The silver mountain of Potosí
A Bolivian peak produces the money supply of the early modern world.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 255 years
- Known to
- ± 5 years
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Silver is found at Cerro Rico in 1545, and Potosí becomes one of the largest cities on Earth, worked under the mita forced-labour draft with appalling mortality from cave-ins and mercury poisoning. Its silver, with Mexico's, funds the Spanish empire, causes sustained inflation across Europe, and flows overwhelmingly to China, which had monetised its economy in silver — creating the first genuinely global trade circuit.