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The aim of this article is to characterise the techniques and daily practices of underground workers in the mines of Potosí during the 18th century, in particular according to their jobs and situations of labour coercion. According to the sources consulted, there were three kinds of underground knowledge, which were not mutually exclusive. In the first category were the survival knowledge shared by all workers, such as the ability to move and position oneself underground. In the second category was specialised survival knowledge, known to some skilled workers who were generally not subjected to the forced labour of the mita. These were the daily observations and techniques that made it possible to assess the danger of the mining sectors. Finally, there was the specialised knowledge of production, knowledge of metals, underground architecture and the classification of minerals, based on experience and the use of the senses. This third category also included specialised and free labourers. However, the everyday boundaries between these three types of knowledge were not defined or exclusive, just as the boundary between free and forced labourers was not so clear in practice. Thus, some forced labourers, who were responsible for moving ores, probably developed a higher capacity for underground movements than free labourers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Atacameños is the property of Estudios Atacamenos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Razón Crítica is the property of La Fundacion Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lozano and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Procesos: Revista Ecuatoriana de Historia is the property of Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Sede Ecuador and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This work aims to ponder the sources used by researchers to study colonial mining. Analyzing its contributions and limits, and also, the appearance of new questions which have enabled the increasing of knowledge about this important activity in colonial America. We will focus on fiscal sources, especially on accounting books of the Cajas Reales, which offer us many possibilities, although we will also talk about the limitations when thinking of this information as conclusive, without subjecting it to a stringent analysis, and without completing the study with other source of documentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the representation of violent women in colonial Potosí as told by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela (1673-1736) in his Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí Following a contextualization of colonial violence and of the narrator’s ideological perspective in his description of women, the analysis focuses on the story of Estefanía, a 14 years old young woman. Arzáns shows, in this story, the social tensions between women and Potosi’s patriarchal society. This article aims to demonstrate that the crimes of this young woman, although narrated from a catholic and moralist perspective, portrait the drama of a young woman confronting a repressive patriarchal system. Thus, Arzáns’ text presents an ambivalence: on the one hand, by condemning the young woman, and on the other, by covertly admiring her life. The sentence “Oh dichosa pecadora” (Oh happy sinner) summarizes this ambiguity. The sinner is happy because she repents of her sins, and with the help of Virgin Mary it is believed that she will go to heaven, but, at the same time, she may be happy in Arzáns’ view (as well as in the reader’s perspective of today) because of her independent life as well as for challenging the patriarchal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores, using the methodology of historical sociolinguistics, multilingualism and language contact in the mines of Potosí (Bolivia) in the colonial period. Potosí was the destination of massive immigration during its economic heydays and one of the largest cities in the Western hemisphere in 1610. In the mines a special code was developed, with a specialized lexicon that contains words from different languages. This lexicon was so different that the first vocabulary of the mining language was written in 1610, and many have followed from that date onward. Quechua played a key role as intermediary language between two forms of speaking: the indigenous mining language of the yanaconas and mingas, probably a mix of Spanish and Quechua, and the language of the mitayos, possibly a mix of Aymara and Quechua. The similarities between Aymara and Quechua must have contributed to this possibility of an intermediary language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the economic organization networks and the movement of agro-livestock sector manufacturing and products entering through the port of Arica from Castile and the Indies from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Thereby, this article seeks to examine the commercial movement and routes that united this city with the Real Audiencia of Charcas. These inquiries led to the conclusion that two-way trade took place in the port of Arica, which made use of ancient Andean routes, creating a series of socio-cultural interactions and cultural changes in the Hispanic and indigenous populations of the area due to the active link between the village and imperial cultural/economic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes the reader through the history of the wine brandy1 that is today known as "pisco". Explains its origin going back to the oldest reference known today. It pin-points the arguments that have been used to pretend that the name "pisco" was a generic name for the white brandy consumed in the Alto Peru region, today's Bolivia. Covers the periods of lowest production, explaining that it was not an intentional give up of the product but that it was caused by different circumstances. The last part explains the process of the generalization of the use of the name "pisco" to refer to the Peruvian wine brandy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we immerse our studies in the Peru vian properties of Hernando Pizarro in Porco. The ranch, it would seem, was not as profitable at the outset as has previously been as serted. Hernando's own statements, along with account staken by his administrator Gabriel Velázquez from June, 1548 to August, 1551, haveled us to a better understanding of the reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the colonial context of the 16th to 17th centuries, the silver and gold mining was a key economic sector of the European domination. During the period one of the main worldwide centers of silver production was the Cerro Rico of Potosí (present-day Bolivia). From 1573 it was fed with indigenous labour force, under a system that mixed compulsory labour (mita) and voluntary one. The rules of this system were lucidly analyzed by the historiography. This article proposes to trace the faint documentary trails of the everyday working practice developed by the indigenous mining labour force in Potosi. The aim of the analysis is to become visible the plasticity of the indigenous mining labour world in Potosi which was not static for the long century that followed the establishment of the mita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a historical overview of the book trade between Spain and its colonies in America at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries, with a focus on the commerce in the Viceroyalty of Peru, which comprised most of modern day South America. Topics addressed include the role played by Peruvian merchants, known as peruleros, literary works sent to the Viceroyalty of Peru from Seville, Spain, and the routes followed by the merchants to place the goods.

