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Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World
Mineral wealth from the Americas underwrote and undergirded European colonization of the New World; American gold and silver enriched Spain, funded the slave trade, and spurred Spain's northern European competitors to become Atlantic powers. Building upon works that have narrated this global history of American mining in economic and labor terms, Mining Language is the first book-length study of the technical and scientific vocabularies that miners developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as they engaged with metallic materials. This language-centric focus enables Allison Bigelow to document the crucial intellectual contributions Indigenous and African miners made to the very engine of European colonialism.
By carefully parsing the writings of well-known figures such as Cristobal Colon and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes and lesser-known writers such Alvaro Alonso Barba, a Spanish priest who spent most of his life in the Andes, Bigelow uncovers the ways in which Indigenous and African metallurgists aided or resisted imperial mining endeavors, shaped critical scientific practices, and offered imaginative visions of metalwork. Her creative linguistic and visual analyses of archival fragments, images, and texts in languages as diverse as Spanish and Quechua also allow her to reconstruct the processes that led to the silencing of these voices in European print culture.
By carefully parsing the writings of well-known figures such as Cristobal Colon and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes and lesser-known writers such Alvaro Alonso Barba, a Spanish priest who spent most of his life in the Andes, Bigelow uncovers the ways in which Indigenous and African metallurgists aided or resisted imperial mining endeavors, shaped critical scientific practices, and offered imaginative visions of metalwork. Her creative linguistic and visual analyses of archival fragments, images, and texts in languages as diverse as Spanish and Quechua also allow her to reconstruct the processes that led to the silencing of these voices in European print culture.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published May 18, 2020
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September 21, 2025
Similar to Beyond Babel which argued against a one-sided view of knowledge transfer by enslaved Africans, Bigelow argues against "terminal narratives" that many subaltern communities like the Taino didn't simply "vanish" or have no contribution but rather informed much of Iberian colonial mining language, thinking, and epistemes
and chapter summaries:
1
~1500
"coger oro" became the island expression of gold mining, but this shows Taino understandings of the process rather than Spanish. Historical linguists compiled Taino corpus. All ideas of gold contain some significance. Latin gold means fire or something. Royal refiner ==Oviedo== maintained a reverence for traditional gold mining, beleived local gold was very pure. His natural histories contained lots of indigenous words as well and focus on their individual actions, in opposition to Pliny who focused on the broad happenings. A lot of words in Spanish suggest combined with Oviedo's writings suggest that ideas, bodies, and technical practices introduced themselves into colonial Spanish gold industry
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
- Oviedo, a royal refiner, shows how, in his writing, indigenus ideas, bodies, and technical practices introduced themselves into colonial gold industry.
2
~1520s
Taino culture was not completely destroyed. A map of la Espanola shows how environmental realities and Indigenous histories shaped early Spanish settlements. This started when Catholic monarchs responded to disease, food issues, losses of life by telling people to study the indigenous and recognized them as humans. They were valuable labor and they helped form gold refining processes, designing buildings according to Tainoian cosmologogy. She uses visual analysis to show that all Taino men, regardless of social status, engaged in collectively mining of gold for its secular and sacred power. It also shows the technical knowledges of Taino. Subaltern miners influence community life and design of metalworkin districts.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
- Taino subaltern miners introduced knowledge into Iberian mining thinking which shaped early Spanish settlement
3
~1525
Pedo Lopez de Mesa petitioned the government at their disadvantage to change the mining season until the summers. He claimed the yellow leafed plants could be harvested if it were to change. The crown accepted which was surprising because of the hurricane and the preference of sailors for immediate profit. But this was probably because of cosmology of Taino. A guy named Pane wrote an elaborate Taino creation myth. Older historigraphical assumptions think that the Taino perspective was small and vanishing. This is disproven by the obvious fact that Taino world was not self-contained based off history, linguistics, literary studies, visual analysis
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Taino perspective was not small and vanishing but rather had some impacts on both the crown and other subaltern American groups.
