The Mexican gunpowder dilemma

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

...WHY was Mexican gun powder so bad?

Specially taking into account that the invention was brought there by the Spanish Cortez early in the XVI century; and the joy shown in his letters to the Spanish King, due to the abundance of the necessary ingredients in local lands. I would take it as implicit that "cousin" fireworks was a tradition also brought by the Spaniards. It is not hard to realize that gunpowder takes more care to fabricate, but i would hardly digest the fact that preparing fireworks powder is a simple thing to achieve. One does not wake up in the morning and go to basement to fix some pyrotechnics only by reading the users manual; and eventually the risk to kick the bucket by mishandling the components appears to be the same in both cases.
Picture 1; an extract of Hernan Cortez report.
Picture 2 & 3; courtesy American Museum of Natural History.
Picture 4; How Goya saw the Spaniards performing the making of gunpowder.
Picture 5; The XVI century flour mill Molino del Rey in Mexico city, where next to it was the "old gunpowder mill".
Picture 6; a detail of the pavement in the pateo of the old (now museum) Portuguese black powder mill of Barcarena, where the bricks are positioned in "cleaver" and "spine", to avoid the risk of sparks by friction.


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