España prohibió la esclavitud indígena… y legalizó el trabajo forzado

Spain had laws banning the enslavement of Indigenous people. It also had Huancavelica: a mandatory mercury mine that, according to historical estimates, may have cost the lives of up to a third of its workers. How did both things coexist? This documentary traces the history of the Huancavelica mining mita, the mercury that sustained Potosí's silver, and the legal contradiction that neither of the two legends of Spanish colonization — the black one or the pink one — fully explains. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction — The Contradiction 00:58 Before Huancavelica 03:17 The Mountain of Mercury 05:46 A Law That Really Existed 09:00 Toledo's Solution 11:01 How the Mita Worked 15:45 The Mine of Death 16:48 Neither Black Legend Nor Pink Legend 19:28 Closing — Free by Law, With No Choice Before the Mountain ACADEMIC SOURCES — Kendall W. Brown, "Colonial Andean Silver, the Global Economy, and Indigenous Labour in Peru's Huancavelica Mercury Mines of Death," Extractive Industries and Society, 2016. — Kendall W. Brown, "Workers' Health and Colonial Mercury Mining at Huancavelica, Peru," The Americas, Cambridge University Press, 2001. — Mark Pierre Dries, "Invisible Miners in a Mountain of Mercury: Negotiation, Health, and Night Work in Late 16th Century Huancavelica, Peru," International Labor and Working-Class History, vol. 107, 2025. — Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615), colonial primary source. — Quote from Pedro de Oñate, cited in "Coacción y disensión. Protestas frente a los repartimientos mineros en Perú y Nueva España, siglo XVIII," Estudios de Historia Novohispana. — Ricardo García Cárcel, historiographical framework on the Spanish Black Legend. — Historical record of the New Laws of 1542 and the Great Rebellion of the Encomenderos. — Estudios Indianos — Universidad del Pacífico, glossary entry "Mita." #HistoriLab #LatinAmericanHistory #Huancavelica #SpanishColonization #Potosí