How was the use of Latin America’s “precious metals” used to create wealth outside of Latin America and how did the capitalism of those places help to shift Latin America’s role in access?  Share specific examples from the reading but also discuss how this kind of development continues to happen today. (If you don’t know off-hand, it might require a bit of research / digging around). Consider our fruits – and take a pit stop into your local supermarket and just peruse where the fruits are from. Add this to your discussion if you are able to do it before Tuesday at midnight. Specifically returning to the idea of the “precious metals” think about Latin America’s wealth of past.

This quote seems to encapsulate the idea of Columbus’s involvement in Latin America (primarily and at its very top of the larger framework of the extraction of wealth). What’s your take?

The Latin American colonies were discovered, conquered, and colonized within the process of the expansion of commercial capital. Europe stretched out its arms to clasp the whole world. Neither Spain nor Portugal received the benefits of the sweeping advance of capitalist mercantilism, although it was their colonies that substantially supplied the gold and silver feeding this expansion. As we have seen, while Latin America’s precious metals made deceptive fortunes for a Spanish nobility living in a belated and contrahistorical Middle Age, they simultaneously sealed the ruin of Spain in centuries to come. It was in other parts of Europe that modern capitalism could be incubated, taking decisive advantage of the expropriation of primitive American peoples. The rape of accumulated treasure was followed by the systematic exploitation of the forced labor of Indians and abducted Africans in the mines (29).

Are there other places in this chapter that you found especially important/interesting? (Be sure to include page quotes).