Wages, Ore Sharing, and Peasant Agriculture: Labor in Oruro’s Silver Mines, 1607-1720
ALTHOUGH a major comparative study of labor in the silver imines of colonial Mexico and Upper Perut (present-day Bolivia) has yet to be published, a number of moniographs have appeared about mining in each of these important mineral producing areas.' While not all of these works deal exclusively or extensively with the mines' workers, they have illustrated some important differences in the organization of labor in the two regions. One of these is that forced labor was only used in a limited fashion during the first years of Mexican mining, while most historians concur that in Upper Peru's most important mines, at Potosi, the governmiient-organized labor draft known as the mita provided a significant portionl of the work force throughout the colonial period.2 Another difference is that during the eighteenth century owners in many Mexicani mines successfully elimi-