Folk Mining in Colombia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4042971
AutoresRobert C West (0000-0002-1683-3395, autor de correspondencia)
Año1952
Volumen28
Número4
Páginas323
Fecha de publicación1952-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEconomic Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0095 • E-ISSN: 1944-8287
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/141970
OpenAlexW2335035189
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10

T no most of us the mining industry brings to mind large-scale undertakings financed and managed by companies using modern equipment and large numbers of laborers. Today most of the world's minerals are, of course, produced by such methods. But much of the mineral wealth in some areas is still won by small enterprises, owned and operated by a single individual, a family, or a group of neighbors, for whom mining is a traditional fullor part-time occupation carried on with antiquated mining techniques handed down from father to son. A relic of the past, such activity, usually termed native mining, might better be called folk-mining; for the latter term implies a cultural tradition, regardless of whether the people' who practice that tradition are natives to a given area or are recent arrivals. Familiar examples of folk-mining are the tin placers of many parts of Southeast Asia; the 19th century placers and open-pit gold mines of mountain folk within the Blue Ridge of Georgia and the Carolinas; the placers of the garimpeiros, or diamond miners of Brazil; and. formerly, the vein workings of the famous miners of Cornwall, many of whom have taken their mining skills to various parts of the world. Other examples include the early gold workings in California and the Klondike as well as the present small-scale placer operations scattered over the western United States. A less well-known instance of folkmining is that carried on in Colombia, where alluvial and vein deposits of precious metals, chiefly gold, have been worked since pre-conquest times. The modern folk-miners are found in all gold-producing areas of the country, but Antioquia and the tropical lowlands of the Pacific coast are the main strongholds of these people. Although today large American and British companies using modern mining methods produce most of Colombia's output of precious metals, the production of the folkminers is not insignificant. It is estimated that at least 45 per cent of the country's annual production of platinum and between 20 and 25 per cent of its yearly output of gold are obtained from small placer and vein deposits worked by peasant miners. Folk-mining in Colombia is a colonial heritage. During the late 16th, the 17th, and the early 18th centuries the area that is now Colombia supplied most of the gold produced in the Spanish colonies, and after the silver lands of Mexico and Peru it ranked as Spain's third most important source of precious metals. The major gold fields exploited in colonial' days were in Antioquia, the upper Cauca drainage, and the Pacific lowlands, still Colombia's principal miningy districts. Into those areas the Spaniards brought large numbers of Negro slaves to work alluvial and vein deposits; the Negro and mulatto de

Geography · Environmental and Ecological Studies · History · History and Politics in Latin America · Mining Techniques and Economics