Mining: A Microcosm of Mexican Struggle

The quest for precious metals and fuel sources has shaped Mexican history for many years and continues to do so to this day. It is often a dirty business and has led to horrible abuses of basic human rights Mexico, like so many other countries, has suffered the consequences of these ambivalent industries, particularly silver, copper, and coal (United Nations 77). Since the Spanish first arrived, the people of Mexico have been caught up in the corruption and double standards which govern the mining industry. The plight of mine workers throughout the years can serve as a microcosm for the struggles faced by all Mexicans, past and present. Like the various revolutions which have marked Mexico's history, whenever the miners empowered themselves, the results were usually chaotic and unexpected. During the 1500's, under the reign of Charles V, laws were enacted which prohibited the indigenous Mexican people from being put to work in the mines as slaves Additionally, in cases where their work was indispensable, the indigenous workers received wages for their labor.Though well intentioned, these laws were very hard to enforce. They were almost uniformly ignored by the conquistadors of the New World. The sheer distance between the ruling class in Spain and the conquistadors made communication an excruciatingly slow process This disconnect, coupled with the conquistadors' inherently abusive attitude towards the natives, meant that little was done to obey these laws (Castells, etal 189). The laws enacted by Charles Vwere one of the first attempts to provide the Mexican people with some variety of civil rights Unfortunately, these rights were rarely exercised. The laws only provided the conquistadors with a formal decree to violate, nothing more. And the crown did not seem to be overly concerned with the issue. So long as the wealth kept pouring in, the Spanish royalty would never be too preoccupied with the plight of the native Mexican mine worker, even though the precious minerals harvested in the NewWorld allowed Spain to continue financing its various wars This first small triumph for the native Mexican mine worker never even came to be, the laws remained ignored, setting the trend for many years to come.

The presence of well intentioned laws on the books, coupled with an inability to put many of them into action, has become a trend with almost every administration running the Mexican government. This is not to say that miners played only a passive role and suffered their abuses mutely. The native Mexicans, like the African slaves and Native Americans, had their ways of fighting back. These methods often involved violence and the results were not always what they had intended. In his book, Silver Magnate, Grant Shepherd describes his life growing up as the wealthy son of a silver mine owner in Chihuahua in the late 1800s. The book is amazingly biased and bigoted but provides fascinating insight as to the attitudes held by the wealthy towards the mine workers of that period. In one passage, Grant d escribes the murder of a high ranking mine employee as he transported the monthly payroll. The employee is shot (in the back of course) by a native mine worker who subsequently escapes.