ABSTRACT
The account of the northern silver mining city of Zacatecas by the Bishop of the Diocese of Guadalajara, Alonso de la Mota y Escobar, is extracted from his Descripcion Geografica de los Reinos de Nueva Galicia, Nueva Vizcaya y Nuevo Leon, written around 1605 and constituting the earliest description of the northern two-thirds of New Spain. The Spanish discovered silver in Zacatecas and the surrounding area in 1540. By the seventeenth century, the city had become the second-most important urban center in New Spain. This excerpt conveys the centrality of silver to the colonial economy, but it also reveals other aspects of seventeenth-century life. The lords and caciques, whose nation and vassals were called the Zacatecos, possessed and enjoyed them, and their name has stuck to this city of Zacatecas. The wood produces a great quantity of fruit called tuna, which is fertilized and yields without any cultivation, and the wood also produces a great diversity of sweet-smelling flowers.
