GSSC Seminar Series
5 November 2024
Unlocking Nature's Secrets, North & South: The Transatlantic Trials of Álvaro Alonso Barba, Seventeenth-Century Metallurgist
Kris Lane (Tulane University)
12:00-13:00
Mineral extraction all but defined Spanish colonialism in America, certainly in the eyes of others, but it has long been assumed that Hispanic science was retarded and otherwise deficient. This brief paper treats the strange case of Álvaro Alonso Barba, a Spanish metallurgist who migrated to what is today Bolivia in the early seventeenth century, where he became something of a celebrity. Late in life, Barba was called back to Spain to revive ancient Roman mines, including those at Río Tinto, not far from his birthplace. Steeped in alchemical theory yet a keen experimenter who had also learned much from Indigenous Andean prospectors and refiners, Barba was a rare example of a return migrant who believed that what he had learned in the "New World" could revolutionize mineral extraction in the "Old."
Kris Lane specializes in the Andes region of South America, focusing on the history of extractive industries and their global and local impacts. His research spans Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, and Chile, with a deep interest in the environmental and social consequences of mining.
In Quito 1599 (2002), he explores the city’s early role as a gold producer, while Colour of Paradise (2010) traces Colombian emeralds to global markets. His 2019 book, Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World, examines the rise and fall of Latin America’s richest mining city and its central role in global trade. His latest work, Pandemic in Potosí (2021), analyzes a deadly 18th-century disease outbreak in the Andes.
His current project, Royal Scam: The Great Potosí Mint Fraud of 1649, investigates a major colonial coin debasement scheme, while he also studies the Basque-Vicuña War of 17th-century Potosí. He co-authors textbooks on Latin American and world history.