Guanajuato Revisited Part 8 of 17: The Convento Mercedario, its Templo de la Merced de Mellado, and the Bustos y Moya family who built them both.

 

Atrium and entrance of the Templo de la Merced de Mellado. This church was built in the middle of the 18th century as part of a convento for friars of the Royal, Celestial, and Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy and the Redemption of Captives. The Order's nickname, Mercedarios derives from merced (Spanish for "mercy"). For brevity's sake, I will use that name throughout this post. Mellado is the name of a silver mine that once operated nearby. 

This will be a two-part posting. In this segment (Part 8 of this series), I will show you the exterior of the church and the ruins of the convento that are attached to one side. I'll also recount some of the history of the Bustos y Moya family, who owned the Mellado and other mines and haciendas and who provided the land and financing to build both the whole complex. 

Overview

Google map showing the Templo's location near the Rayas Mine. The church stands on a bluff overlooking the Mina de San Juan de Rayas and the Panoramica (see Part 7). The Templo can be reached by climbing an access ramp that can be seen in the map above stretching from the Panoramica up to a street called De Leona. It is also possible to drive up a side street and park near the church. However, we chose to hike up the relatively short distance and leave our car at the Rayas mine. For a Google interactive map, click here.

View of the Templo from the Panoramica. The stone building on the left side of the photo is the roofless structure at the Rayas that once housed the pumps used to pull flood water out of the mine. The access ramp begins on the right. From the bluff where the convento complex stands, you have a spectacular view of Guanajuato and the surrounding mountains. The barrio (neighborhood) of Mellado  is one of the oldest in the city. 

Pedro Nolasco is visited by Nuestra Señora de Merced. These are the two key figures in the Orden de Mercedarios' legend. Pedro    Nolcasco (1189-1256) founded the Order after the Virgin of Mercy appeared to him. Over the previous 15 years Nolasco had been leading an informal secular organization devoted to the ransom of Christian slaves held by the Muslims. 

During her appearance on August 1, 1218, she told him his organization should become a religious Order. The Mercedarios' founding is thus considered to be on that date. In Part 9, I will describe the Mercedarios origin, their arrival in the New World, and their activities in Nueva España and Guanajuato. Along with that history, I'll show you the Templo's interior and its collection of sculpture and paintings. 

 

Exterior features of the Templo

Entrance to the atrium. Once at the top of the ramp, you come to a broad, tree-shaded area in front of the church surrounded by a low wall. This space is called an atrium. It is used for big, open-air gatherings that allow many more participants than could normally fit in a church's nave. In the early days of evangelization, large numbers of indigenous people would be herded within an atrium for mass conversions.

The Bustos y Moya family was one of the handful who owned or controlled the richest and most productive mines in Guanajuato as well as haciendas engaged in the refining of silver and raising food and livestock. They were on a level with the Alcocer family, owners of Mina de Valenciana, and the Sardanetas who owned Mina de San Juan de Rayas (see Part 7). These families, along with a few others, also held most of the important public offices in Guanajuato. 

The facade of the Templo has been damaged by weather and vandalism. The overall style is Baroque, but there are some Neo-Classic elements, such as the columns. Both the statues on the lower level are missing their heads, possibly from vandalism during the Cristero War (1926-29). People sought refuge here at that time and there are reports of bullet marks on some walls, although I didn't see any. 

A sign at the church says that the Bustos y Moya family had built a capilla (chapel) here at the end of the 17th century, about 60 years before the Mercedarios first requested a site for their Order. That original construction is now called the Capilla de San Gonzalo de Amarante. It is the oldest and, unfortunately, the most deteriorated section of the current Templo. We will take a look at the Capilla in Part 9.

