Riches of the Andean region (part I)

Our previous post was a chance to revisit a historical episode of the Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire. Today I am going to jump many years in order to mention, not so much political history as economics history which I will try my best to describe in layman's language, as I am certainly no economist.

When the Spanish Conquest of the Americas came to an end around 1540, there must have been a question in everyone's mind, that is, in the mind of those who have risked life and limb coming from the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Leon to these remote lands, newly incorporated to the known world. Where is my pot of gold? Will there be any gold from the Incas left, since all the action seems to be finished? In other words, what would the economic future of the Americas be like other than the exploiting of the mines of gold and silver?

The answer included a much familiar tune of "baaaah" as in "Baaah Baaah black sheep, have you any wool" Wool was to play a important role in the economic history of South America. To understand this, we must remember that many of the Conquistadors were soldier mercenaries from poor regions of Spain like Extremadura (literally Extreme and Hard) . Men like Francisco Pizarro, the Conquistador of Peru, had fought in many battlefields in the Old World, after escaping the extreme poverty of their youth (the story is told that in childhood Pizarro had had to eat pods and acorns such as those which were fed to the pigs in Extremadura). Now that these men had land of their own by right of conquest they must have thought of bringing the roaming Merino sheep of the Castilian plateau to the lands of the New World. Perhaps for some former hired-hand shepherds, now grazing landowners, this would have felt like finally having arrived.

Yet in the Andean region there was already an native source of wool in the alpacas, llamas and vicuñas. Would they be displaced by Spanish Merino sheep? What happened to them? That will be the subject of the next post.