The most massive robbery in history: how much gold the Spaniards exported from America

The Spanish conquerors who reached the coast of America were amazed at the amount of gold jewelry and household items that the locals had. A few decades later, when most of the gold was exported to Spain, inflation occurred in Europe, caused by such a sharp influx of precious metal.

In the Middle Ages, gold was the most valuable metal in Europe, so the primary task of the conquistadors was to capture as much of this metal as possible. It is difficult to judge the true extent of such a grandiose robbery, but there are some data on the payment of taxes to the Spanish treasury, according to which you can get a peculiar idea of ​​the volumes of exported metal.

Inca rulers possessed an incredible amount of gold reserves. When the Inca leader Atahualpa was captured in 1532, the Spaniards demanded a ransom for him. Francisco Pizarro and his closest associates received almost 6 tons of gold and about 10-12 tons of silver for the leader. After receiving the ransom, the leader was still killed. Before loading everything onto the ships, the Spaniards remelted the gold products they received. The unique treasures of Native American civilization (and the Incas had not only their gold reserves, but also captured by them as a result of numerous campaigns and wars from other tribes of Central America) were simply melted into bullion. It took the Spaniards more than a month to turn gold items into bullion.

But the gold and silver paid by the Indians for the leader Atahualpa was only a small part of what the conquistadors took out. There were numerous trips to the largest cities of the Indian states, from which the conquistadors invariably returned with rich mining in the form of gold, silver and precious stones. According to the records of the Spanish priest and historian Pedro Ciez de Leon, about 500 tons of gold were exported from America to Spain between 1541 and 1560.

But the looted wealth brought little happiness to its owners. The king of Spain spent most of the gold received in the form of taxes on the payment of debts and military expenses: supplying the army with food, purchasing weapons and ammunition. The treasury quickly emptied, and tons of the precious metal at the same time provoked an increase in inflation: the huge amount of gold supplied to the markets caused its depreciation. Conquistadors, greatly enriched in the redemption of Atahualpa and as a result of further robberies, were mostly killed by the Indians or their own accomplices.

According to eyewitnesses, the gold that the Spanish conquistadors managed to export from America is only a small part of all Inca treasures. According to the researchers, the immense wealth of the empire was taken out of temples and large cities on time and safely hidden. This haunted many adventurers in those distant times. They regularly equipped expeditions to search for cities in which innumerable treasures were allegedly stored. And still there are daredevils who go to the wild jungle of the Amazon or to the arid mountains of Peru in the hope of discovering treasures hidden by the Indians.

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