4
Iberian ironworks were known for being good, they didn't need to go to Africa or Indies. Iron was seen as healing. d'Orta is a Sephardic physician living in Goa who wrote about South Asian/Iberian healing processes. Monardes is a Spanish writer from Seville who wrote about New World and Old World materials in healing. Both group Asians and Indigenous Americans as "indios". Both incorporated some of the concepts from their regions into their writing but both were written out. Simultaneously, both incorporated some humanistic elements which assumed their medicine would work on both bodies. Colon saw the lack of iron weapons in the new world as a sign of backwardness. There are passages on the association between iron metals and degree of blackness. Skin color similarly became a fact which evidenced intangible truths about a place and its people. Similarly, Monardes draws on classical theories of minerogenesis but uses modern racial and ethnic classifications to convey them. He describes gold as clean and pure and iron as black and dark. Monardes does, however, disagree with imperialist voices to say that physical objects cannot be proxies for culture and civilization of a place. Monardes esteemed iron.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Both d'Orta and Monardes fought against imperialistic voices which used physical objects and their colors as proxies for culture and civilization, arguing that many dark materials, like iron, were beneficial. They also incorporated much indigenous knowledge in their writings.
5
~1574-1620
There was a similar erasure of South Asian expertise when work was returned to Europe. d'Orta and Monardes became a tool for talking about machinery of Iberian empires, modes of information gathering, and transfer of medical/scientific knowledge from India. D'Orta agrees with Monardes that color is not a scientifically meaningful way of marking differences on plants or minerals. d'Orta includes many global perspectives. Clusius' natural history translations lose dialogue exchanges and performative elements which provide multiple perspectives in d'Orta's works. Antoine Colin also mistranslated lots or dropped dialogue. All this mistranslation rendered the non-European ideas invisible.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Unfortunately, lots of this humanism based on non-European ideas was written out in translation, voiding the prior dialogic structure which presented multiple perspectives.
Copper
6
~1540
Focused on genre - what imperialists wrote about. Focuses on search for copper in la florida. Copper was a valuable global currency, especially in demand in African slave markets. In Africa, copper seen as important connector between material plane and spiritual plane. Colonists tried to find copper but instead received information on fertile soil. Soto, a Spanish guy, went into America to find copper, failed a lot. Got frustrated, made an alliance, found copper, stole a ton of people, took some pearls, got everything taken, and then lamented nobody would find his stuff. Soto's story was retold by Hakluyt in English. Reframed as Virginia. He had to claim that the indigenous were dishonest but he wanted there to be wealth so he made his title very extremely named.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Imperial search for copper was brutal and copper was related to the slave trade. Indigenous epistemes were rejected and struggled against in the search. Most writing about the search was similar; a white person tries to find copper wealth and natives were dishonest.
7
Focused on form - how imperialists structured what they wrote about. focuses on proposals for copper mines. Reveal what colonial actors and agents believed possible. Huge crisis in Spain, projectors allowed to propose crazy ideas. don Manuel proposed a copper mining colony of enslaved Africans who would mine and then Indigenous would provide food for them. Africans would provide almost no role. Author posits black artisan expertise and community life informed his vision. Copper mining went on in El Cobre. Crown became uncomfortable excercizing direct control over enslaved miners because they proved their relationship to the land, resources, etc. ==this all suggests how ideas about copper mining and colonization moved between linguistic and regional traditions. All the writers (Torres, Elvas (Soto), Vaca, Haklyut) were not in self-contained worlds. They drew frm each other's stories==
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Racial thinking informed imperial metallurgy, with some authors suggesting they could make self-sufficient community of Africans and Indigenous. This simultaneously communicates how these communities were valued for their expertise.
Silver
8
~1640
Barba, priest from Andalusia who lived most of his life in the Andes, wrote about silver processing technologies which dependended on labor and ideas of miners from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Texts are also translated and lose much indigenous knowledge. Colonists relied on ancestral spiritual Inca pathways for mercury transport (useful for silver). Barba used some Quechua words. Lost in translation to other European languages
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Barba represents how linguistic footprint was placed upon Iberian mining thinking.
9
16th and 17th century
==study of the colonial science reveals the epistomological (knowledge-related) contributions of indigenous==. SPecialized Andean minng knowledges are transmuted into a racialized colonial vocabulary. Like taxonomy - castes, sorts, genres. Scientific writers in Enlightenment Europe denied the epistemological sophistication of metallurgical techniques from Latin America, even as they admitted the practical efficacies of such methods. As they waxed poetic on the importance of experience, prestigious writers like Ignaz von Born defined “true” scientific knowledge in theoretical terms rather than observed applications. In this paradoxical process, their Enlightenment projects marginalized the contributions of non-European agents.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Racial thinking impacted the way Europeans looked at mining, changed indigenous knowledge to be put upon racialized lines. Also claimed a preference for "true" knowledge - theoretical terms not observed applications (like how the indigenous worked)
10
18th century -
writers usually used the framing of like to unlike. Colonial writers like Cardenas and Barba made sameness a source of material change, marking a difference in their worldview (of mining) vs European. 18th century thinkers began to think of similarity and difference in a way which differed from earlier colonial thinkers. This change was more similar to the indigenous inspired Barba.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Thinking came full circle in the 18th century when it began to focus on similarity and difference more like the indigenously inspired Barba.
and chapter summaries:
1
~1500
"coger oro" became the island expression of gold mining, but this shows Taino understandings of the process rather than Spanish. Historical linguists compiled Taino corpus. All ideas of gold contain some significance. Latin gold means fire or something. Royal refiner ==Oviedo== maintained a reverence for traditional gold mining, beleived local gold was very pure. His natural histories contained lots of indigenous words as well and focus on their individual actions, in opposition to Pliny who focused on the broad happenings. A lot of words in Spanish suggest combined with Oviedo's writings suggest that ideas, bodies, and technical practices introduced themselves into colonial Spanish gold industry
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
- Oviedo, a royal refiner, shows how, in his writing, indigenus ideas, bodies, and technical practices introduced themselves into colonial gold industry.
2
~1520s
Taino culture was not completely destroyed. A map of la Espanola shows how environmental realities and Indigenous histories shaped early Spanish settlements. This started when Catholic monarchs responded to disease, food issues, losses of life by telling people to study the indigenous and recognized them as humans. They were valuable labor and they helped form gold refining processes, designing buildings according to Tainoian cosmologogy. She uses visual analysis to show that all Taino men, regardless of social status, engaged in collectively mining of gold for its secular and sacred power. It also shows the technical knowledges of Taino. Subaltern miners influence community life and design of metalworkin districts.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
- Taino subaltern miners introduced knowledge into Iberian mining thinking which shaped early Spanish settlement
3
~1525
Pedo Lopez de Mesa petitioned the government at their disadvantage to change the mining season until the summers. He claimed the yellow leafed plants could be harvested if it were to change. The crown accepted which was surprising because of the hurricane and the preference of sailors for immediate profit. But this was probably because of cosmology of Taino. A guy named Pane wrote an elaborate Taino creation myth. Older historigraphical assumptions think that the Taino perspective was small and vanishing. This is disproven by the obvious fact that Taino world was not self-contained based off history, linguistics, literary studies, visual analysis
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Taino perspective was not small and vanishing but rather had some impacts on both the crown and other subaltern American groups.
4
Iberian ironworks were known for being good, they didn't need to go to Africa or Indies. Iron was seen as healing. d'Orta is a Sephardic physician living in Goa who wrote about South Asian/Iberian healing processes. Monardes is a Spanish writer from Seville who wrote about New World and Old World materials in healing. Both group Asians and Indigenous Americans as "indios". Both incorporated some of the concepts from their regions into their writing but both were written out. Simultaneously, both incorporated some humanistic elements which assumed their medicine would work on both bodies. Colon saw the lack of iron weapons in the new world as a sign of backwardness. There are passages on the association between iron metals and degree of blackness. Skin color similarly became a fact which evidenced intangible truths about a place and its people. Similarly, Monardes draws on classical theories of minerogenesis but uses modern racial and ethnic classifications to convey them. He describes gold as clean and pure and iron as black and dark. Monardes does, however, disagree with imperialist voices to say that physical objects cannot be proxies for culture and civilization of a place. Monardes esteemed iron.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Both d'Orta and Monardes fought against imperialistic voices which used physical objects and their colors as proxies for culture and civilization, arguing that many dark materials, like iron, were beneficial. They also incorporated much indigenous knowledge in their writings.
5
~1574-1620
There was a similar erasure of South Asian expertise when work was returned to Europe. d'Orta and Monardes became a tool for talking about machinery of Iberian empires, modes of information gathering, and transfer of medical/scientific knowledge from India. D'Orta agrees with Monardes that color is not a scientifically meaningful way of marking differences on plants or minerals. d'Orta includes many global perspectives. Clusius' natural history translations lose dialogue exchanges and performative elements which provide multiple perspectives in d'Orta's works. Antoine Colin also mistranslated lots or dropped dialogue. All this mistranslation rendered the non-European ideas invisible.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Unfortunately, lots of this humanism based on non-European ideas was written out in translation, voiding the prior dialogic structure which presented multiple perspectives.
Copper
6
~1540
Focused on genre - what imperialists wrote about. Focuses on search for copper in la florida. Copper was a valuable global currency, especially in demand in African slave markets. In Africa, copper seen as important connector between material plane and spiritual plane. Colonists tried to find copper but instead received information on fertile soil. Soto, a Spanish guy, went into America to find copper, failed a lot. Got frustrated, made an alliance, found copper, stole a ton of people, took some pearls, got everything taken, and then lamented nobody would find his stuff. Soto's story was retold by Hakluyt in English. Reframed as Virginia. He had to claim that the indigenous were dishonest but he wanted there to be wealth so he made his title very extremely named.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Imperial search for copper was brutal and copper was related to the slave trade. Indigenous epistemes were rejected and struggled against in the search. Most writing about the search was similar; a white person tries to find copper wealth and natives were dishonest.
7
Focused on form - how imperialists structured what they wrote about. focuses on proposals for copper mines. Reveal what colonial actors and agents believed possible. Huge crisis in Spain, projectors allowed to propose crazy ideas. don Manuel proposed a copper mining colony of enslaved Africans who would mine and then Indigenous would provide food for them. Africans would provide almost no role. Author posits black artisan expertise and community life informed his vision. Copper mining went on in El Cobre. Crown became uncomfortable excercizing direct control over enslaved miners because they proved their relationship to the land, resources, etc. ==this all suggests how ideas about copper mining and colonization moved between linguistic and regional traditions. All the writers (Torres, Elvas (Soto), Vaca, Haklyut) were not in self-contained worlds. They drew frm each other's stories==
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Racial thinking informed imperial metallurgy, with some authors suggesting they could make self-sufficient community of Africans and Indigenous. This simultaneously communicates how these communities were valued for their expertise.
Silver
8
~1640
Barba, priest from Andalusia who lived most of his life in the Andes, wrote about silver processing technologies which dependended on labor and ideas of miners from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Texts are also translated and lose much indigenous knowledge. Colonists relied on ancestral spiritual Inca pathways for mercury transport (useful for silver). Barba used some Quechua words. Lost in translation to other European languages
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Barba represents how linguistic footprint was placed upon Iberian mining thinking.
9
16th and 17th century
==study of the colonial science reveals the epistomological (knowledge-related) contributions of indigenous==. SPecialized Andean minng knowledges are transmuted into a racialized colonial vocabulary. Like taxonomy - castes, sorts, genres. Scientific writers in Enlightenment Europe denied the epistemological sophistication of metallurgical techniques from Latin America, even as they admitted the practical efficacies of such methods. As they waxed poetic on the importance of experience, prestigious writers like Ignaz von Born defined “true” scientific knowledge in theoretical terms rather than observed applications. In this paradoxical process, their Enlightenment projects marginalized the contributions of non-European agents.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Racial thinking impacted the way Europeans looked at mining, changed indigenous knowledge to be put upon racialized lines. Also claimed a preference for "true" knowledge - theoretical terms not observed applications (like how the indigenous worked)
10
18th century -
writers usually used the framing of like to unlike. Colonial writers like Cardenas and Barba made sameness a source of material change, marking a difference in their worldview (of mining) vs European. 18th century thinkers began to think of similarity and difference in a way which differed from earlier colonial thinkers. This change was more similar to the indigenous inspired Barba.
How it relates to overarching argument of the book:
Thinking came full circle in the 18th century when it began to focus on similarity and difference more like the indigenously inspired Barba.
November 23, 2021
Goddam tour de force this book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews