New Almaden Mines: How Mexican Labor Built Silicon Valley and Fought Back
Part 4: New Almaden Mines | By Eddie García
From Silicon Valley Latino
Every summer the slender wild oat disappears from the Santa Clara Valley floor. Every winter it returns, having sustained the soil all along, invisible to those walking above it. For centuries the Mexican presence in this valley has been exactly that. Never gone. Always sustaining. Simply ignored by those who chose not to look. In Part 4 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative, Eddie García takes us underground into the New Almaden Mines where that presence sparked what may have been the earliest ethnic Mexican organized labor movement in United States history.
Missed Part 3? Read or listen to The Founding of El Pueblo de San José. Start from the beginning with Part 1: The Prologue.
Author's Note
During the rainy season, Avena Barbata, also known as slender wild oat, is one of the natural grasses that blanket the green hillsides on the eastern slope of Santa Clara Valley. Before industrialization and the growth of Silicon Valley, this species of tall grass swayed in the wind on hillsides and the valley floor as well.
During the dry season, the plant's seeds fall to the ground, disappear into the soil, and become dormant. Some seeds can remain underground for three years before sprouting again after the rains. The grass is also common in the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa. Scientists speculate that Mexican settlers and ranchers introduced Avena Barbata to the valley in the 18th and 19th centuries to feed cattle and other livestock.
Photo Credit: Jan Studio
Just as Avena Barbata disappears from the valley floor every summer, ethnic Mexicans vanished from 20th-century published historical works. Much like how slender wild oat seeds nourish the soil, generating tall strands of green grass after the rain, ethnic Mexicans sustained the valley's development as ranch hands, agricultural workers, and miners.
Today's excerpt, from Chapter 4 (Avena Barbata) of Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance, tells the story of how San José may have been the site of the “earliest ethnic Mexican–organized labor activities in U.S. history.” It is the fourth installment in a 12-part series for SVL's Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative. The book is available in paperback and on Kindle at Amazon: amazon.com — Mexican Heritage Plaza.
Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance
by Eddie García
Chapter 4
Avena Barbata
During the 1820s, Secundino Robles, a landowner born in Santa Cruz, was the first non-Ohlone to see cinnabar embedded in the hillside soil. Cinnabar is a bright reddish-orange mineral that the Ohlone used for thousands of years as paint for ceremonial adornments. During a visit to the Santa Clara Valley in 1845, Captain Andrés Castillero, a military officer from México City and a trained geologist, chemist, and metallurgist, inspected samples of the red rocks at Mission Santa Clara.
His experiments confirmed that the stones were cinnabar, a mercury-based mineral that Spaniards found in the quicksilver mines of La Mancha. Quicksilver, another name for mercury, is a chemical used by miners to extract gold from rocks. Castillero formed a mining company named Santa Clara. The alcalde (mayor) of El Pueblo de San José awarded Castillero 18 square acres of land and permission to operate a mine. A year later, the Santa Clara mine extracted over 3,000 pounds of ore containing cinnabar.
Castillero did not benefit from the Gold Rush, which brought riches to mine owners. He returned to México in 1847 to seek funding to expand his operations, and the Mexican government called him to duty during the 1846-48 U.S. War with México. The American owners named the location Cinnabar Hill and renamed the company New Almaden Mines, inspired by the world's largest and most famous quicksilver mine in Almadén, Spain.
By the time California became a state in 1850, the New Almaden Mines was a large industrial complex that exported quicksilver worldwide. Nearly all the men working underground were experienced miners from Sonora, México. Two separate communities emerged on Cinnabar Hill: the misnamed Spanishtown and Englishtown. Mexicans, a handful of Chilean miners, and their families built Spanishtown, a community that grew to nearly 1,000 people at the dawn of California statehood.
The company paid Mexican miners by the pound of ore they brought up to the surface. That income only allowed them to build shanty-like structures from timber harvested on the hill. The residents of Spanishtown created a community that met their daily needs and cultural heritage. The settlement included a school and a general store. In honor of their patron, La Virgen de Guadalupe, the miners also built a Catholic church where they could worship with Mexican traditions in their own tongue.
Not long after the American Quicksilver Mining Company arrived on Cinnabar Hill, structural racism reared its ugly head in Santa Clara Valley. Company policies ensured that the miners were financially beholden to the Quicksilver Mining Company. The new owners replaced the general store with a company store that sold food at a 75% markup. Monopolistic practices ensured that the cost of food exceeded the amount miners earned each month. To feed their families, women had to run a tab at the store, keeping Mexican families in perpetual debt to the company.
In México, on May 5, 1862, a small army of Mexican peasants defeated a strong French military unit in the southern town of Puebla. When news of the stunning victory at Puebla reached Spanishtown, it encouraged the miners to stand and fight against the mining company's unfair and crippling policies. Spanishtown celebrated its first Cinco de Mayo fiesta on Cinnabar Hill a year later with banners of La Virgen de Guadalupe fluttering in the wind and miners waving red, white, and green Mexican flags.
Inspired by the victory at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, miners began organizing and sharing ideas to resist the company's policies. In late 1864, miners and their families began protesting management. In his groundbreaking book, A Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans, Yale historian Stephen Pitti wrote, “This period of trial led Spanish towners to launch what may have been the earliest ethnic Mexican–organized labor activities in U.S. history.”
Get the Book
Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance by Eddie García is available in paperback and on Kindle.
Purchase on Amazon: amazon.com — Mexican Heritage Plaza
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Also in Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative
The Founding of El Pueblo de San José: A 22-Day Journey Into History
In November 1777, 66 Mexicans and 200 animals left San Francisco on foot. Twenty-two days later they founded El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. Eddie García reconstructs the journey that history forgot. Part 3 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative.
The Mexicans: How San José's Founders Were Written Out of Their Own City's History
Historian Eddie García examines how San José's Mexican founders were systematically erased from the city's own historical record and who finally told the truth. Part 2 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative.
Raíces | Vol. 1, Part 1 — The Prologue
Before Silicon Valley had a name, Latino hands built its first industries. Eddie García begins his 12-part series documenting the remarkable story of Mexican Heritage Plaza — a cultural landmark rooted in over two centuries of community, sacrifice, and defiance.
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