The Other Slavery (57 page)

37. There is significant controversy about this aspect of Carvajal’s story. See Eugenio del Hoyo, “Notas y comentarios a la ‘relación’ de las personas nombradas por Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva para llevar al descubrimiento, pacificación y población del Nuevo Reino de León, 1580,”
Humanitas
19 (1978), 251–281; Samuel Temkin, “Luis de Carvajal and His People,”
AJS Review
32:1 (2008), 79–100; and Temkin,
Luis de Carvajal,
88–100. I agree with Temkin that early scholars have tended to exaggerate by proposing a “Jewish conspiracy.” Although Carvajal obtained his capitulation, or contract, through the usual mechanism, the waiving of House of Trade supervision over Carvajal’s colonists was extraordinary. I do not find Temkin’s two main explanations for this—i.e., that Carvajal was a trustworthy hidalgo and that time was short—convincing, as these would also apply to all the other grantees. The exception remains a mystery.

38. For a chilling transcription of these confessions, see Vito Alessio Robles,
Acapulco, Saltillo y Monterrey en la historia y en la leyenda
(Mexico City: Porrúa, 1978), 297–298. See also Temkin,
Luis de Carvajal,
167–170. For a full biographical treatment of el Mozo, see Martin A. Cohen,
The Martyr: Luis de Carvajal, a Secret Jew in Sixteenth-Century Mexico
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973).

39. Deposition of el Mozo in the proceedings against Governor Carvajal, in Toro,
Los judíos en la Nueva España,
237, 242.

40. Ibid.

41. For a brief treatment of the frontier captains, see the works of Philip Wayne Powell, especially
Mexico’s Miguel Caldera,
chap. 5.

42. Alonso de León, “Relación y discursos del descubrimiento, población . . . ,” in Genaro García, ed.,
Documentos inéditos o muy raros por la historia de México
(Mexico City: Porrúa, 1975), 41, 58.

4. THE PULL OF SILVER

1. For two excellent general treatments of the California gold rush, see Malcolm J. Rohrbough,
Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); and Susan Lee Johnson,
Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush
(New York: Norton, 2000).

2. On the silver peso, see Carlos Marichal, “The Spanish-American Silver Peso: Export Commodity and Global Money of the Ancien Regime, 1550–1800,” in Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal, and Zephyr Frank, eds.,
From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 25–42.

3. I found the best historical information about gold strikes in the United States, along with excellent production data, in James R. Craig and J. Donald Rimstidt, “Gold Production History of the United States,”
Ore Geology Reviews
13 (1998), 407–464. For the founding of silver mines in Mexico, see Brígida von Mentz, “Las políticas de poblamiento y la minería en la llamada provincial de la plata, 1540–1610”; Chantal Cramaussel, “Ritmos de poblamiento y demografía en la Nueva Vizcaya”; and Salvador Álvarez, “Latifundio y poblamiento en el norte de la Nueva Vizcaya, siglos XVI–XVIII,” all in Chantal Cramaussel, ed.,
Demografía y poblamiento del territorio la Nueva España y México, siglos XVI–XIX
(Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2009), 95–110, 123–144, and 140–170, respectively. See also Salvador Álvarez, “Minería y poblamiento en el norte de la Nueva España en los siglos XVI y XVII: Los casos de Zacatecas y Parral,” in
Actas del primero congreso de historia regional comparada 1989
(Ciudad Juárez: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, 1989), 105–137; Robert C. West, “Early Silver Mining in New Spain, 1531–1555,” in Peter Bakewell, ed.,
Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas
(Brookfield, VT: Variorium, 1997), 57–73; Álvaro Sánchez-Crispín, “The Territorial Organization of Metallic Mining in New Spain,” in Alan K. Craig and Robert C. West, eds.,
In Quest of Mineral Wealth: Aboriginal and Colonial Mining and Metallurgy in Spanish America
(Baton Rouge, LA: Geoscience Publications, 1994), 155–170; and Salvador Álvarez, “La historiografía minera novohispana: Logros y asignaturas pendientes,” in Margarita Guerra, ed.,
Historias paralelas: Actas del primer encuentro de historia Perú-México
(Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2005), 99–133.

