Below are a collection of photographs and
biographies of some of the men who migrated to Latin America. Theirs was
a colourful and often dangerous world of revolutions, coups and bandits,
one that saw them working in the most extreme temperatures on earth.
They toiled in the frozen, barren wastes of the Andes, chewing cocoa
leaves to prevent altitude sickness, and they sweated under a relentless
sun in the Atacama desert in areas where no rain had fallen for decades.
They braved disease and a multitude of pestilential insects in the
steamy jungles of Colombia and Venezuela and the humid tropical hills of
Cuba and Brazil. Yet, they still managed to raise families in communities that came to
resemble those they had left behind in Cornwall and most retained strong
connections with organisations, friends and family in their former
communities, living transnational lives. Most made return trips and some
eventually retired to Cornwall. This collection of
biographies will hopefully capture a little of the flavour of those
times and of the formidable characters of these Cornish mining
men. |