 

I traced the Bustos family back to Hernando Busto (1526-?), a minor cabellero (knight) from León, in Spain's mountainous north. His son, Don Pedro Busto Contreras (1556-1607), emigrated to Guanajuato sometime in the late 16th century. There, he and his wife Leonor had a son they named Alonso de Bustos Díez de Noriega (1586-1645). Alonso grew up in Guanajuato and later married Ana de Jerez. Their son, Francisco Bustos Jerez (1619-?) was the man who first made the family rich. 

The floral carvings on the old wooden door are another Baroque element. On the stone arch over the door is the Spanish phrase Amar a Dios sobre todas cosas ("Love God above all things"). The capstone of the arch contains three small figures. The ones on either side face inward toward a bodiless head. This is yet another example of Baroque.

It is unclear how the Bustos clan first supported themselves after they emigrated to Guanajuato. Most likely, they became merchants who supplied the mines and mine workers with everything they needed to get things up and running. Most of those who get rich in a mining boom are not the ones who discover or dig the ore, but those that sell them the shovels. With the profits from this, Francisco Bustos Jerez could make the necessary investments to launch his family's fortune. 

Francisco became the first of his family to engage directly in mining when he acquired a 25% interest in the rich Mellado mine and began upgrading it. The included measures to stop mine flooding and to initiate the use of mercury amalgamation at the haciendas de beneficio he acquired for refining silver. Francisco also purchased agricultural and ranching haciendas to keep his operations supplied with food, leather, and mules to operate machinery and transport ore. 

Ruins of the Convento de los Mercedarios

The convento was built along the east side of the Templo. The open walkway with the arches is called the "cloister garth" and serves as a transitional area between the church and the monastic spaces. At the far end of the cloister garth is the chapter room where the friars met periodically for discussion of problems and group prayers. Other features typical of any convento would have included a refectory (dining room), a dormitory, offices, and storage rooms.

Francisco Bustos Jerez' married Francisca Moya y Monroy, who bore him 7 children. It was one of these, Francisco Matías de Bustos y Moya (1684-1747), who took the family to the very peak of its wealth and power. Most notable among Francisco Bustos Jerez' daughters was Josefa Teresa Bustos y Moya (1682-1742). She was a strong and talented woman with considerable business acumen and a commitment to higher education. I will detail her life later in this posting. 

Francisco Matías and his family had acquired much of their initial wealth through their part-ownership of the Mellado mine. However, when he and his sister Josefa became co-owners of the Cata mine, the silver it produced elevated the Bustos y Moya family to the highest levels of the city's elite. That mine alone gave them profits of more than 400,000 pesos between 1724 and 1735. At the time, a peso was worth 8 reales and a skilled mine worker could earn about 12 reales a day.

In the middle of the convento complex is a baffling structure. It is a rectangular enclosure with a stone floor and this wall at one end is obviously the focal point. At first I thought this might be the remains of a small chapel, but I have never seen one like it. The curving walls on either side would have made the ceiling very low. At the top center is a blank, oval-shaped plaque of cantera stone. On either side near the bottom of the wall are tiny stairs leading to doors too small for anything but elves. Thoughts, anyone? 

To make sure that they stayed at the top, the Bustos y Moya family and those at their level controlled most of Guanajuato's important political offices. For example, Francisco Matías served as perpetual alderman (1718-32), deputy mayor (1714-15, 1724, 1726), general attorney (1725-26), ordinary mayor (1729), and provincial mayor of the Holy Brotherhood. His success in mining led to his appointment as Guanajuato's  mining deputy and quicksilver (mercury) refiner. 

Given the Crown monopoly on mercury, which was so vital to the silver refining process, to be the official quicksilver refiner would have been a powerful and lucrative position. In 1730, King Felipe V of Spain recognized Francisco Matías' contribution to the mining industry and made him the the 1st Marqués de San Clemente. He was also the first of Guanajuato's mining elite to achieve a noble rank. In 1738, he became a member of the Orden de Calatrava, one of Spain's 4 military orders.

