⚓ Directory
PLAN GALLERY XXVII
GALLERY XXVII

The Silver Mountain

Potosi's silver reached China and moved prices on three continents.

Charles Horton Cooley
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
Diego Huallpa Quispe
ON THE FLOOR
Diego Huallpa Quispe
Mita silver miner
“The whole world's money came out of my mountain, on my back, by candlelight.”
Don Alvaro de Mendoza
ON THE FLOOR
Don Alvaro de Mendoza
Azoguero, mita labor contractor
“Every empire you admire ran on somebody's two months. Mine simply kept honest records of whose.”
WH5-031 · The Silver Mountain — Open the drawer
A silver coin minted at Potosí between 1550 and 1650, stamped with royal marks and assay symbols, physically embodying the mountain's output and its path into global trade networks.
WH5-032 · The Silver Mountain — What is this thing?
A silver eight-real coin minted at Potosí between the 1570s and early 1700s, stamped with Spanish royal marks and bearing the physical evidence of circulation across three continents and multiple monetary systems.
WH5-033 · The Silver Mountain — Read the source
A silver coin minted in Potosí or Mexico City, 1600–1750, stamped with Spanish crown marks and assay symbols. The eight-real became the dominant trade coin across the Pacific, circulating in Chinese ports and Southeast Asian markets where it was often countermarked or melted for weight.
WH5-034 · The Silver Mountain — Map it / time it
A silver coin minted in Potosí between the 1570s and 1820s, stamped with Spanish royal marks and assay symbols. Its weight and fineness made it the global standard for trade across the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean routes.
WH5-035 · The Silver Mountain — Two sources disagree
A silver eight-real coin minted in Potosí, Bolivia, stamped with Spanish royal marks. This coin circulated from the Americas to Manila to China, becoming the primary currency of global trade and the physical evidence of silver's planetary reach.
WH5-036 · The Silver Mountain — State the claim
Silver coin minted from Potosí ore, stamped with Spanish crown and assay marks. Circulated across Atlantic and Pacific trade routes, becoming the dominant currency in Chinese markets and a price-setter in European commerce.
WH5-037 · The Silver Mountain — Take the other side
An official proclamation legalizing private silver trade and establishing silver as the empire's preferred tax medium, demonstrating state demand that pulled global supplies independent of production capacity.
WH5-038 · The Silver Mountain — Weigh it
Silver coin minted from Potosí ore, stamped with Spanish crown marks. Circulated across Atlantic and Pacific trade routes, becoming the de facto currency of Asian commerce and a price anchor across three continents.
WH5-039 · The Silver Mountain — Build the answer
Silver coin minted from Potosí ore, stamped with Spanish crown and assay marks. Circulated across Atlantic and Pacific trade routes, becoming the de facto global currency and physical evidence of monetary integration between empires.
WH5-040 · The Silver Mountain — For the file
Silver coin minted from Potosí ore, stamped with Spanish crown marks and fineness assay. Circulated across Atlantic and Pacific trade routes as standard exchange medium in colonial commerce and Asian markets.
WH5-041 · The Silver Mountain — Go and look
A silver coin minted from Potosí ore, stamped with Spanish royal marks and assay symbols, circulated across three continents as the standard unit of global trade from the 1570s onward.
WH5-042 · The Silver Mountain — Now, today
A Ming Dynasty official document restricting silver imports and mandating copper-cash circulation, demonstrating how monetary demand—not supply alone—drove the Potosí silver rush across three continents.
WH5-043 · The Silver Mountain — Teach it back
A coin minted from Potosí silver in the 16th–17th century, stamped with Spanish royal marks. Its circulation from Spanish America to Manila to China demonstrates how one mountain's output physically moved across oceans and reshaped prices in three continents.
WH5-044 · The Silver Mountain — The other place
A tapered silver ingot stamped with weight and purity marks, the standard monetary form in Ming and Qing China that accumulated vast quantities of New World silver, reshaping the empire's money supply and price levels.
WH5-045 · The Silver Mountain — One object, close
A printed price edict from Ming Beijing listing grain costs in silver taels, documenting the monetary demand that drew American silver across the Pacific and shaped global commerce.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?
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