Mita
Andean system of rotational draft labor, pre-Hispanic in origin, adapted by the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru from the 1570s to supply workers — most notoriously to the silver mines of Potosí. It kept the silver economy running and imposed heavy, well-documented human costs on the communities subject to it.
Why this wins its question: Mita appears in silver-trade narratives as a footnote or as a synonym for slavery; the glossary defines the institution precisely — origin, mechanism, cost — with the same sources the instance uses for the silver economy itself, keeping the two stories linked.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The colonial mita, organized under viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s, adapted the Inca practice of rotational communal labor into a draft that obliged Andean communities to send a quota of workers to designated employments, above all the Potosí mines.
The mita was among the heaviest burdens the colonial order placed on Andean communities — driving flight, demographic strain and social disruption documented in the historical literature — and it belongs on the cost side of any honest account of the silver economy.