Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
let alone crops, can grow within a radius of 22 miles. Provisions for
the population and supplies for the Spanish mines had to come from
across the high sierras. Consequently, commerce in mercury, mules,
foodstuffs, and consumer goods required extensive trade contacts
with Peru, Chile, and the Río de la Plata. One 17th-century traveler
explained that everyone in Potosí, whether gentleman, officer, or cler-
gyman, seemed to be engaged in commerce.
The city that minted a great part of the world's supply of silver coins
for approximately 260 years supported a large volume of local trade. Each
day the roads leading to Potosí were choked with mule trains, llamas,
indigenous pack carriers, and herds of sheep and cattle. High transport
costs raised the price of foodstuffs in Potosí to twice the price of victuals
anywhere else in the region. As the terrain forbade wheeled vehicles,
mules served to transport loads of silver, mercury to process the ore, and
foodstuffs. Annually, more than 26,000 mules were driven to Potosí.
The Potosí market sustained the original settlement of the Río de la
Plata, supporting groups of Spanish settlers who intended to establish
commercial lifelines to the silver city of colonial Bolivia. Europeans
from Peru first descended into the Río de la Plata to settle Santiago
del Estero in 1553. Tucumán, some 140 miles back toward Potosí on
the road, was founded 12 years later. Córdoba's foundation in 1573
extended the land route to the edge of the Pampas. The establishment
in 1583 of Salta and Jujuy, closer to the highland markets, secured the
road to Potosí.
Other trading routes were founded in the meantime to link the Río
de la Plata to Spanish settlements in what are now modern-day Chile
and Paraguay. From the Pacific coast, Spaniards crossed the Andes to
found Mendoza and San Juan in 1561. Similarly, mestizo leaders from
the Paraguayan settlement at Asunción went down the Paraná River
to secure towns at Corrientes in 1558, at Santa Fe 15 years later, and
finally at Buenos Aires in 1580. (See map on page 2.)
The Mule Fair of Salta
Befitting their positions as gateways to the Peruvian highlands, Salta
and Jujuy became the foremost commercial cities of the colonial period.
Salta's principal commercial attraction was its famous mule fair, held
each February and March on the meadows at the edge of the Lerma
Valley. The fair annually attracted hundreds of buyers from Peru and
equal numbers of sellers of mules, corn, cattle, wines, beef jerky, tallow,
and wheat. Tents and field beds of merchants spread out over the mud,
 
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