"Potosi produced more than three-quarters of the world’s silver between its discovery and the end of the 1700s. The amount of precious metal coming out of that mountain was enough to briefly make Spain the richest and most powerful nation in the world, then to throw its economy into inflationary turmoil. Potosi’s silver traveled the globe — much of it eventually settled in China, as European aristocrats used Potosi silver to purchase goods from Asia."