4. Estimating Mexico’s silver production is far from simple. See John J. TePaske,
La Real Hacienda de Nueva España: La Real Caja de México, 1576–1816
(Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología, 1976); and Michel Morineau,
Incroyable gazettes et fabuleux métaux: Les retours des trésors américains d’après les gazettes hollandaises, XVI–XVIII siècles
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 563, 578–579. The data on silver and gold production used here come from John J. TePaske,
A New World of Gold and Silver
(Leiden: Brill, 2010), 113; and Craig and Rimstidt, “Gold Production History of the United States,” 407–464. My conversions assume that 1 troy ounce equals 31.1035 grams. (Troy ounces are used to measure precious metals.) On the shafts, see Haskett, “‘Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute,’” 451; Woodrow Borah, “Un gobierno provincial de frontera en San Luis Potosí, 1612–1620,”
Historia Mexicana
13:4 (April–June 1964), 538–539; and D. A. Brading,
Mineros y comerciantes en el México borbónico, 1763–1810
(Mexico City: Fondo de Cultural Económica, 1975), 183–184. For the larger context, see Kendall W. Brown,
A History of Mining in Latin America: From the Colonial Era to the Present
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012), passim.

5. The classic work on Parral and its hinterland is Robert C. West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain: The Parral Mining District
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949). West’s pioneering work has been extended by Álvarez, “Minería
y poblamiento en el norte de la Nueva España,” 105–137; Cramaussel, “Encomiendas, repartimientos y conquista en Nueva Vizcaya”; Raúl Pedro Santana Paucar, “Acumulación y especialización productiva en la minería colonial (el caso del Distrito Minero de Parral, Chihuahua, 1630–1730),”
Humanidades
6 (1980), 117–139; Chantal Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera: La provincia de Santa Bárbara en Nueva Vizcaya durante los siglos XVI y XVII
(Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2006); and Guillermo Porras Muñoz,
El nuevo descubrimiento de San José del Parral
(Mexico City: UNAM, 1988), among others. Susan Deeds has studied why some Indian groups endured in the region and others disappeared. See Deeds,
Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s Colonial North,
passim. On the connection between Parral and Pancho Villa, see Friedrich Katz,
The Life and Times of Pancho Villa
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 765–766.

6. Chantal Cramaussel, “Juan Rangel de Biesma: Un descubridor en problemas,”
Meridiano 107
(Ciudad Juárez: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and Gobierno del Estado de Chihuahua, 1992), 21–32.

7. Cramaussel, “Juan Rangel de Biesma,” 33.

8. West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain,
13; Porras Muñoz,
El nuevo descubrimiento de San José del Parral,
51–59; Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
100–110. The quote is from Esquerra de Rosas, cited in Porras Muñoz,
El nuevo descubrimiento de San José del Parral,
51.

9. Demographic information is from Porras Muñoz,
El nuevo descubrimiento de San José del Parral,
51–51; and Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
145. On Francisco de Lima’s life, see Rick Hendricks and Gerald Mandell, “Francisco de Lima, Portuguese Merchants of Parral, and the New Mexico Trade, 1638–1675,”
New Mexico Historical Review
77:3 (Summer 2002), 266–287; and Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
112 n. 125. My description of Parral is based largely on Cramaussel’s painstaking research and abundant information in
Poblar la frontera.

10. On the shafts of Parral and digging techniques, see West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain,
19–23. For the dangers of mining, see Brown,
A History of Mining in Latin America,
58–70. On the introduction of explosives, see Brading,
Mineros y comerciantes,
184.

11. West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain,
23.

12. Porras Muñoz,
El nuevo descubrimiento de San José del Parral,
59–60; Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
130–131, 196–199, 234–240; West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain,
chap. 3. Many judicial proceedings in Parral, especially those involving rebellious Indians, thieves, debtors, murderers, and escaped slaves, resulted in a sentence to the
morteros
. See, for example, the case of Juan Bernabé, 1647–1649, Archivo Histórico Municipal de Parral (hereafter cited as AHMP), Parral, microfilm reel 1649C, frames 1481–1486; the case of an Indian from Sonora named Marcos Cristobal, 1652, AHMP, Parral, microfilm reel 1652D, frames 1939–1983; the cases of a Tarahumara Indian named Sebastián and a Salinero Indian named Pablo, 1654, AHMP, Parral, microfilm reel 1654C, frames 1578–1592; and the cases of three Apache Indians from New Mexico, María, Angelina, and Juan, 1669, AHMP, Parral, microfilm reel 1669B, frames 0874–0888.

13. See the sources in the previous note.

14. Viceroy Martín Enríquez to the king of Spain, Mexico City, May 1, 1572, “Cartas del Virrey Martín Enríquez,” AGI, Mexico, 19, N. 83.

15. The quote is from Alonso de la Mota y Escobar,
Descripción geográfica de los reinos de Nueva Galicia, Nueva Vizcaya y Nuevo León
(Mexico City: Editorial Pedro Robredo, 1940), 151. For the black and mulatto slaves of Parral, see Vincent Meyer, “The Black Slave on New Spain’s Northern Frontier: San José del Parral, 1632–1676” (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1975); and Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
201–205.

