The Bewitchment of Silver — 2000 ·

The Social Economy of Mining in Nineteenth-Century Peru

By José R. Deustua

“The discussion of transportation—by the teams of mules and llamas until the 1870s, and thereafter increasingly by the growing network of railways linking the interior of Peru with a series of Pacific ports—is impressive…(the study) is direct, well–informed, and —given its empirical approach—thankfully free from overconceptualization.”

John Fisher — University of Liverpool

Mining was crucial for the development of nineteenth-century Peru. Silver mining in particular was a key to both the export sector and the creation of an internal market and national development. The Bewitchment of Silver is an inquiry into the impact of that mineral on a national economy in a country at the periphery of nineteenth-century capitalism.

José Deustua argues that developing countries must be understood in terms of achieving domestic development as well as in their role in generating foreign exchange and in linking themselves to the world economy. Focusing on various sectors of Peru’s mining production, the mines, owners and mine workers, the transportation networks and the use of muleteers, this study is also concerned with market-building and domestic development in nineteenth-century Latin America.

José R. Deustua, Peruvian-born sociologist and historian, is the author of La Minería y la Iniciación de la República, 1820–1840.