Real del Monte The Rooftop of Mexico Belem Oviedo Gámez* Real del Monte, mines and magueys, the hardest oak that holds up the skies, conifers that stop cirrus clouds and mis t. The gallows frame and chimneys of La Rica, Dificultad, Dolores, Acosta, Purísima... Inhabitants of Real del Monte live on the rooftop of Mexico, on the mountains’ flowing mane. That is why the hamlet of Real is spread out and the vein tastes of ground stone. Eugenio Martín Torres r a l i u g A . A s i u L y b s o t o h p , d e i f i c e p s e s i w r e h t o s s e l n U 97 Voices of Mexico • 52 he signs of mining in Real del frame (the metal frame that holds up the Monte cannot be hidden; they shaft elevator) of the Providencia Mine, Tare the lifeblood of one of the If you’re not careful, a faithful reflection of early twentieth- few mining districts in Mexico that has century mining technology. On the other Real del Monte is the kind practically never stopped working since end, the El Hiloche forest opens its colonial times, furnishing us with gold of place that will captivate you. arms inviting us in. 2 For years its oaks and silver, and with an entire cultural and It will charm you and instill respect and firs have provided shade and fed industrial heritage. 1 and a desire to know more the imagination of families organizing If you’re not careful, Real del Monte about that world “down their fiestas under their boughs, artists is the kind of place that will captivate below” so manifest in who have painted their centuries’ old you. If you know how to see through the town’s features. magnificence, photographers who have the eyes of your soul, it will charm you captured the moment and immortal - and instill respect and a desire to know ized the El Hiloche sheltering the mist. a little more about that world “down Miners like Don Ma nuel García, who below” so manifest in the town’s fea - hide a history, a legend, someone always ran fruitlessly after a fairy to get him to tures. On its old lanes, the houses still willing to share his/her stories, his life show him where the treasure was, the have their roofs made of shingles or in the mine, in the cantina with his bud - treasure that years later, “some workers with the tops of the cyanide kegs used dies, the buddies united by the courage building the highway” would find. in working the mine. Old houses that it takes to face death every day and the In the heart of El Hiloche is one of complicity of sharing a single love, a the oldest mines, the Purísima Con - love that, like the love of Real, you never cepción, two of whose old steam boil - * Director of the Mining Historical Archive and forget: the mine. ers are still in use. Continuing on the Museum and president of the Mexican Com - mittee for the Preservation of the Industrial The visitor is welcomed to one end same highway, we come to another mine, Heritage. of Real del Monte by the old gallows San José La Rica, where the ore from 98 The Splendor of Mexico Real del Monte is concentrated to be the virgin, carried by the parishioners, and to protest against abuses by his sent through a seven-kilometer tunnel to walks him halfway home to finally say overseers. 4 This marked a precedent in the city of Pachuca, where it is worked. good-bye until the following year. labor organization and was the pream - Then, all we have to do is go past a curve ble to strikes in Mexico. To his credit, in the road and we come to a town cov - we must recall that Don Pedro, togeth - ered in red roofs, some of them gable THE COUNT er with his partner José Alejan dro Bus - roofs. In the distance is the English Ce m - AND THE TOWN ’S INHABITANTS tamante y Bustillo, built the Mo ran adit, etery, the last resting place of those the first great drainage tunnel in New English miners and their descendents Mining began in this town that the pre- Spain, which still exists today, and also who in the nineteenth century founded Hispanic peoples called Maghotsi in founded the Monte de Piedad, Mex ico’s today’s mining company. At that time, 1528 with the arrival of the Spaniards national pawnshop. the company was appropriately named the in the general mining area of Pachuca Don Pedro and his successors main - Company of Gentlemen Adven turers in and Real del Monte. tained control of mining in the area until the Mines of Real del Monte. 3 Only Colonial life in the region was Mexican independence in the early nine - a group of adventurers, as they called marked by two things. First, Pachuca teenth century, when the third Count themselves, could have dared to dream was the place where the patio or amal - of Regla sold his holdings to a group of and trust in the greatness of Mex ican gamation system of silver refining English businessmen. mines and the superiority of their own developed by Bartolomé de Medina technology. was perfected in 1555. Second, the Downtown Real del Monte now wealth of the Real del Monte mines THE ADVENTURERS boasts an old-fashioned cantina and bar - would be enough to win its owner, Don OF REAL DEL MONTE bershop, recently inaugurated after the Pedro Romero de Terreros, the title of town’s remodeling. In the very center Count of Regla. Real del Monte min - In 1824, a group of miners from Corn - of the town is the Sanctuary of Our ers and some of its women would have wall went to London to set up the Com - Lord of Zelontla, the patron saint of min - to face this man, considered at the pany of Gentlemen Adventurers in the ers, who every January “visits” Our Lady time one of the world’s richest men, to Mines of Real del Monte and immedi - of the Rosary in her parish: Our Lord of defend the “ partido ” payment system (a ately organized an expedition to Mex - Zelontla is carried to her parish where variation of a piecework system used ico. Administrators, engineers and skilled he remains for a day, and the next day, after the men fulfilled a daily quota) workers crossed the Atlantic with valu - 99 Voices of Mexico • 52 mine where they had hoped to find has no resources when the mines are The English veins as rich as those from colonial times. not worked. 5 left indelible traces Lastly, communications with the ma - jority stockholders in London were very In 1849, despite the fact that the lo - of themselves behind: the English slow and relations with the Mexican cal inhabitants had welcomed them Cemetery, lying solemnly on the government were very bad. with the ringing of church bells, as hillside, and a solid technological One of the English miners, probably the diary attests to, and rejoicing in the infrastructure that would turn a technician , who came with the first church to pray for the success of the en - their successors into the group wrote in his diary, terprise, the English sold their shares country’s second-largest in the mine to a group of Mexican in - silver producers. June 10... At noon we made our solemn vestors, at a loss of Mex$5 million. The and triumphal entry into Real del Mon - Mex ican investors founded the Socie - te, or into the place where Real del dad Avia do ra de las Minas de Real del Monte once existed, and where it will Mon te y Pa chuca, which lasted from able cargo, their modern steam-run ma - ’ere long raise its head again. I say once 1849 to 1906, and used a system of chines, to begin what would be one of existed be cause it has now the air of a loans to eventually monopolize produc - England’s great adventures —and fail - village sacked by a horde of Cossacks, tion in the Real del Monte, Pachuca, ures— in Mexico. The crossing was or something yet more desolate. The Mineral de El Chico and Mineral de La only the first of the problems they tempus edax of the poets has here used Re forma Mines. 6 The English left would face during their 25 years at the his scythe with inex orable cruelty. The indelible traces of themselves behind: head of the company. First, the workers roofs are perforated and falling in, the the English Ce metery, lying solemnly came down with yellow fever on their walls crumbling down, and in short, on the hillside; a solid technological arrival at the port of Veracruz; then, the the whole village con verted into a mass infrastructure that would turn their transfer of the machinery to Real del of ruins. The two or three ha bi tations successors into the country’s second- Monte would take almost a year. They which are thought the best are scarce - largest silver producers; the pasty, the were then disappointed to see that ly habitable. We may, there fore, bid typical food of Cornish miners, that, their pumps were insufficient to clear good-bye to comforts. The cause of this adapted to Mexican cuisine, has be - the water out of the deepest levels of the de cay is obvious enough.