Place · city

Potosí

Potosí is a city in the Andes of present-day Bolivia, built beside a mountain of rich silver ore. From the sixteenth century its mines, worked by indigenous labour under the mita system and by enslaved Africans, produced vast quantities of silver. This silver funded the Spanish Empire and transformed global monetary systems.

Potosí
Image: Parallelepiped09 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 5 profiles

Spanish EmpireSocioeconomyInca EmpireImpactViceroyalty of PeruSocioeconomy, Impact, Decline, SummaryRepublic of BoliviaFoundation, Socioeconomy, ImpactHabsburg SpainSocioeconomy

Mentioned in 9 state histories

PacajesQaraqara-Charka ConfederationReal Audiencia of PanamaViceroyalty of PeruRoyal Audiencia of CharcasGovernorate of TucumánGovernorate of Buenos AiresColonia del SacramentoViceroyalty of the Río de la Plata

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Potosí. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/potosi
MLA
“Potosí.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/potosi. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Potosí.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/potosi.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Potosí’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/potosi (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