The Huelva Gazette Perspectives are our own articles that present an analysis of events and forces that shaped Huelva in the latter half of the 19th century.
The First Opium War
What is the connection between the sale of opium to China and the British investments in Huelva? Early 19th Century (leading up to the war): The British East India Company significantly increases its illegal opium exports from India to China. This creates a severe trade imbalance, with China losing vast amounts of silver, and widespread…
The East India Company
What happens when a state outsources imperial expansion to a private company? It has been said that the British mining companies like Tharsis Sulphur and Copper Company and the Rio Tinto Company Limited created semi-colonies in Huelva. The extent and degree of this phenomenon will be the subject of a future post. What strikes me…
Queen Victoria’s Birthday
What has Queen Victoria’s birthday got to do with Huelva copper mines? May 24, 1837: This date marked a crucial milestone: Princess Alexandrina (known as ‘Drina’ to close family) Victoria of Kent celebrated her 18th birthday. This meant she was legally old enough to rule without a regency, a scenario her uncle, King William IV,…
Women and Children in the Huelva Mines
It’s hard, if not impossible, to understand the past from and in the past and not from and in the present. What was considered acceptable or normal in the past may not be so in our present. What is considered normal or acceptable nowadays will certainly not be considered so in the future. We have…
A Beginner’s Guide to Investing in the Huelva Pyrite Mines in the 1870s: Part 1—The Prospectus
WOULD YOU HAVE INVESTED IN A HUELVA PYRITE MINE IN 1873? It’s July 1873, and you have just seen a prospectus to buy shares for The Rio Tinto Company. Prospectuses in the newspapers offering investment opportunities in Huelva Pyrite Mines with Spanish sounding names like Lagunazo, Carpio, or Lapilla have become quite common recently. You…
A Beginner’s Guide to Investing in the Huelva Pyrite Mines in the 1870s: Part 2—British Investor Profiles
WHAT’S YOUR PROFILE? In Part 1 of A Beginner’s Guide to Investing in the Huelva Pyrite Mines we set the scene. The Rio Tinto Company had published a prospectus offering an investment opportunity. This prospectus was quickly contested by the Tharsis Company in another article and then the Mining Journal published Rio Tinto’s reply. You…
