Silver Mining in Guanajuato

During the colonial times, Guanajuato was the number one silver mining town in Mexico.  The Spaniards required local natives to work the mines, which then shipped the silver treasures back to the mother country.  It was hard work, and the average laborer worked in the mines for six to eight years, before he was no longer physically able to do the work.  Women typically worked sorting the ore on the surface, separating the rock from the metals, so that it could be processed into the finished products. 

We had the opportunity to enter an old silver mine, "El Nopal" that was used in the 1800s, and which has been taken over by the local University as a laboratory for its mining engineering students.  (The mine will soon be closed to the public, so we were fortunate to be able to tour it.)  We walked down the mining entrance and were shown the different types of tools that were used to loosen the rock.  We saw tunnels that led back to the main Hacienda, where the rocks were sorted and the ore extracted.  We could still see some of the veins of the different metals, which continue in the rock.

In one location, we saw the carving of a little face in the rock; these were used by the miners to identify their location by touch, when light was not available.  It was quite impactful to imagine the lifestyle and the hard work that went into the extraction of silver, so important to the relationship between colonial Mexico and her mother country.