Brazilian Gold Rush

The main square of Ouro Preto - Praça Tiradentes

The Brazilian Gold Rush was a gold rush that started in the 18th century, in the then Portuguese colony of Brazil. The rush opened up the major gold-producing area of Ouro Preto (Portuguese for black gold), then the aptly named Vila Rica (Rich Town).[1]

The rush began when bandeirantes discovered large gold deposits in the mountains of Minas Gerais.[2] The bandeirantes were adventurers who organized themselves into small groups to explore the interior of Brazil. Many bandeirantes were of mixed indigenous and European background who adopted the ways of the natives, which permitted them to survive in the interior rain forest. While the bandeirantes searched for indigenous captives, they also searched for mineral wealth, which led to the gold being discovered.

More than 400,000 Portuguese and half a million African slaves came to the gold region to mine. Many people abandoned the sugar plantations and towns in the northeast coast to go to the gold region. By 1725, half the population of Brazil was living in southeastern Brazil.

Minas Gerais was the gold mining center of Brazil. Slave labor was generally used for the workforce.[3] The discovery of gold in the area caused a huge influx of European immigrants and The government decided to bring in bureaucrats from Portugal to control operations. They set up numerous bureaucracies, often with conflicting duties and jurisdictions. The officials generally proved unequal to the task of controlling this highly lucrative industry.[4] In 1830, the St. John d'el Rey Mining Company, controlled by the British, opened the largest gold mine in Latin America. The British brought in modern management techniques and engineering expertise. Located in Nova Lima, the mine produced ore for 125 years.[5]

Destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest

[6] With all the gain from the gold rush there was much devastation to the earth around where the garimpeiros mined the gold. The big problem the environmentalists had was with the mercury used to isolate the gold from the surrounding sediment. The mercury was getting into the soil after the gold was separated from it, and also it was getting into the air. It was getting into the air by it being heated up with the gold to purify the gold. Also if the work was not done in a sealed container the gasses would be breathed in by the people purifying the gold. Also another thing happening was the deforestation of the Amazon. The miners need to make room for there large machinery to get the most gold they could accumulate. Deforestation does not only endanger the plants, it removes the stability of the riverbank. The land is more open to erosion, which can cause the river to have higher concentration of sediments. This sediment now reduces the dissolved oxygen in the water, which leads to the survival of plants and animals. With the decline in animal it affects the people that live off the land around it.

Technology used by the miners

[7] The technology used in the Amazon gold rush was not too complicated and had a lot to do around the basic instrument, the bateia or gold pan. The bateia has always been an essential part of mining dating back to the eighteenth century. The bateia used to be made out of hard word but is now made out of zinc. The bateia is a conical pan that comes to a point in the center, that is about 40 centimeters and of about one meter in diameter. They also use a smaller gold pan called a cuia, which is pretty much just a round bowl that could you could eat out of to.

Other technology that was used for manual technology was the lontona, the dalla, the cobra fumando, and the caixa. The lontona and the dalla are portable wooden sluices made up of a series of wooden boxes lined with sacking or felt blankets, with a addition of a caixa at one end. A caixa is a narrow wooden plane covered with sacking, across which small wooden rods were jammed in. These rods were called riffles or taliscos. Then mercury is sprinkled between the riffles to make the gold heavier.

See also

References

  1. ↑ C. R. Boxer, "Brazilian Gold and British Traders in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century," Hispanic American Historical Review (1969) 49#3 pp. 454-472 in JSTOR
  2. ↑ "Ouro Preto." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 27 Apr. 2009
  3. ↑ Kathleen J. Higgins, Licentious Liberty in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender & Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabara, Minas Gerais (1999)
  4. ↑ A. J. R. Russell-Wood, "Local Government in Portuguese America. A Study of Cultural Divergence," Comparative Studies in Society & History (1974) 16#2 pp 187-231.
  5. ↑ Marshall C. Eakin, British Enterprise in Brazil: The St. John d'el Rey Mining Company & the Morro Velho Gold Mine, 1830-1960 (1990)
  6. ↑ emilyhartman. "Gold Mining and Its Effects on the Amazon and Its Inhabitants". Geosmin.... Retrieved 2016-04-07.
  7. ↑ Anatomy of the Amazon Gold Rush. University Of Iowa Press; 1 edition. 1990. ISBN 0877452628.
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