The view from the mystery structure is stunning. While prayers and religious discussion were certainly part of life in this convento,  the core function of the Mercedarios was to raise funds to purchase the freedom of Christian captives. It is not surprising that they eagerly accepted an offer of a permanent base in a place like Guanajuato. When someone once asked 20th century bank robber Willy Sutton why he robbed banks, he simply replied "because that's where they keep the money."

When Francisco Matías de Bustos y Moya died in 1747, thirteen of his children survived him. One of them, Francisco Cristóbal Bustos Marmolego (1726-1779) inherited his noble title, becoming the 2nd Marqués de San Clemente. The other sons also came to hold prominent positions in Guanajuato's government and society and his daughters married powerful local men. 

Five years after Francisco Matías' death, the family, contacted the Mercedarios in Vallodolid (now Morelia) to suggest setting up a convento in Guanajuato. In September of 1752, a Mercedario friar named Ignacio de la Iglesia made a written request to the cabildo (city council) to do so and he received a favorable reply the next month. The Bustos y Moya family quickly donated the land, the existing chapel, and other structures, all of which were accepted by Fra. Antonio de Artelejo.

View toward the south from the convento complex. Although active warfare between the Muslim Ottomans and the European powers had long since subsided, considerable numbers of Muslim pirates infested the Mediterranean's North African coast. They sold captured Christians as slaves in the port markets of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. It was to ransom these people that the Mercedarios were raising money in the mid-to-late 18th century.

In September 1756, almost exactly four years after their initial request, Fra. Manuel de Frias finally took possession of the convento and its Templo on behalf of the Mercedarios. In fact, construction was still on-going, but the friars wanted to get their operation up and running. It's probable that Francisco Cristóbal and his family were happy that the turnover would finally allow the Mellado mine to remove from its payroll the three chaplains who had served the old chapel. 

And now a word about Doña Josefa Teresa de Bustos y Moya, daughter of Francisco Bustos Perez, sister of Francisco Matías, and aunt of Francisco Cristóbal. She was born in Guanajuato in 1682, but spent of her childhood and youth in Queretaro. In 1701, she married Don Manuel de Aranda y Saavedra, from Extremadura, Spain, by whom she had 11 children. Until he died in 1729,  Josefa actively partnered with her husband in running their family businesses. 

Another view of the convento and its various rooms and open spaces. This would have been a busy place, with friars departing or returning from visits to collect donations from workers at the mines scattered through the surrounding mountains. Those returning would have dropped the funds off with other friars who would note down the amounts before locking the proceeds into iron-bound boxes for safe-keeping. The funds would then be transported through Mexico City to Europe and ultimately paid as ransoms.

Josefa's business partnership with her husband was somewhat unusual for a woman of that period, particularly one who was raising 11 children. It is even more unusual for her to have fully taken over the family businesses after Don Manuel died. Josefa was clearly formidable in her intellect and personality. In addition to her involvement in her own businesses and co-ownership of the Cata mine, she was also deeply committed to higher education. 

In 1732, Josefa made a formal request to King Felipe V to start a Jesuit college in Guanajuato and backed it up with a donation of 7500 pesos of her own money. She also persuaded a number of the other silver magnates to contribute to the project, including her brother, the 1st Marqués de San Clemente (1250 pesos), and another mine owner, Don Juan de Herbas (625 pesos). 

Unfortunately, the college required the King's approval and this was not granted until 1744, two years after Josefa's death at age 60. While Josefa never got to see the result of her efforts, she is acclaimed today, 291 years later, as the founder of the University of Guanajuato. As to the Mellado mine, the ore finally played out in the early 19th century, and its workforce dispersed. That led to the decline of the Mercedarios convento and its eventual abandonment in 1860.

