Potosi . . . became the largest city of the New World in the seventeenth century.... It was the Indians, starved and decimated by disease, who supplied Spain, and through Spain, the rest of Europe with riches."8

Many abhorred the treatment of the Indians in the conquests of Mexico and Peru. The famous essayist Montaigne described how the Spaniards tortured and burned at the stake hundreds of defeated Indians. He speculated whether this was because of concern for justice or zeal for religion.9 Bartolome de Las Casas, a hero to Mexicans today, gave up his possessions in 1515 and fought against the cruelty of the Indians.

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier with Cortes, offers another viewpoint on this aspect of the conquests. It makes it easier to accept the premise that it was not greed for gold alone that motivated Cortes and his men. In Xocotlan, one of the towns they entered, there were priests guarding huge piles of human skulls. At Tlaxcala, they found cells holding men and women being fattened for sacrifice and human consumption. In Tenochtitlan, they witnessed knives, chopping blocks, and pots for butchering and cooking the sacrificial victims who had their hearts ripped out. The conquistadors implored the Indians to burn their idols, stop human sacrifice, and embrace Christianity. They viewed themselves as crusaders and felt completely justified in their treatment of the Indians.lo Pizarro's soldiers did not have that excuse. The Inca rulers were exceedingly cruel in warfare and at times meted out severe punishment, but the people were not as hard as the Aztecs. Juan de Sarmiento who visited Peru in 1550 wrote,

"The mild and docile character of the Peruvians would have well fitted them to receive the teachings of Christianity, had the love of conversion, instead of gold, animated the breast of the conquerors."11

THE AFTERMATH

The Indians lost most of their traditions and customs. A major social change was the decimation of the population by overwork, imported diseases, and deaths due to armed conflict. King Charles V was now Holy Roman Emperor, and Spain was clearly the leading power in Europe, in large part because of the wealth of its New World gold and silver shipments.

It took less than half a century to reduce the population of the conquered Americas by three fourths, to destroy age-old customs, and proselytize the population to a new religion. It was not greed for gold and metal weapons alone that made the conquests of Mexico and Peru possible, but without them they would not have happened.

Albert Marrin described the Spanish sword as

"The strongest and most flexible in the world . . . the Spanish sword was a fearsome weapon. A good swordsman. . . could lop off a head with one stroke.... A horse and rider in full armor weighed nearly a ton. Galloping at twenty miles an hour, the entire weight was concentrated at the tip of a diamond shaped steel point at the end of a ten foot lance."12

Metals played a key role in the changes that took place in the New World. In the century following 1831, a half billion ounces of silver and 5.6 million ounces of gold flowed into Spain from the Americas.13

References

1. Rafael Var6n Gabai, Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers (Norman, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1997), pp. 16-17. 2. William H. Prescott, The History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1847; republished by the Modem Library, New York), p. 886.

A. Marrin, Inca and Spaniard (Athenum, NY: 1989), p. 65. 4. Father Bemabe Cobo, History of the Inca Empire, ca 1653, translated and edited by Roland Hamilton (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1979), p. 163. 5. Father Bemabe Cobo, History of the Inca Empire, ca 1653, translated and edited by Roland Hamilton (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1979), p. 137. 6. Hammond Innes, The Conquistadors (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 309.

Pierre Vilar, A History of Gold and Money (London, Verso, 1991, originally published by Ediciones Ariel, Barcelona, 1960), p. 110.

Carlos Fuentes, Buried Mirror (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992), p. 156.

Michel Montaigne, Essays of Montaigne, Vol. Ill, as translated by Charles Cotton (London: Reeves &Turner, 1877), p. 171.

Bemal Diaz del Castillo, ca. 1560, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, edited from the original copy by Irving Leonard (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956), pp. 119,160, 223, and 233.

William H. Prescott, The History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1847; republished by the Modem Library, New York), pp. 8189819.

A. Marrin, Inca and Spaniard (Athenum, NY: 1989), p. 82. 13. Carlos Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1976), p. 210.

Raymond L. Smith is a past (emeritus) president of Michigan Technological University, chair of the board of Community Water Company of Green Valley, and a member of the board of LS&I Railroad.

For more information, contact R.L. Smith, P.O. Box 726, Green Valley, Arizona 85622; (520) 625-6984; fax (520) 625-1951; e-mail raylsmith@ juno.com.