Aportación documental sobre la minería peruana: Cajatambo, 1584-1596

Abstract

The chief aim of this work is to offer a transcription and introductory study of a littleknown document encountered in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, which may be of interest to scholars of lower-Peruvian mining in the sixteenth century. On the basis of this documentation, analysis is made of some of the factors affecting mining in Cajatambo. The article begins with the discovery of the silver mines of Chingos in 1584. It goes on to review different aspects relating to the establishment of a mining centre which, though remaining active throughout the whole of the Spanish colonial period, for various reasons failed to fulfil the expectations held of it. At their discovery the mines raised hopes of a new Potosí, but just a few years later, miners at the centre were ruined.