Copyright of Estudios Atacameños is the property of Estudios Atacamenos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study documents the presence of an emigrant from the city of Potosí, who was established in the southern Spanish colonial possession of Calbuco (belonging to the orbit of Chiloé), in the first half of the eighteenth century. The lineage originated by him appears in two different branches, providing genealogical and historical materials on both locations. Within a period of almost two centuries, there are approximately thirty people documented that are linked to the male lineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that colonial festivities - that in the whole Upper Peru presented religious features- are a strategic space where to detect the reproduction and expression of cultural values, in this paper we aim to observe and describe religious festivities that existed in Potosí during the XVIIIth century. The religious ceremonies developed in the framework of those institutions favored the linkages between different actors in a society where religion was the axis of daily life. Without neglecting the religious nature of such festivities, it must be taken into account that they were the scenario of significant economic and political activities -since, for example, local elections were held there-. In this spirit, we will go through the sources describing such events, aiming to understand the different contents that reflected these practices, presenting both an explicit and symbolic nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the Basque peoples, originally from the Basque Country of Spain, living in Potosí in the then-Viceroyalty of Peru, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The author comments on the social conditions of and social structure employed by these Basque communities and examines the concept of ethnicity in the region during this time period. He also considers the treatment of migrant groups in Latin America during the period of Spanish colonization beginning in the 16th century.

Copyright of Fronteras de la Historia is the property of Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia e Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From the images of allegories and unknown geographies, the representation of the American territory is made in an overlapped form with the body in a particular type of erotic-politics. The case of the representation of the Villa Imperial de Potosí is paradigmatic in this subject as it generated an iconography that passed from the representation of its hill like generator of structures class/ race to its union with the virgin. Here two works of the city built in the first half of the 18th century are studied -after the decay of the economy of one of the greatest cities of the world at that time - that in addition are found in Spanish public collections, to try at the time how this dimension of unit between body and territory articulates within them. To finish, some expositive contexts are shown in which the same ones have been presented and possible alternatives to think the curatorial activation and criticism of these images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on new archival information, this article examines as-of-yet unknown details of the life of poet Diego Mexía de Fernangil in Potosí; his mercantile activities, personal relationships, family life, as well as details of his death in 1634. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vegetation coverage of chaqueño dry forest in Torotoro National Park (Potosí, Bolivia) and Torotoro Municipality (which includes the National Park) was evaluated using remote sensing. I worked with two satellite images, a Landsat 5 TM from 1990 and a Landsat 7 ETM+ from 2001, both images were geometrically corrected, a normalized vegetation index was applied and a supervised classification was performed to distinguish "forest" from "matrix" categories. Classifications were fitted to the National Park's and Municipality's perimeters in ArcView, converted into vector format and a fragment analysis was performed in order to determine landscape, edge, shape, distance and core area metrics. Results show that 6 449 hectares of dry forest were lost from the forest in Municipality's area between 1990 and 2001, despite the fact that no total area significant differences were found, a clear tendency of average patch area reduction and an increase of patch numbers is evident between 1990 and 2001. Although yearly deforestation rates were relatively low (∼2% per year), forest habitat fragmentation and loss are a long--term threat to conservation of the biota associated with this forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]