This completes Part 8 of my Guanajuato Revisited series. I hope you have enjoyed it and, if so, you will leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments, please remember to also leave your email address so that I can respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim

Guanajuato Revisited Part 7 of 17: The Panoramic Highway to the San Juan de Rayas Silver Mine

Ruins of Mina de Garrapata, viewed from La Panoramica. In order to get an overview of the old colonial city, Carole and I decided to drive the Panoramica (Panoramic Highway) that circles the hills surrounding Guanajuato. I soon discovered that many abandoned mines like the Garrapata line the route. The mine dates to the early 1700s and was so productive that its owners were ennobled by the Crown. Some of the even older 16th century mines still produce silver after almost 500 years. 

The Panoramica passes directly under the walls on the far side of Garrapata before taking a hairpin turn uphill to the turnout where I took this shot. I thought garrapata was a  romantic-sounding Spanish word until I learned that it stands for "tick"! In this posting, I will show you a bit of the view along the Panoramica and then we'll visit one of the most famous of Guanajuato's colonial-era mines, the Mina de San Juan de Rayas.

Map of La Panoramica and location of Mina de San Juan de Rayas. Both the Garrapata and San Juan de Rayas mines can be found directly alongside the Panoramica, on opposite sides of a deep arroyo where the road takes a hairpin turn at its northern tip. The highway, which was completed in the 1970s, provides a way to look down on the city from the four corners of the compass. For an interactive Google map of the Guanajuato area, click here.

La Panoramica

Guanajuato is surrounded by steep hills and rugged mountains. The city is built up the sides of the hills and along the ridge tops. This provides many stunning views all around the city. Turnouts along the way provide accessible spots for viewing and photos. The Panoramica is not nearly as long as I thought it would be. However, if you decide to take it, allow a couple of hours, at least, for stops along the way to visit some of the fascinating old colonial churches and abandoned mines. 

Another view from the Panoramica. Although well-paved, access to the two-lane road is mostly unrestricted, with lots of cars and pedestrians in the built-up areas. Drive cautiously. Steep flights of stairs rise up or descend from the Panoramica, connecting one neighborhood to another. After I saw several women carrying heavy loads of groceries up those long sets of steps, I didn't envy them their views quite so much.

Templo de San Cayetano de la Confesor, at the Mina de Valenciana. The Templo was built between 1775 and 1788 by the mine's owner, Antonio de Obregón y Alcocer. The architects, Andrés de la Riva and Jorge Archundia, chose the Churrigueresque style and used pink cantera stone for much of the work. The use of this Baroque style was unusual for the late 18th century, as Neo-Classic was popular by then.

The Valenciana mine was named for Don Diego Valenciana, who discovered silver in the general area in 1557. The mine was not particularly productive for the next 200 years and it sometimes stood idle. Then, in 1760, Antonio Alcocer made his first investment in the Valenciana after he got a loan from Pedro Luciano Otero, a merchant who had also been investing in the San Juan de Rayas mine. The two men poured money into the Valenciana, buying new equipment, introducing new processes and hiring more workers. 

The Valenciana's peak occurred between 1768 and 1804, when it produced an astonishing 60% of the world's silver. It suffered some production interruptions after that. For example, in 1817 the Independence War insurgent Javier Mina burned the mine's machinery to keep silver out of the hands of his royalist opponents. The following centuries also brought numerous ownership changes. Still, in 2022, after almost 500 years, the mine produced 2.15 million ounces of silver, worth $54,223,000 (USD).

Mina de San Juan de Rayas

Google satellite view of Mina de San Juan de Rayas. The mine stands at the end of a short plateau surrounded on three sides by steep walls. The Panoramica forms a "V" as it passes through. Former administrative offices cross between the two wings of the V near the center. 

Between the Panoramica and where high walls drop off to the steep slopes below, four circular structures stand near the V's bottom. A roofless structure stands to the left of the Panoramica near several purple-flowered trees. Ore carts, old pumps, and winches are scattered about.

 

The Rayas mine from below its vertical exterior walls. The church on the upper left is the 17th century Templo de la Merced de Mellado, built by the wealthy, mine-owning Bustos y Moyo family. We will visit it in the next couple of posts of this series.

