Why read Urban Indians in a Silver City?

Book cover of Urban Indians in a Silver City: Zacatecas, Mexico, 1546-1810

Book description

In the sixteenth century, silver mined by native peoples became New Spain's most important export. Silver production served as a catalyst for northern expansion, creating mining towns that led to the development of new industries, markets, population clusters, and frontier institutions. Within these towns, the need for labor, raw materials,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Urban Indians in a Silver City as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Allison Bigelow

Author

What Mangan’s work does for the Andes, Velasco Murillo’s scholarship does for Mexico. The book covers an astounding historical range, taking readers through the first silver strikes in Zacatecas under colonial rule until the edge of early nation-statehood. In telling this 250-year history of Zacatecas, Velasco Murillo demonstrates how Indigenous mining communities, their labor, and the capital they generated were critical to shaping – and were shaped by – emerging ideas of mestizo citizenship. It does so, moreover, by centering women and Indigenous miners in ways that other social histories of mining had not yet accomplished. Velasco Murillo shows definitively…

From Allison's list on The best books on mining in colonial Latin America.