[We have today a guest post from Paulo Eduardo Guimarães, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Évora and researcher at NICPRI (Research Unit on Political Science and International Relations). Paulo presented
a paper on this topic at the recent World Congress on Environmental History at Guimarães.]
The growth in the demand for sulphur and copper by the British world economy was directly responsible for the spurt in the exploration of old mine deposits of pyrite ores beginning in the middle of the 19th century in the western Mediterranean. As consequence, the roasting of pyrites in blast furnaces or in open air ‘
telleras’ in large scale operations led to conflicts with landowners, farmers, peasant communities, miners, and local populations affected by acid rain and sulphur smoke.
The violent incidents of Rio Tinto in 1888, when the Spanish army intervened to repress a peaceful demonstration against that pollution, killing about two hundred men and wounding an indeterminate number of other protesters, became the landmark of that conflict in the historiography of the western Mediterranean mining industry. However, violent reactions against modern mining industries were not exceptional in this part of the world. An account of these types of industrial conflicts in Portugal shows the emergence of popular violent reactions against mining operations due to environmental disruption. These included the occupation of mining fields, ‘Luddite’ actions (destruction of machinery, forests, and mining infrastructure), and sabotage in larger explorations located in the southern Alentejo province and in the mines of the Aveiro district.
The detailed analysis of each incident reveals a more complex picture than the label ‘peasant protest’ or ‘environmentalism of the poor’ suggests. Not only peasants and poor people were involved in collective actions against mining companies; landowners and farmers made use of legal instruments. Yet they were often unsuccessful in court, as the mining law favoured the foreign capitalist ventures. The use of ‘expropriation for public utility’ was a sword of Damocles hanging over these disputes, and the companies often used it.
