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Cochineal Production and Trade in New Spain to 1600

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Raymond L. Lee*
Affiliation:
Stephens College, Columbia, Mo.

Extract

Beyond All Question, the most valuable export of colonial Mexico was silver. However, the exaggerated emphasis usually accorded to this fact has tended to obscure the importance of other products in the Mexican colonial economy. Prior to the development of synthetic dyestuffs, the native dyes of New Spain ranked among her more valuable products. Such important tinting agents as Campeche wood (logwood), indigo, and cochineal were discovered in Mexico shortly after the conquest, and they were soon exported to the mother coutry in considerable volume. From Spain these raw dyestuffs were reexported to all of Europe, where, although the impact of American dyestuffs on the European economy has never been fully evaluated, these New World products served to bring about a revolution in the cloth industry of the continent.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1947

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