ABSTRACT
Officially recorded silver production at Potosí fell gradually between 1550, which is the first year in which there is adequate information about output, and the early 1570’s. Two major stimulants of the boom have been identified by historians: the organisation of a new labour system for the Potosí industry, and the introduction of a new refining process. But given the depleted state of the mines of Potosí by the early 1570’s, the majority of those ores would have been of poor quality, and the smelting techniques used previously to refine the early and richer ores would have been inadequate to the task of producing silver from them. The rapidity of capital formation in the refining section of the silver industry during the early 1570’s can be appreciated by comparing the total value of the refineries built with silver output.
