The New World:

Professional miners from the more advanced parts of Europe had the status of free men around the time of the discovery of America. In the New World the Spanish and Portuguese put natives of the land to work in mines as forced labor. They were later assisted by imported slaves. There was a chance in the latter part of the colonial era in which free native labor working for wages slowly replaced the previous forced labor.

Spanish law required that all gold belonged to the King. The King decreed that any of his subjects could search for gold and acquire the right to work what they discovered. This decree sparked widespread mining and prospecting from Mexico to Chile. Many “boom towns” arose to accommodate the needs of these men and their gangs of laborers. These “boom towns” had very similar characteristics to those of the later mining communities located in the United States.