Students of social and economic history of colonial Latin America, particularly those interested in the development of mining, will welcome this impressive seven-volume set. As part of the Sixth International Mining Congress held in Madrid in June, 1970, the Spanish Organizing Committee designed a Colloquium on the History of Mining—the first of its kind. Composed of some thirty archaeologists and historians of various nationalities who are well known for their contributions to mining history, the colloquium met in León three months prior to the main congress in Madrid. For reasons of time and interests of the host country, the theme of the colloquium was limited to the history of mining within the Iberian Peninsula and Hispanic America. The volumes herein reviewed represent the product of the colloquium.
The published material is organized under three major headings: Estudios (volume I), consisting of research papers presented at the colloquium; Bibliografía (volumes II, III and IV), a compilation of bibliographical material on the colloquium theme; and Fuentes (volumes V, VI and VII), mainly a listing of original documentary sources useful for the study of mining in Spain and its colonial possessions.
Volume I is undoubtedly the most important one of the set. Papers presented at the colloquium are arranged by period and locale, beginning with mining in the Iberian Peninsula in ancient times (9 papers) and continuing through the medieval period (2 papers) into aboriginal and colonial Hispanic America (17 papers). Four additional studies relate to problems in bibliography and the teaching of mining history. Americanists will welcome José Alcina Franch’s summary paper on the production and use of metals in pre-Columbian America and the various articles by historians on colonial mining in South America. Among the latter the problems of native labor in the mines and mining legislation are emphasized. Lewis Hanke’s short article on the general social history of Potosí and that of José de Mesa and Teresa Gisbert on the historical geography of Oruro give the reader pleasant relief from the broadside of articles on the mita, important though it may have been in the mining economy of the Andes. The regional emphasis of the Americanists on the Andean area points up noticeable omissions: not one paper was presented on colonial mining in New Spain or in Brazil.
The three volumes that deal with bibliography leave something to be desired. Volumes II and III consist of a reprint of the famous two-volume bibliographical work of Eugenio Maffei and Ramón Rua Figueroa, Apuntes para una biblioteca española de libros, folletos . . . relativos al conocimiento y explotación de las riquezas minerales . . . concernientes a la península y a nuestras . . . posesiones de ultramar, first published in Madrid, 1871-72. That this valuable and now rare work is again available should be applauded by both Americanists and Hispanists, but a good updated version is needed. This is attempted in volume IV of the series, Apuntes para una bibliografía minera española e iberoamericana (1870-1969), which falls short of expectations. Since this work was hurriedly compiled from materials extant in only five Madrid libraries, more than half of the some 3,000 entries deal with Spain, only a fifth with Hispanic America. Like the Maffei and Figueroa volumes, it is far from selective and includes many entries that have little or no bearing on mining per se. Entries are arranged by author and the lack of a topical or regional index decreases its usefulness.
For the student of mining history the volumes on original documentary sources may prove to be far more valuable than the bibliography of printed materials considered above. Volume V lists 885 documents, well indexed, that deal with mining, found in the Archivo General de Simancas, 1316-1832. Practically all entries concern mines in Spain and would serve as important sources for those researching the history of such famous mining centers as Guadalcanal and Almadén or the development of Spanish mining legislation and administration in the peninsula since the fourteenth century. Volume VI is an annotated listing of all documents (1,131 of them) that deal with any phase of mining that are found in the section, Audiencia de Guatemala, Archivo General de Indias, Seville. The documents are listed by legajo and by date. In the interesting preface to this volume, José Muñoz Pérez, who coordinated the research for the compilation, writes that the section Guatemala was chosen as an example of what could be done in the way of compiling a useful archival guide on a particular theme within a comparatively short time by a staff of university students. A similar annotated compilation was made of documents on mining found in the much larger section, Audiencia de Lima, but, owing to lack of time and funds, this list was not published for the series herein reviewed. The annotations, some of which run to a printed page in length, are probably the most valuable part of the Guatemala list. This reviewer regrets that this list was not available several years ago, when he spent months in the Archivo General de Indias slowly and painfully perusing the documents in each legajo of the Guatemala section, searching for material on the colonial mining economy of Honduras.
The final volume, VII, forms a curious ending to this set of publications. It is a Spanish translation, accompanied by the original Latin, of the chapter on metals from the renowned Etymologiae written in the seventh century by Isidore of Seville. Isidore’s brief comments on the nature and use of the seven metals discussed seem to add little to the theme of the colloquium. That the colloquium was held at the Cátedra de San Isidoro in León may have been reason enough for this appendage.
Hopefully, colloquia on the history of mining will become a regular part of future international mining congresses, which are held biennially in some capital of the world. The published results of the colloquium held in Spain represent an admirable beginning.
