Kendall Brown is a recognized specialist in colonial Peruvian history, particularly in mercury mining (centred around the town of Huancavelica). His book, A History of Mining in Latin America, is intended as a “general survey of Latin American mining”, though much of his account is focused on Potosí. The author acknowledges, then, that he cannot offer a complete study, and that it is his intention to provide an overview that “highlights major issues” in an industry that has played a fundamental role at all levels of analysis: globally, in the emergence of a world economy, as well as locally, resorting to “extreme forms of coercion to secure workers” (p. xviii) and causing “devastating long-term harm”.
Brown's ensemble of “issues” is focused mainly on production, the varying labour systems, and the use of technology. Four chapters analyse mining throughout the colonial period, while three chapters examine the postcolonial era. The book closes with a stimulating additional chapter that discusses, across periods, the effects on the environment.
The book starts with a brief overview of the search for gold and precious metals in the early years of exploration and conquest of the new lands, but also with the “discovery” of the main mines in Mexico and in the Andes after 1530, which triggered the flow of bullion to Spain but also to India, China, and the south-east Asian archipelago of the Spice Islands (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 presents the general development of mining in colonial times. Brown's account focuses closely on Potosí, but readers will also find consideration of Mexican mines and their silver exploitation. The latter was distributed over several centres, a particular situation that helps to explain why, unlike Potosí, these Mexican mines did not experience a depression in the seventeenth century. The production of gold and diamonds is also introduced, centring on Brazil.
In “Spanish and Portuguese Colonialism and Mining Labor” (Chapter 3) the focus is again on Potosí and the varying labour relations in mining, with only a couple of pages dealing with Mexico and Brazil. For Potosí, the system of forced and tributary Indian labour (mita) is examined in detail, while the author also discusses the existence of free workers (mingados) and kajchas (workers mining on their own account during weekends). In contrast to Potosí, Mexican mining appears to have been less coercive and based mainly on wage labour, although debt peonage was also practised. Brazil's goldfield mining was based entirely on slaves.
Chapter 4 is devoted to the “Workers’ Response”, pointing to some of the acts of resistance that occurred in the Andes, Brazil, and Mexico. For Potosí, the author takes the example of the “ore thieves” (ladrones de mineral), who dared to challenge the authorities by working the mines on their own whenever they could. Emphasizing the increasing exploitation of the mitayos in the eighteenth century through the higher compulsory quotas of ore which they were required to fulfil – a process highlighted by the Argentinian economic historian Enrique Tandeter – Brown refers to the Great Andean Rebellion at the beginning of the 1780s, where the mita had a “rallying cry” (p. 80). For Mexico, the author selects the 1766 strike in Real del Monte, where the labourers campaigned against the abolition of the established system of ore “share-cropping” (partido, or pepena). For Brazil, Brown mentions a number of slave rebellions.
“Technological and Social Dimensions of Modern Mining” (Chapter 5) is by far the most comprehensive chapter: the author highlights the consequences of technological change from the wars of independence until the first few decades of the twentieth century; from Bolivia to Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil; from stagnation and a slow pace of change, to the major innovations that came with electricity and railroads; and from the exploitation of silver to a diversity of minerals containing copper, nitrates, or tin.
As the following chapter shows, a new era of modernization in mining began in the 1930s, particularly in the copper mines of Chuquicamata in Chile, Cananea in Mexico, and Cerro de Pasco in Peru. All of them were controlled by American capitalists, their production being oriented to the United States. In Chile, company towns developed as islands in the deserts, struggling to attract workers, while in Mexico, where foreign companies controlled 98 per cent of Mexican mines, technological changes reduced the demand for workers and led to small operations disappearing. In contrast, tin mining in Bolivia was in the hands of a man of modest origins, Simón Patiño, who became one of the wealthiest men in the world and who, in order to create a vertically integrated industry, bought the world's largest tin smelting company in Britain. During the Bolivian Revolution of the 1950s mineworkers played a key role and the mines were nationalized. The Brazilian case, in turn, shows a huge diversity of situations, particularly in more contemporary times: some of the mines were highly capitalized, with workers well paid, while charcoal makers were in exactly the opposite situation. From the 1970s onwards, gold mining in the north-east was characterized by similarly poor conditions, which saw mining develop informally with thousands of people (garimpeiros) attracted by the gold rush.
