The first mint in the Indies was opened at what was eventually to be called Mexico City in 1536, and it was here that some of the silver was first made into coins.
Mexico led the world in silver production during the 17th and 18th centuries, just as it has continued doing so into the 21st Century. Under the viceroys, after 1550, New Spain’s annual yield averaged 20 million oz of silver and about 150,000 oz of gold. During the 40-year period from 1732 to 1772, Mexico City alone turned out almost 480 million pesos (about 15,310 metric tons). Annually, 22 million silver pesos were produced in New Spain. Of this, up to 5 million pesos were shipped west from Acapulco on the Manila galleons as "silk money." Of this, 5 million pesos were absorbed into local economies with the remainder, about 14 million pesos together with about 100,000 oz of gold, opals and amethysts, going by mule to Veracruz. There, combined with gold and gems from the Far East and pearls from Margarita Island, it was shipped back to Spain via the New Spain Armada.
An area called the Mainland (a/k/a New Granada, which later became known as Colombia), yielded gold, silver and nearly all the world's emeralds and platinum (which, at the time, the Spanish called "false" silver because it had little value). Another area, the Choco region of the north Andes, became a gold producer that equaled the whole province of Peru. In 1556, 438,000 oz (about 14 metric tons) of gold was refined in Choco. Annually, and for many years thereafter, 200,000 to 400,000 oz of gold as well as large amounts of silver were extracted there, most of it sent by mule to the city of Santa Fe de Bogotá, where a Royal Mint went into operation in 1627. When finished, coins came down from the mountain city on their way to Cartagena. To this location were also brought diamonds, silver and gold from Venezuela, and pearls from offshore islands. In an average year, about 4 million silver pesos, 300,000 oz (about 9.6 metric tons) of gold and great amounts of emeralds, diamonds, pearls, amethysts, turquoise and other semiprecious stones of immense value, were shipped on the Tierra Firme Armadas to Spain.
The third and richest division of Spanish America was in Peru, encompassing nearly the entire western coast of South America. Long before Pizarro set foot here, the Incas were mining silver, gold, tin, copper and mercury. From 1572 thru 1664, the mountain town of Potosi alone produced 641 million silver pesos (about 18,172 metric tons). In the province of Huancavelica, major amounts of mercury were mined (it was an important factor in the refining of silver). Once production got underway, the annual treasure export from Peru was about 250,000 oz (about 8 metric tons) of gold and 12 million pesos in silver (about 383 metric tons).
The total value of precious metal, pearls and gems that the Spanish took from the Americas during the over 300 years from their colonies is a figure that, today, would be impossible to value. In terms of the quantity of mined silver alone, that estimate may be as high as 9 billion oz (about 280,000 metric tons).