The Constructive/Destructive Flame: Fire in Colonial-Period Mexican
Mining Communities
Mesoamerican mining communities during the Colonial period employed fire to extract and transform natural resources, fulfilling obligations to the Spanish crown. At the same time, they depended on fire for light, heat, and food. What kinds of knowledge were brought from one fire to the next? How did fire mediate daily life in these mining communities? Drawing on written reports and visual representations of Mesoamerican mining communities held in the Bancroft Library of UC Berkeley, this presentation proposes that fire helped to unify these potentially transient communities; the creation, maintenance, and enjoyment of fire were and still are inherently social acts.