16. Nicolás de Tolentino requesting his freedom from the heirs of Felipe Catalán, Parral, March 22, 1673, in AHMP.FC.D43.001.008, Justicia, “Peticiones de libertad.” The bills of sale documenting Tolentino’s life and travels is remarkably complete. Other cases of “Chinese” slaves have come to light, including that of Pedro Marmolejo, the son of María “china,” who was from the Philippines and lived in Parral for more than forty years. Freedom request by Pedro Marmolejo, Parral, August 22, 1672, AHMP.FC.A08.001.021, “Gobierno y administración, Informaciones.” For the larger context, see Tatiana Seijas,
Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), chap. 1. For instance, Nicolás de Tolentino’s experience is similar to that of Catarina de San Juan.

17. For this entire section, I rely on the demographic estimates provided in Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
145.

18. The quote is from Mota y Escobar,
Descripción geográfica,
151–152. Interestingly,
pepenas
are not mentioned specifically in regard to Parral, although there certainly was a flourishing black market in ore there.

19. As an example of historians’ enthusiasm for the mines as engines of free labor, see Alan Knight,
Mexico: The Colonial Era
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 65. Somewhat more cautiously, D. A. Brading and Harry E. Cross write that “in Mexico forced labor ceased to be an important element among mine workers as early as the middle seventeenth century.” Brading and Cross, “Colonial Silver Mining: Mexico and Peru,”
Hispanic American Historical Review
52:4 (November 1972), 557. See also Bakewell,
Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico,
122. For the persistence of coerced labor, see José Cuello, “The Persistence of Indian Slavery and Encomienda in the Northeast of Colonial Mexico, 1577–1723,”
Journal of Social History
21:4 (Summer 1988), 683–700; Susan Deeds, “Rural Work in Nueva Vizcaya: Forms of Labor Coercion on the Periphery,”
Hispanic American Historical Review
69:3 (August 1989), 425–449; and Chantal Cramaussel, “Haciendas y mano de obra en la Nueva Vizcaya del siglo XVII: El curato de Parral,”
Trace
15 (June 1989), 22–30.

20. For indebtedness in Parral, see West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain,
51.

21. Cramaussel, “Encomiendas, repartimientos y conquista en Nueva Vizcaya,” 105–137; Susan M. Deeds, “Trabajo rural en Nueva Vizcaya: Formas de coerción laboral en la periferia,” in
Actas del primer congreso de historia regional comparada
(Ciudad Juárez: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, 1989), 161–170; Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
145, 219–234; Deeds,
Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s Colonial North,
chap. 3; and Deeds, “Rural Work in Nueva Vizcaya,” 425–449.

22. The full scope of these Indian rebellions can be gleaned from AHMP, section “Milicias y guerra,” series “Sediciones.” The director of the Parral archives, Roberto Baca, first drew my attention to this rich source, for which I am grateful. See also Roberto Baca, “La esclavitud y otras formas de servidumbre en Chihuahua: Una visión desde los archivos coloniales,” in Jesús Vargas Valdés, ed.,
Chihuahua: Horizontes de su historia y su cultura,
2 vols. (Chihuahua: Milenio, 2010), 1:118–145. For additional clues about Indian slavery around Parral, see “Relación of Diego de Medrano,” in Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer, eds.,
The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain: A Documentary History,
vol. 1,
1570–1700
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986), 409–479. In chapter 3 of her illuminating book
Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s Colonial North,
Susan Deeds calls the period from the 1620s to the 1690s a “counterfeit peace” because of the labor coercion used against Natives, which prompted them to revolt. Revealingly, Spaniards called Natives who rebelled
indios de media paz,
half-pacified Indians, because of their intractability. Deeds also makes the important point that Jesuit missionaries agreed to participate in the system of Indian exploitation through repartimientos as a lesser evil, in order to protect the Indians somewhat, and as a safeguard against outright slave raiding, which would have depleted the mission Indians. See Deeds,
Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s Colonial North,
chap. 3; Deeds, “Rural Work in Nueva Vizcaya,” 425–449; and Deeds, personal communication. See also Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
passim; and Christophe Giudicelli, “Un cierre de fronteras taxonómico . . . tepehuanes y tarahumara después de la guerra de los tepehuanes, 1616–1631,”
Nouveau Monde Mondes Nouveaux,
March 18, 2008,
https://nuevomundo.revues.org/25913?lang=fr
.