Cerro Rico de Potosí, the Silver Mountain That Bankrolled an Empire and Consumed Its Miners
Discovered in 1545 at 4,000 metres in the Andes, the Cerro Rico of Potosí produced a huge share of the early modern world's silver. By 1600 Potosí ranked among the largest cities on Earth. The forced-labour mita system fed Indigenous workers into its tunnels for 250 years, and the mountain — honeycombed and slowly collapsing — is being mined still.
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