Without coca there is no Potosi Luis Capoche’s perspective on the circumstances that went along with the issuance of the Viceroy Toledo ordinances regarding coca

Abstract

In the eagerness to justify the Spanish dominion over the natives or to issue administrative and tax measures that ease the process of America’s colonization , the royal authorities often found themselves between the cross and the feeling of gold; often they had no choice but to sacrifice religious zeal over trade stability. An example of this is given by Luis Capoche’s description, in his Main relationship of the “Villa Imperial de Poto- sí”, on the circumstances that went along with the issuance, by Viceroy Toledo and the ordinan- ces that attempted to regulate the production and the trade of the coca leaf.