It has been a long time since colonial Mexican mining has received the diligent attention it receives in this work. Jaime J. Lacueva Muñoz has delved into treasury records (mainly in the Contaduría section of the Archivo General de Indias, but also in Zacatecas) and administrative papers in the same archive (from the Audiencias of Mexico City and Guadalajara) to produce a book that offers two major sets of findings.
The first will be of most general use and interest to historians of colonial Mexico. Lacueva provides the most complete set of series of silver production in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mexico that can be obtained from currently known sources. Annual figures for production, measured in pesos of eight reales, are presented for the treasury districts of Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Durango, Sombrerete, Mexico City, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, and Pachuca during the years for which records survive for silver being taxed...