The San Juan de Rayas was the first mine in Guanajuato. It got its name from a muleteer named Juan Rayas. In 1550, he noticed silver ore while driving his animals along a trail. What he had discovered was Guanajuato's veta madre ("mother vein") of high-grade silver, gold, and gold quartz. Between 1550 and 1750, most of Guanajuato's mines were small, primitive, and focused on high-grade ore located near the surface. A few miners became wealthy but most returns were marginal.

During its first 150 years, the Rayas mine was one of those marginally profitable operations. Then, near the end of the 17th century, a Spaniard named Pedro Sardaneta leased it. He struggled to make a profit and lost his lease for a time, but his descendants regained control and became extremely wealthy from investing in the mine. His grandson, Vicente Manuel Sardaneta y Legaspi, was so successful that, in 1774, King Charles III made him the 1st Marqués de San Juan de Rayas.

Old photo of the mine and its workers. This was probably taken in the later 19th or early 20th centuries. The small heaps in front of the crowd of workers are crushed rocks ready for sorting into silver-bearing ore and waste. The roofed structure in the center may lead to the mine's entrance, which I never saw because it was probably blocked up when the mine closed. 

However, I was able to find a description of the mine's interior, as well as the sort of jobs the workers' did. The mine reaches a depth of  420m (1378ft). There are four shafts, beginning with the "General". Two vertical shafts are called the "Garrapata" and "Santa Rosa de Lima", while an inclined shaft is called the "Kurtz". There are also galleries, rooms, and space for four malacates de sangre (water drainage pumps), as well as a tunnel that connects with the General shaft.

Rayas mine workers during the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Most were young men. Their harsh working conditions meant life expectancy was only about 36 years. During the 2nd half of the 18th century, 42% were indigenous. Some of these were free workers but others worked under the repartimiento system of forced labor. 22% were free mulattos (indigenous/African). Another 1.4% were mulatto slaves. 19% were mestizos (indigenous/Spanish). 11% were Spanish and 3% were "other".  

A big 18th century mine like the Rayas needed thousands of workers for all the largely-unmechanized tasks. The biggest group was split up into several hundred small crews, usually 3 men plus a foreman. One kind of crew included a borer who drilled the rock, a barratero who pried the ore loose, and a man with a pick to assist. Sometimes a boy called a pepe helped by holding up a light. Another crew of three men called tentataros carried ore sacks to the surface. Buscones cleared dirt and rubble, an unskilled and risky job which sometimes caused landslides.

Outside the mine's entrance, workers called breakers smashed the rocks carried up by the tentateros. The valuable ore was then separated from waste by pepenadores (women and children). Other workers included dispatchers who filled leather sacks with water to fight flooding and herders who tended mules that turned winches to haul the sacks to the surface. At the surface, men called drawers then dumped the water. Blacksmiths and carpenters tended to the winches and other machinery. 

Rayas' administrative offices. At the top of the mine's hierarchy was an Administrator who had wide authority to govern the mine. Many of these men parlayed their positions into ownership shares. Just below an administrator was a manager for each of the various mine shafts. The Shaft Managers supervised the Senior Miners who, in turn, supervised the Foremen of the various crews. 

Rayadores paid out wages after ensuring that workers had made a scratch by their names before they left the mine after turning in their tequio (quota of ore).  Partidores measured out the partido. This was ore collected by a worker beyond the tequio, which belonged to him as a form of profit-sharing. The partido was viewed by workers not only as a source of additional pay but as giving them status as part-owners of the mine.

The partido was established after the native population crashed by 90% between about 1550-1650. The major labor shortages that resulted allowed free workers to migrate from mine to mine to seek the best deals. The partido was the owners' strategy to ensure stable work forces. When the labor pool began to expand again in the 18th century, some owners of large mines like Rayas tried to eliminate the partido. This angered workers, who saw it as a pay cut but also as a status reduction. It was one cause of the miners' revolts of 1766-67. 

