Argentina

Colonial Argentina was the southern edge of Spanish Peru — the gobernaciones of Río de la Plata and Tucumán until 1776, then the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata — and its money came overwhelmingly from one place: the silver of Potosí, a few weeks’ mule train north of Salta. Accounts were kept in pesos de a ocho reales, struck at Potosí in the crude cob form until the milled coinage of 1773, with gold circulating as the escudo at two silver pesos, so sums in pesos convert to fine gold through a documented tariff rather than a guess. Hard coin was scarce despite the silver passing through, and much of the interior settled accounts in mules, cotton cloth and yerba mate, which means a sum actually named in pesos usually marks a formal written obligation. The Acuerdos of the Buenos Aires cabildo were published in full, cathedral chapter acts record chapel-master and organist stipends, and the viceregal courts preserved theatrical contracts almost by accident, because the parties fell out. That is the particular interest of the territory: it was poor and peripheral, so a painter, an organist or an actress here was paid a sum someone had to argue for in writing, and the arguments are what the archive kept.

Making a film here? The Canada–Argentina corridor covers the treaty, the incentives, and where to start.