Recently several monographs and journal articles have appeared on the social and economic aspects of the mining industry in colonial Mexico. Similar studies for the independence period are far fewer, but the book herein reviewed helps to fill that gap.
Robert Randall has written a thorough case history of the British owned and operated Real del Monte Company, one of the first large-scale foreign mining ventures in Mexico after independence. British investments of capital and management after 1822 came at a critical time for the Mexican mining industry, when most of the country’s silver-producing centers had ceased operation and some lay in ruins after the turmoil of the wars of independence. Formed in 1824, the British company operated the renowned silver mines at Real del Monte, near Pachuca, until 1849, when the concern ended in bankruptcy. Randall avers that this was an “ironic failure,” for the company laid the technological foundation for the highly profitable exploitation of the Real del Monte and Pachuca mines by a Mexican concern for the remainder of the century.
The author develops the history of the British operation at Real del Monte in ten well-organized chapters, of which those on management and finance, mining and milling operations, labor, supplies, and relations with the Mexican government form the meat of the book. In them are chronicled the vicissitudes of a group of Cornish and English engineers, oprating in a land where mining was traditional, who thought their techniques to be far superior to those of the host country.
The most significant technological innovation that the British introduced was the steam engine, used to pump water from the flooded shafts and galleries, thus partially solving a problem that had plagued the mines of Mexico since the sixteenth century. The British also strove to improve both the smelting and patio amalgamation processes, but were more successful in introducing to the Real del Monte mines the barrel, or Freiburg, amalgamation technique, with which refractory ores could be refined. Ironically, insufficient capital and poor management prevented the British company from capitalizing on this process, employed successfully by their Mexican successors.
The company also attempted to change the local mining labor system, and for its efforts was plagued periodically by strikes and tumults. From the beginning mine workers from Cornwall were employed in operations not trusted to Mexicans; but the presence of the foreigners was not always appreciated by the natives. Moreover, the time-honored partido system (whereby each man engaged below ground was entitled to a portion of the ore he extracted in addition to his wage) was unsuccessfully challenged by the Cornish managers. Eventually, however, the Cornish “tutwork” system (whereby workers would bid on the amount of ore they would withhold for themselves before mining a vein) was accepted in most of the Real del Monte mines by the time the company withdrew.
Supplies for the mines were obtained both from England (machinery, of course, but also pen holders and quills!) and from Mexico. Blasting powder, obtained from the government factory in Zacatecas, proved to be the most difficult ingredient to get, and its short supply often threatened to close down the mines temporarily, as did the occasional lack of quicksilver in colonial times.
This study is based mainly on manuscript materials, of which the Real del Monte papers, housed in the offices of the present Mexican-government operated mining company in Pachuca, are the most important. Dr. Randall briefly describes and evaluates his sources in a valuable ten-page summary entitled “Bibliographical Notes” at the end of the book. Although Spanish words and mining terms are explained the first time they appear, a glossary would have been another welcome addendum.
More case histories such as this one are needed if we are to understand the development of industry in Mexico during the nineteenth century, when foreign capital and management began to pour into the country. With data from these studies a significant contribution might be made on such topics as innovation diffusion, especially the rate and extent of spread of introduced industrial practices and their effects on production.
