Spanish women were an important element in the sedentary urban society growing up in the central areas. The women were above all relatives of Spanish men already present, brought from Spain explicitly to marry some local associate. As wives of encomenderos and artisans, they managed households that included many Spanish guests and employees and even larger numbers of Africans and Indians, whom they attempted to mold to their purposes. They also brought up both their own fully Spanish children and the racially mixed children they often took or were given to raise. As widows and sometimes spinsters, they actively participated in economic life, though women’s independent activity tended to be channeled into certain conventional directions, from indirect investment and owning urban real estate at the higher levels to running bakeries and taverns at the lower. Women were at first a small minority of the Spanish population, but their relative numbers steadily increased, reaching effective parity with men by the second or third generation after conquest. Africans
Africans also were important to the society. As stated, encomenderos and artisans acquired African slaves, and any Spaniard of means would try to own at least one or two. Thus Africans were soon a significant group numerically; on the Peruvian coast, at least, it is thought that after several decades they equaled the Spaniards in numbers. Spaniards needed auxiliaries serving as intermediaries between themselves and the much larger indigenous population. Africans, who shared the Spaniards’ Old World immunities and much else, survived and adapted well; the main limitation on acquiring them was the great expense involved.
The gender ratio strongly favoured males, but females were present too, usually in household service, food trades, and petty commerce. The women were frequently mistresses of their owners, to whom they bore mulatto children, with the result that mother and children were sometimes freed. Other African slaves bought their freedom, and a mainly urban class of free blacks began to emerge. Their roles were similar to those of the slaves, except for being exercised more independently.
In this society, the slave, or at least the African slave, was not at the bottom of society but ranked in Spanish terms higher than the general Indian population. Africans were more closely associated with the Spaniards than Indians, culturally more like them, given more skilled and responsible tasks, and in cross-ethnic hierarchies were normally in charge of indigenous people. Indians among Spaniards
Spanish cities, from the very beginning, were full of Indians working for Spaniards in a great number of capacities, sometimes temporarily, sometimes for long periods, but usually at a low level. One of the most important features of life in the first postconquest decades was the prevalence of Indian servant-mistresses of Spaniards, the result of the fact that Spanish women were still much less numerous than men, not to speak of the pattern of men waiting for full success before marrying. These indigenous women retained many aspects of their traditional culture, but they had to learn good Spanish and master skills of Spanish home and family life. They bore the Spaniards mestizo children, who were to become a very important feature of postconquest society. Commerce
Merchants were present in force and vital to the existence of the overall complex. But as members of a far-flung network that required high geographic mobility, they were at first less a part of local society. Once the wealth of the central areas became apparent, Sevilla-based firms began to dominate the import-export trade—the exchange of American precious metals for European cloth, iron, manufactures, and other goods. The representatives at American ports and capitals were junior partners in transatlantic firms and in time expected to move on; hence they seldom married or bought property locally. The aim was to get silver back to Sevilla in order to pay debts and reinvest in merchandise. Second-rank merchants, however, without direct ties to Sevilla, were more likely to develop local roots.
Commerce in local goods, often but not always of indigenous origin, was carried on by members of a well-defined social type, sometimes called tratantes, with a profile sharply distinct from that of the long-distance merchants. Often illiterate, and furthermore without capital, they were recruited from among the most marginal members of local Hispanic society. They, too, were relatively unstable; they were prone to move to another area or into other kinds of activity because their status was so precarious. Mining
The mining sector drove the economy of the Spanish world and was an indispensable component of it, yet in several ways it stood apart. It employed only a relatively small proportion of the total Spanish population. Mining complexes were often remote from the main centres of indigenous settlement and hence also from the network of Spanish cities. Turnover was quick, whether in terms of sites, mining enterprises, or individuals.
Gold mining was often virtually an expeditionary activity; a gang of Indians, joined perhaps by some blacks and led by one or two Spanish miners, might spend only days or weeks at a given river site. An encomendero, not himself physically involved, would likely supply the finances and take most of the profit. In many regions gold mining was seasonal, with miners having neither special training nor a full commitment to the industry.
In most regions placer gold was soon exhausted, though Mexico relied on it for a generation, and it eventually became the principal export of New Granada (present-day Colombia). Silver mining was the successor, and it became the main export asset of the central areas until the time of independence. Here too the encomenderos were the greatest investors and mine owners in the beginning, but their dominance was short-lived. Silver mining was the type of technically demanding, capital-intensive enterprise that called for close attention and much expertise on the part of owners. Very soon true silver mining experts began not only to operate the mines but to become the owners as well.
Spanish law granted the crown residual ownership of mineral deposits, giving it the right to levy substantial taxes on the industry. There was always a governmental presence at mining sites, and the silver tax was the crown’s principal source of revenue. Silver mining camps began to resemble ordinary Spanish municipalities, with councils (dominated by local mining entrepreneurs) and strong contingents of merchants, craftspeople, and professionals.
By 1550 strong differences had developed between the Mexican and the Peruvian silver mining industries. In the Andes the great deposits, of which those of Potosí Mountain (in present Bolivia) were overwhelmingly predominant, were within the territory of sedentary indigenous population; moreover, the Andeans had a strong tradition of long-distance labour movements. Thus indigenous labour obligations, channeled first through the encomienda and later through other arrangements, could supply a large stream of temporary workers. In addition, there were a number of permanent indigenous workers, some of whom possessed skills inherited from the preconquest period, and, in an industry as technical as mining, this group was constantly growing. Even so, the Peruvian mines used large numbers of temporary labourers under governmental obligation, and their presence greatly slowed down cultural change among the indigenous mine workers.
In Mexico, most of the largest silver mining sites were discovered well to the north of the zone of sedentary population. Traditional labour obligations could not be used, and the bulk of the labour force consisted from the beginning of sedentary Indians from the centre acting as free agents, naborías, or permanent workers. The Mexican mines also used far fewer people, so that the Hispanic element predominated more than in Peru, and the north of Mexico was soon on its way to having a Hispanized, mobile population very different from that in the central part of the country. Institutional, legal, and intellectual developments