The Cobre mine was a copper mine in Cuba, the oldest in the new world. The open pit mine was operated from 1544 to 1998. The Spanish used slave labour and free coloured labour to work the mine. After it had been abandoned, in the 19th century a British company acquired the mine and reopened it, again using slaves and free coloured labourers, but also using skilled Cornish miners and steam engines from Cornwall to operate pumps. The mine was abandoned again, then reopened by an American company at the start of the 20th century. After the Cuban Revolution it was taken over by the state. After being finally abandoned the pit is now filled with a mineral-rich lake.
Location
The El Cobre sulphide deposits occur in the Paleogene volcanic arc along the southeastern coast of Cuba, and are one of the few such deposits in Cuba to have been mined successfully. Almost all the mined ore comes from a central system of cross-cutting veins of pyrite and chalcopyrite. The Cobre Mine is about north west of Santiago Bay in the Sierra Maestra. It is on a ridge at the top of a valley that runs down to Santiago de Cuba. A range of mountains lies to the south, rising to the Monte Real. The town of El Cobre is on the west slope of the ridge. The town grew up around the mine. The mine was reached by mule train from Punta de Sol until the early 1860s, when a small railway was opened.
Spanish operations
Metal-bearing ores were discovered by the Spanish colonists in Cuba, who thought at first that they had found gold. El Cobre was the first copper mine to be opened by the Spanish colonists, starting operations in 1544. This was the first open pit copper mine in the Americas. The Spanish forced the local indigenous people to work the mine, and imported slaves from Africa. During the first decades of the 17th century copper from the mine, worked by slaves of African origin, was a major source of export revenue. However, the Spanish crown confiscated the mines in 1670 after the private contractor had failed to comply with the terms of his contract and had neglected them for years. 270 private slaves became the property of the king, and the town of El Cobre became a pueblo of king's slaves and free coloured people, a unique type of settlement in Cuba.
In 1780 an attempt was made to return the mine to private hands and increase production. By that time El Cobre had 1,320 inhabitants, including 64% royal slaves and 34% free coloured people, mostly manumitted descendants of slaves. 2% were the private slaves of the free coloured people. The men were mostly engaged in subsistence agriculture, while mining was mainly undertaken by the women. For much of this period the Cobre mine was the only source of copper on the island, supplying Cuba and sometimes other places in the Caribbean.
British operations
The mines had been abandoned by 1830. Early in the 1830s a British visitor to the region assayed some of the mine's waste and found it rich in copper. The British El Compañía Consolidada de Minas del Cobre (Cobre Mining Company) acquired the mine and reopened it in the early 1830s. An adjacent concession was acquired and opened by the British El Real de Santiago (Royal Santiago Mining Company). Both companies turned to Cornwall for skilled labour and for steam engines to pump out the mines.
Cuba, and the Cobre Mine in particular, was an attractive destination. The pay was good and the handbills circulated in Cornwall hinted that Cuba was a land of opportunity. Between August 1836 and April 1838 Alfred Jenkin, their agent in Cornwall, recruited 136 Cornish miners and mechanics, and also arranged for mining machinery, safety fuses and other material to be shipped from Cornwall to Cuba. He shipped clothes for the West African slaves working in the Cuban mines. Jenkin offered £100 per year plus free lodging, to young, fit, sober and single men, mostly from the mining areas around Camborne, Illogan and Redruth.