One of the four circular structures seen in the Google satellite photo. This is the one on the far right. The wall above is about 1m (3ft) thick and 4m (12ft) high, while the interior diameter is about 30m (90ft). All four structures are of identical size, but only half of the one on the far left remains. My best guess is that their function was storage of the ore in preparation for shipment to a hacienda de beneficio for final refining into ingots. They must have been built after 1906 because a photo from that date does not show them. 

Haciendas de beneficio were usually separate from the mines and often located near arroyos or streams because the refining process required abundant water. Vicente Manuel de Sardaneta y Legaspi  was the owner of the Rayas mine during much of the 18th century. He also owned the nearby hacienda de beneficio called Hacienda del Cochero (see Part 5), along with other mines and refining facilities. Sardaneta supplied all of these with food and livestock from other haciendas he had acquired.

To view other former haciendas de beneficio, see Casa de Espiritus Alegres. It is now a bed-and-breakfast located along an arroyo in Marfil,  just south of Guanajuato. Carole and I stayed there during our 2008 visit. Many other haciendas de beneficio that once operated in Marfil have now been converted to private homes or boutique hotels. Another example is Hacienda Jalisco, located in the silver mining pueblo of San Sebastian del Oeste, not far from Puerto Vallarta. 

 

This circular structure looks like a Greco-Roman amphitheater. The ground surfaces within the circular walls of the other structures are level, but this one has been reconstructed as a site for some sort of performances. 

The transformation of rock from deep inside a mountain into a silver ingot required numerous steps, as described above. Extracting silver from the ore involved a number of difficult problems that caused many mines to fail. Until well into the 18th century, miners used the fuego ("fire") process to heat the ore until the silver melted out. However, fuego only worked well with high-grade ore, generally found near the surface. When this was exhausted many mines shut down. 

Those with access to capital, like the owners of Rayas, needed to dig deeper. However, lower-level veins often contained only lower-grade ore. Even worse, the deeper the shaft, the more the mines flooded. At this point, mines producing low-grade ore and lacking the capital to pay for the machinery and workers to deal with the flooding became uneconomical. They either shut down or sold out. Mining was always a risky "boom or bust" affair.

Mill stone used to crush ore. A long axle ran through the hole in the center. At the other end of the axle was a mule that endlessly trudged around in a circle, rolling the stone over chunks of rock to crush them. Once they were reduced to a size that could be sorted and sacked, other mules hauled the ore to a hacienda de beneficio. 

In 1554 a Spaniard named Bartolome de Medina invented the mercury amalgamation process to solve the problem of effectively refining the lower-grade ore. First, the ore was further crushed by an arrastra (stamp mill) to the consistency of sand. This was then formed into piles resembling huge, flat pancakes 0.30-.61m  (1-2ft) thick. Next, mercury, salt-water brine, and copper sulfate were mixed into the piles, either by the feet of bare-legged workers or horses. 

Because all this occurred in large open areas, it was nicknamed the "patio process". After about eight weeks of mixing and soaking in the sun, the mercury amalgamated with the silver. This was then placed in a hooded oven where the heat evaporated the mercury, leaving nearly pure silver. The final step was to melt it into ingots for transport by mule trains to Mexico City and shipment to Spain. Over time, the use of the patio process grew, allowing many mines to reopen. 

Ore carts on rails were a 19th century innovaction. These replaced the tentateros carrying heavy ore sacks as they climbed up rickety wood ladders during the previous 300 years. Just  beyond the ore carts is the sheer wall that drops down to the steep mountain slopes below.

The effectiveness of the amalgamation process was improved even further in 1768. That year, a Guanajuato doctor named Manuel Dominguez de la Fuente began collaborating with the Rayas mine's owner, Vicente Sardaneta to test a new amalgamation method. The experiment succeeded in increasing silver yields and did so using much shorter processing times. 