One of the main virtues of Brown's book is that it offers an accomplished synthesis of mining from colonial times to the present, making it accessible for a broad public. The author certainly achieves his aim of addressing several “major issues”. Nevertheless, as a reader one sometimes gets the impression that, in many cases, the way these issues are presented does not help actually to problematize the history of mining in Latin America. Themes such as the diversity of labour relations, especially the dynamics of “free” and “unfree” constellations, or the role of nation-states and foreign companies, are touched on throughout the book, but they might easily go unnoticed, given the way they are presented.
One might reasonably have asked: how did foreign capitalists impose themselves so quickly in the nineteenth century? What does the shift from the British to the North American sphere of influence signify? What was the nature of the relationships between nation-states, private foreign companies, and the countries of origin of the latter? Why was the process of proletarianization so difficult and uneven, and why was capitalism, ultimately, not synonymous with an army of proletarians but instead with a very heterogeneous labour force? I believe it would have been fruitful, also in a book intended as a survey for a broader audience, to touch on such (necessarily open-ended) questions and debates, which also point to concerns relevant in the present situation. Of these, two topics could be mentioned: coercion, and mining and growth.
There is no doubt that working conditions in Potosí and at other mining sites were harsh, not only in colonial times – in many cases they continue to be harsh even today. Although Brown explains that the mita was not the only system of labour, he also claims that “what distinguished much of colonial mining […] was the coercion employed to obtain workers and the state's role in this coercion” (p. 47), and that the mita was the “most infamous” or that it epitomized the coercive nature of the colonial mining industry with the “full power of the state to bear over such a long period” (pp. 50–51). The author claims that compared with labourers in Brazil the Andean mitayos “faced […] greater coercion”, while the slaves enjoyed a high degree of liberty.
Following Brown, such relentless coercion as that seen in the Andes was not feasible with skilled slaves (faiscadores) because they knew more about prospecting than the owners, and if they were pressured too much the gold yield would drop rather than increase (p. 83). Yet, such an interrelationship between coercion applied and productivity achieved also held true in the case of Potosí – a fact that should have been explored more. As has become clear in the intense debates among labour historians about “free” and “unfree” labour relations, it is crucial to consider in detail how coercion worked exactly. How was a labour system ensured that worked on such a scale (more than 10,000 people had to migrate every year from 17 provinces and from thousands of places to work in Potosí) and for such a long time? Following Brown, the reader might be tempted to think that workers were escorted by a powerful and efficient system of guards, but it seems clear that such an elaborate system was based not on brute force alone and that there were other colonial and ideological mechanisms strong enough to ensure the workers’ compliance. One of these mechanisms was that, to many of them, Potosí offered opportunities to work on their own account.
Mining and economic growth would certainly be another major issue. The experience with silver, tin, copper, nitrates, bauxite, or gold, with different companies coming from different countries and operating under varying local regimes, at some times deploying great technological innovations and at others quite the opposite, invite comparisons and discussions on the role of mining in economic growth. Such a comparison might shed light on policies that had more success than others, the different paths of economic development (for instance, “industrial revolution” compared with the smaller-scale “industrious revolution”), or the discussion centred on the “reversal of fortunes” or the “curse of resources”.
Nevertheless Brown's account offers many important and stimulating starting points for these concerns. One of the book's important merits is that it devotes proper space to the labour relations and workers involved in mining – which in Latin America, as elsewhere, have been as diverse as the minerals extracted.
