David M. Pletcher

A Prospecting Expedition across Central Mexico, 1856-1857

SOUTH OF THE Rio Grande gold fever had been endemic ever since the coming of the Spaniards. Gold and especially silver were Mexicos stock in trade on the world market, and most of the identifying features of the 1849 gold camps-the hectic optimism of the roving miner, the deadly quarrels over mining rights, the boom-town inflation, and the drumhead government-were an old story to the peaceful citizens of Guanajuato and Zacatecas, mining districts which had seen their bonanza days in the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, in the 1850s a little of Californias new enthusiasm appeared south of the border. It spent itself, partly in resifting the ores of the now familiar gold and silver mines, but also in a search for new and less glamorous minerals which the rising American industries needed: copper, lead, and especially coal and iron. By the end of the century Mexico would be exporting significant amounts of copper and lead to the United States, and if she did not similarly export coal and iron, it was only because she did not possess adequate coal resources, while the northern republic found within its own borders all the iron it could use.