tions. From the period of the administration of Cortéz to the year 1552, when the celebrated mines of Zacatecas were just opened, the export from Mexico, rarely reached in value, annually, 100,000 pesos de oro, or nearly $1,165,000. But from that date it rose rapidly, and in the years 1569, 1578 and 1587, it was already, respectively—
| 931,564 | Pesos de oro. | The Peso de oro, is rated by Prescott, at $11.65 cents, and by Ramirez, at $2.93 cents.[1] | |
| 1,111,202 | "" | ||
| 1,812,051 | "" |
During the last peaceful epoch of the Spanish domination. Baron Humboldt calculates the annual yield of the mines of Mexico at not more than $23,000,000, or nearly 1,184,000 pounds, avoirdupois, of silver, and 3,500 pounds, avoirdupois, of gold. From 1690 to 1803—$1,330,772,093 were coined in the only mint of Mexico; while, from the discovery of New Spain until its independence, about $2,028,000,000, or two-fifths of all the precious metals which the whole of the New World has supplied during the same period, were furnished by Mexico alone. [2]
It appears from these data that the exhaustion of the mines of Mexico is contradicted by the geognostic facts of the country, and as we shall hereafter show, by the recent issues of Mexican mints. The mint of Zacatecas, alone, during the revolutionary epoch, from 1811 to 1833, struck more than $66,332,766, and, in the eleven last years of this period, from four to five millions of dollars were coined by it every year uninterruptedly.
The general metallic production of the country,—which was of course impeded by the revolutionary state of New Spain between 1809 and 1826,—has arisen refreshed from its slumber, so that, according to the best accounts it has ascended to perhaps twenty millions annually in total production, in consequence of the prolific yield of the workings at Fresnillo, Chihuahua, and Sonora, independent of the abundant production at Zacatecas.
- ↑ See M. Ternaux-Compans' Original Memoirs of the discovery of America—(Conquest of Mexico, p. 451)—Compans publishes in this, for the first time, an official list sent between 1522 and 1587 by the viceroys of New Spain to the mother country. The pesos of gold, must be multiplied by a mean of eleven dollars and sixty-five cents in order to give their value in dollars. See Banker's Magazine, ut antea, p. 594, in note. See Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico, vol. i., 320. Raminez, in his notes on the Spanish translation of Prescott's History of the Conquest rates the peso de oro at two dollars and ninety-three cents. This result is reached by a long financial calculation and course of reasoning. See La Conquista de Mejico,vol. ii., at p. 89 of the notes at the end of the volume.
- ↑ This is Humboldt's estimate in the essay cited in this section. We think it rather too large, yet give it upon such high authority. See our general table of Mexican coinage.
