History of mining in Chile
Chile took over the highly lucrative saltpetre mining districts of Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific (1879–83).
[2] An expansion of this hypothesis is that the Incas would have invaded the relatively well-populated Eastern Diaguita valleys (present-day Argentina) to obtain labour to send to Chilean mining districts.
[3] About 74 km northeast of Copiapó in Viña del Cerro the Incas had one of its largest mining and mellargy centres at Qullasuyu.
[1] This contributed to cause the Arauco War, as native Mapuches lacked a tradition of forced labour like the Andean mita and largely refused to serve the Spanish.
[10] However at some point in the 16th century it is presumed the gold placers were buried by lahars flowing down from nearby Villarrica volcano.
[1] The decline was aggravated by the collapse of the Spanish cities in the south following the battle of Curalaba (1598) which meant for the Spaniards the loss of both the main gold districts and the largest indigenous labour sources.
[1] Gold, silver and copper from Chilean mining begun to be exported directly to Spain via the Straits of Magellan and Buenos Aires in the 18th century.
[20] In Magallanes Region coal was first discovered by the expedition of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa who visited the Straits of Magellan in 1584.
[21] Following the discovery of silver at Agua Amarga (1811) and Arqueros (1825) the Norte Chico mountains north of La Serena (part of the Chilean Iron Belt) were exhaustively prospected.
[24] At the end of the silver rush rich miners had diversified their assets into banking, agriculture, trade and commerce all over Chile.
[24][25] In the 19th century Claudio Gay and Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna were among the first to raise the question of the deforestation of Norte Chico caused by the firewood demands of the mining activity.
[26] Salpeter mining in Tarapacá, then part of Peru, also caused a degradation of the arid forests of Pampa del Tamarugal.
The rustic mineral processing using the paradas method demanded great amounts of firewood, leading to large-scale deforestation around La Tirana and Canchones and some areas to the south of those localities.
The British consul in Chile correctly predicted in 1825 that the area around the mouth of Biobío River would be a centre of the coal industry.
As wood became increasingly scarce in northern Chile, copper smelters resorted to the coals found around Zona Central Sur.
[33] In 1878, President Aníbal Pinto expressed his concern in the following statement:[33][34] If a new mining discovery or some novelty of that sort does not come to improve the actual situation, the crisis that has long been felt will worsenDuring this economic crisis, Chile became involved in the costly Saltpetre War (1879–1883) and gained control of mineral-rich provinces of Peru and Bolivia.
[41] Thus, compared to the previous growth cycle (1832–1873), the economy became less diversified and overly dependent on a single natural resource.
[34] When conquering Peruvian territories in 1880 Chile imposed a tax of 1.6 Chilean peso on each quintal (0.1 ton) exported.
The introduction of new extraction techniques and technology in the early 20th century contributed to a significant resurgence of copper mining.
Technological innovation in drilling, blasting, loading and transport made it profitable to mine large low-grade porphyry copper deposits.
In addition, in the 1995–2004 period a larger group of medium-sized mineral deposits (with non-mineralized cover rocks) were discovered, including Candelaria, El Peñón, Gaby Sur, Pascua Lama and Spence.
