Basques and Vicuñas at the Mouth of Hell: A Documentary History of Potosí in the Early 1620s

＂Made up of original, contrasting narratives translated and published here for the first time, Basques and Vicuänas at the Mouth of Hell explores one of the great puzzles of colonial Latin American history: Why did ＂nationalist＂ factions arise in the midst of the world’s greatest silver bonanza in the highland city of Potosâi, Bolivia, and why did they attack each other with murderous violence? Just as importantly, how was this dispute resolved, or was it? Newly discovered documents help tell this fascinating, true story of gangland violence, political intrigue, and an unstable government＂--

Kris Lane holds the France V. Scholes Chair in Colonial Latin American History at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of Pandemic in Potosí Fear, Loathing, and Public Piety in a Colonial Mining Metropolis; Potosí The Silver City that Changed the World, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750; Colour of Paradise: Columbian Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires; and Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. Lane is currently writing a history of the great Potosí mint fraud of the 1640s.

Timothy F. Johnson is Associate Professor of Spanish at Central College. His research centers on the early modern connections between literature and warfare, and he has translated several colonial texts in collaboration with Kris Lane, including The Indian Militia and Description of the Indies and Defending the Conquest: Bernardo de Vargas Machuca’s Defense and Discourse of the Western Conquests.