More than Five Centuries of Mining in Risaralda: The Importance of a Long-Term Perspective in the Construction of a Historical Narrative

Correa, Jhon Jaime, Edwin Mauricio López, Wilton Holguín y Cristian Felipe Cardona. Memoria minera de Risaralda. Una mirada de larga duración: siglos XVI-XXI. Pereira: Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, 2024

Abstract

This review aims to analyze the book *Mining History of Risaralda: A Long-Term Perspective: 16th–21st Centuries*, a work that explores the history of mining in the present-day department of Risaralda over a period of more than five hundred years. Summarizing such an extensive history in so few pages presents a considerable challenge, but the authors succeed in constructing a coherent and well-documented narrative. As they themselves note, their work sought to fill “one of the major gaps in the region regarding the history of the territory and its communities.”

Structurally, the book is divided into four chapters that explore mining across different historical periods. The first chapter, titled “The Umbra and Quimbaya Provinces: Realms of Salt and Gold,” focuses on the goldsmithing cultures and economic rituals of the region’s pre-Hispanic peoples. Goldsmithing played a fundamental role in “a technology of power and a metallurgy of communication.” In this sense, the book revives ancestral practices that it manages, at least in part, to trace back to today’s traditional miners.