Women in the Silver Mines of Potosí: Rethinking the History of “Informality” and “Precarity” (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)

Abstract

Underground mining in Potosí was a male sphere. Nevertheless, women were actively involved in the early stages of silver mining in Potosí, when traditional technologies were still in use. They also played an important role in the local ore market. After the introduction of new technology and the reorganization of the labour force, the process of refining ore was much more complicated. Women then participated in some stages of the process: in selecting the ores and sieving. This implies that mining is a complex process with a labour and gender division that has been underrated and underestimated. More importantly, women became owners of rudimentary mills (trapiches) where the ore was processed, selling different amounts of silver to the Spanish authorities, making their living in this way.

New Methodologies for a Latin American Economic History on the 19th Century: The South-Central Andes

“…This physically demanding work required not only strong arms and backs, but also a good eye for the minerals that lurked in the pieces of rock. Rossana Barragán recently worked on this facet of mining for the colonial period, but this work remained just as important in the republican period (Barragán, 2020). We have the mining company records for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to show this importance; it is that for the republican period, no one has ventured to analyze these data.…”

Mujeres en espacios étnicos: Relaciones prácticas, roles y estrategias (cacicazgos de Tarata, Tacna y Codpa, 1759-1803)

“…La historia de estas mujeres se entreteje en el espacio sur andino debido a la conexión de los tres cacicazgos: Tarata, Tacna y Codpa, unidos, como se observará a continuación, por relaciones de parentesco (Figura 2). Según el censo de 1792, componían la localidad de Tacna 6998 personas, 1990;Truhan 1991;Borchart 1992;Poloni-Simard 1992;Guardia 1995;Barragán 1997Barragán , 2019Vergara 1997Vergara , 2000Medinaceli y Mendieta 1997;Cruz 1997Cruz , 2005Graubart 1997Graubart , 2007Tandeter 1997;López Beltrán 1998Numhauser 1998;Dueñas 2000;Presta 2002Presta , 2005Gauderman 2003;Farberman 2004;Diez 2004 20 Inostroza 2019a. 21 No es objetivo de este estudio analizar los discursos sobre el género ni conceptualizar el sexo y el género en términos históricos.…”

Knowledge Production and Forced Labor: The Intellectual Work and Worlds of Andean Mitayos in the Late Colonial Period.

“…Ignoram os mecanismos através dos quais os trabalhadores eram classificados em diferentes categorias e a forma como se deslocavam entre as várias formas de trabalho. O binarismo tradicional entre trabalho livre e não livre reflete o que as sociólogas Léa Renard e Theresa Wobbechamam chamam de "categorias historicamente carregadas que refletem as reivindicações universalistas europeias", 12 e não as realidades locais em lugares como os Andes, onde as historiadoras Paula Revilla Orías, 13 Rosanna Barragán, 14 Raquel Gil Montero 15 e Paula Zagalsky 16 mostraram que a interação entre trabalho livre e trabalho forçado era particularmente evidente.…”