An indigenous laborer named Diego Gualpa discovers an immense vein of silver on the mountain of Cerro Rico in Potosí, modern-day Bolivia. The Spanish Empire quickly establishes a massive mining complex that becomes the economic engine of its global empire. To sustain extraction, Viceroy Francisco de Toledo institutionalizes the 'mita', a brutal system of forced indigenous labor that forces thousands to work in toxic underground shafts. Potosí becomes one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world, flooding global markets with silver, causing a European price revolution, and connecting global trade routes from Manila to Seville.

The tragic scale and boundless wealth of Potosí generate a massive corpus of colonial poetry and literature, giving rise to the Spanish phrase 'vale un Potosí' (worth a fortune). Indigenous and mestizo writers, most notably Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala in his 'Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno', use poetic laments and illustrations to denounce the human cost of the silver mines. The mountain of Cerro Rico becomes a dark symbol of greed and suffering in Baroque poetry, influencing poets like Luis de Góngora who write about the corrupting nature of imported wealth.