A Political Ecology in the Early Spanish Caribbean

Global Potosí: Indigenous Knowledge, Mining, Negotiation, and the Environment

“…The discussion on the amalgamation of indigenous skills and European techniques (or the intent to do so), present in Lane's third chapter, has also been part of discussions in the history field. Molly Warsh (2014), in "A Political Ecology in the Early Spanish Caribbean," for instance, investigates how pearl harvesting techniques that existed prior to European colonialism, were fundamental for the continuation of such extraction under colonial rule. The case studied by Warsh reveals how indigenous diving skills could applied in the Venezuelan coast could, in fact, be more productive than European attempts to mechanize production.…”