The Rayas mine's silver production began to boom the very next year, along with that of other mines,. In 1769, the value of Guanajuato's overall silver production reached 732,000 pesos, then jumped to more than 1,021,000 in 1771. In 1776, it shot up to 1,456,510 pesos, almost double the value from only seven years before. However, the patio process had one very serious Achilles Heel: reliance on mercury.

One of the more modern pumps used to prevent floods. This one was probably installed during in the late 19th or early 20th century period when the dictator Porfirio Diaz was encouraging foreign investment in Mexican mines. Over the course of less than a century, water removal methods moved from mule-power, to steam, to electricity. The solution, or at least diminution of this critical problem allowed many mines to reopen and revitalized the whole mining industry.

The mercury problem grew out of Nueva España's status as a Spanish colony. As a financial measure and a means of control, the Crown maintained a monopoly over the production and distribution of mercury to the mining community. The price and particularly the availability of mercury were serious concerns to every owner. The cost of mercury or its absence could cripple or even completely shut down production. Worse yet, it was not just the Crown that could do this.

Virtually as soon as Spanish galleons full of silver and gold began sailing the oceans in the 16th century, pirates had begun to attack them. Some of the captured ships carried the vital mercury supplies. In addition, between the invention of the patio process and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Spain was in almost constant conflict with other European powers. The English, French and Dutch had strong fleets and an equally strong interest in shutting off Spain's silver supply. 

The pump's name plate indicates its American origin. The plate reads "Ingersoll-Rand, New York, Imperial Type 10". The end of colonial rule in 1821 gave the new Mexican nation free access to mercury. In addition, the population increase during the last quarter of the 18th century meant more available workers. This could have resulted in dramatic new profitability for the Rayas mine. However, by the early 19th century, its useable ore was exhausted and the mine shut down.

Although they lost the income from the Rayas, the Sardaneta family continued to exercise great power in Guanajuato through their wealth and position. Upon Vicente's death in 1787, his son José Maria de Sardaneta y Lorente became the 2nd (and last) Marqués de San Juan de Rayas. Despite his noble title, José became active in the struggle for independence. He was imprisoned and exiled several times by the royalists but survived. José retired from politics after independence, dying in 1835 at the age of 48.

Despite gaining free access to mercury and a more stable labor pool, the first 2/3 of the 19th century were not good for mining. From the start of the Independence War of 1810 until the end of the French Occupation in 1867, Mexico endured an almost constant series of wars, invasions, revolts, and insurgencies. During this time, the mining industry suffered severely and many mines were destroyed or went out of business. 

This initially appeared to me to be a chapel. Although the narrow interior and window shape made it look like a religious building, it was actually used to house steam-driven water pumps. La Concordia mining company, owner of the mine in 1887, installed them to stop flooding. Later, the pumps were converted to electricity. The double winch seen above may be the one mentioned in a report that described such equipment being used to haul cages full of workers up and down the shafts.  

The last quarter of the 19th century and the first ten years of the 20th were known as the Porfiriato. Conditions in the mining industry dramatically improved, at least for the owners, if not necessarily for the workers. During those 35 years, the dictator Porfirio Diaz established political stability and actively sought international investments to modernize the nation's infrastructure. Much of this investment came from British and American sources and went into railroads, ports, and particularly the mining industry. 

However, in 1910 the Porfiriato ended with the Revolution, followed by the Cristero War of 1926-29. Various revolts and chaos lasted into the 1930s. Foreign investment evaporated and mining in Guanajuato and much of the rest of Mexico again fell into ruin. Stability finally came back in 1934, with the election of Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico's version of Franklin Roosevelt. Mining in Guanajuato has never recovered to its former levels, but it still continues and tourism and other industries have helped fill the gap.

This completes Part 7 of my Guanajuato Revisited series. I hope you have enjoyed it. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments, please remember to include your email address so that I can reply in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim