The First New Chronicle

Reading the First New Chronicle I was struck by one thing in particular. "Gold" Throughout the text Guaman mentions the Conquistadors lust for gold and silver many times. This to me highlights one of the huge post Columbus drivers of exploration to the New World. Riches were always desired by the explorers of the era and Columbus himself desired a new path to the orient to facilitate trade. Once the New World had been discovered and the whispers of gold reached across the Atlantic the fate of the Americas was sealed. When I visited Peru and other countries in South America one constant in historical sites and museums was the same call of gold that drew the conquistadors. When captured in Cajamarca the Inca Atahualpa offered as ransom for his life a room filled with gold once and silver twice to a height of eight feet. Even though this ransom was paid Atahualpa was killed. In his text Guaman compares the spaniards to cats with a mouse nearly within their grasp. Once they catch it they rejoice, until then they think of nothing else. This lust for gold is still present in South America today. The Amazon rainforest is being devastated by illegal gold mining. Thousands of small illicit mines are scaring the Amazon basin and poisoning its waterways which thousands of indigenous peoples rely on to survive. Silver also drove much pain in the Americas. El Cerro Rico in Potosi, Bolivia produced a huge amount of silver bullion for the Spanish Empire and continues to produce that precious metal to this day. Thousands of indigenous peoples lost their lives under El Cerro Rico and even today miners give offering to "El Tio" under the mountain to keep them safe.This lust for gold and silver shaped Peru, Bolivia and other Latin American nations in the past centuries and continues to do so today. God, Glory and Gold were said to be the three main drivers in the quest for the New World. Gold seemed to be chief among those.