'The city’s former opulence was achieved through one of the worst examples of slavery in the Americas.'

In a special report, Martin Piper visits the Potosi mine in Bolivia, where indigenious and African slaves died in their thousands but the mining of silver continuies to this day

The mining town of Potosi sits in the arid mountains of southwest Bolivia.

As you approach, passing typical housing built from adobe, topped with a tin roof, it is difficult to believe that this was once, one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world.

The city’s former opulence was achieved through one of the worst examples of slavery in the Americas.

The Spanish founded Potosi in 1545 after they stumbled across silver in a large hill to the east of where the city now stands. Cerro Rico (Rich Hill) turned out to be the biggest silver deposit in all the Americas, it yielded enough silver that it fuelled the Spanish economy and its monarch's extravagance.

Looting

The Spaniards desire for luxury items from elsewhere within Europe and the rest of Europe’s desire for Spanish silver, whether achieved through trade or by the looting of vessels destined for Seville by pirates, in turn meant that Spanish silver underwrote the economy of much of Europe at the time.

During more than three centuries of colonial rule it is estimated that 45,000 tonnes of silver was extracted and shipped off, destined for Spain.

The popular boast at the time was that “a bridge of silver could be built from the New World to Spain, with still enough silver to carry across it.”

These great riches came at a human cost of an estimated 8 million slaves. As the indigenous began to die out, slaves from Africa were shipped over and sent to work the mines in appalling conditions, many lasting only six months before dying from accident or disease.

My recent visit to Potosi taught me that conditions had changed little since the end of the colonial period. I met my guide, Erika, and we traveled by pickup through the cobbled streets passing many workers heading in both directions.

Men heading one way getting ready to start their early morning shift of 12 hours and men heading in the opposite direction having finished their 12 hour night shift. All looked equally weary, with blood shot eyes, chewing coca, looking beaten and hunched.

Explosives

Our first stop was to a small local store to buy gifts to give the miners as I went down into the shaft. I was shown nitroglycerine, amino-nitrate, coca leaves, surgical alcohol (for consumption only) and hand made cigarettes.

I opted for the last three, as they were at least products I was vaguely familiar with and after the miners had polished off a bottle of 100% proof, I wasn’t sure I trusted them to demonstrate homemade explosives to me down a mineshaft.

As we traveled on up the hill, Erika explained a little more about the mine. In the early 1800’s as most of Latin America gained independence from Spain, silver production began to decline.

Following more than a hundred years in the hands of German and British companies extracting tin, lead and zinc, the mines were nationalized, the price for ore continued to decline and in 1987 many miners were unemployed.

Today the miners work in cooperatives, of which there are 34. Lead, zinc and low-grade silver extraction, whilst meager, keeps the mines alive. Men work in shifts around the clock and boys start to work the mines as young as 12 years old.

Erika told me that most miners have a life expectancy of 10-15 years after starting work in the mines. Most die from Silicosis, a lung disease caused by inhaling the myriad toxic dust and chemicals they are exposed to. Many others die from frequent accidents underground.

Handouts

As we arrived, two young miners in their teens approached and asked for handouts before we entered the mineshaft they had just emerged from. Erika told me to give them a small bottle of the alcohol I had just procured and some coca leaves.

I wasn’t sure if they were old enough to drink, but realized such rules don’t really apply in a country like Bolivia, especially here in Potosi where one of the biggest annual festivals involves getting blind drunk and having bare-knuckle street brawls.

We went down deep into the shaft and soon began to pass miners shifting huge carts full of ore through a deep sludge of toxic waste. One of the first teams I met having a break were sat at the edge of the tunnel. They looked very young.

I asked the boys their names, the eldest, Roberto Jose was 20, the youngest Mario Lopez 13 told me “I have worked here for 6 months now, helping my father, my family have always worked here”.

As we went further into the mine, Erika told me more about the basic tools that the miners use. “We don’t have the money for modern equipment, we work in a cooperative, everything we earn is for food and our families.”

Each miner earns his income by the amount of ore he sells personally to a smelter through the cooperative, therefore if nothing of value is found in a week, the miners struggle to survive.

Stash

We carried on walking and crawling through the maze of mineshafts, passing many more workers digging, picking and struggling with carts. In exchange for a photo or two, I handed out more of my stash. The coca leaves help them to work longer hours without eating and the alcohol helps them forget their hardship.

Our last stop was a visit to Tio (uncle) a bizarre effigy representing the devil. “Hell is here underground and we have to appease Tio to extract the ore from him”, Erika explained.

The miners placate him with offerings of alcohol, coca leaves and cigarettes. We shared the little we had with him, pouring alcohol at his feet, placing coca leaves at his side and putting a lit cigarette in his mouth. We sat in the eerie silence for a few minutes, until the cigarette went out and it was safe to assume Tio was pleased.

Temperatures in the unventilated mines can range from below freezing to 45 C, after just a few hours the toxic air had taken its toll on me and I was desperate to see daylight.

We snaked our way back through the labyrinthine tunnels and up the shaft to the exit. As we emerged, eyes streaming, we looked down onto the once splendid city in the middle of the baron desolate landscape that is southern Bolivia, I asked Erika if she was worried about the health effects working as a tour guide for the cooperative.

“Yes,” she said.“Of course, but my husband has already died in the mines and I need to earn money for my children, here the mine is all we have.”

I wondered how history would have been different if this hill had not been discovered by the Spanish, if the returns from this serendipitous finding would have been in the hands of Bolivians instead of enabling the rise in power of European countries.

Perhaps Bolivia would be the wealthiest country in South America instead of its poorest.

Martin Piper is a former employee of Christian Aid who now lives and works in South America.

These are personal comments and not necessarily the position of Christian Aid or its partners.

• Read other columns from Martin Piper