Los intentos de reflotamiento de la mina de azogue de Huancavelica en el siglo XIX

Abstract

This article try to rescue the history of the mining of mercury of Huancavelica in the period of the post independence. For it we review the efforts realized put again in massive development the mine of mercury that one day was considered to be "the jewel of the crown" Spaniard. During his epoch of major production, between the ends of the XVIth century and the middle of the XVIIth, input came to supply of mercury the two big American virreinatos. But during the XIXth century, Peru should have imported mercury before the bankruptcy of the local production. The attempts of refloating the mine, in general lines failed, and she did not have a production again in big scale until 1915. The article investigates in the reasons of such a defeat, pointing towards the institutional factors that blocked the flow of investments towards the recovery of Huancavelica. Another type of mining spread on the other hand: that of the humaches or indigenous miners that supported a important quantities of production of mercury throughout the XIXth century, and blockaded the entry of the "modern mining" for one century.