Session Abstract

What makes a seemingly insignificant place significant?  For colonial Europeans and even some Native Americans, the answer often entailed the words, “precious metals.” This panels explores the important connection between mineral wealth and the creation of colonial “places,” cities, towns, and settlements in the Americas. It argues that the quest for silver, gold, and, occasionally, other “poor relations,” such as lead, served as catalysts for European and indigenous settlements.  This panel takes a hemispheric approach, highlighting the evolution of places in the Andes, Brazil, New Spain, and Louisiana, which owed their settlement and evolution to the mining of silver, gold, and lead. It discusses more familiar “lives,” such as the roles of Iberian explorers, adventurers, and venture capitalists, and also introduces less well-known protagonists: Indian mine owners and producers. “Stories” of transformation from wilderness to settlement, from mine laborer to owner, are culled from throughout the colonial period with papers representing every century from the sixteenth through the eighteenth. Themes include urban development, labor, production techniques, cross-cultural collaboration, and abuse and exploitation.  Ultimately, the panel highlights the important roles of mining towns in expanding and settling colonial frontiers and the variety of protagonists that contributed to their prosperity.