Photograph by Gbarindelli. Available via Wikimedia Commons
Mining is a hard, tumultuous process that requires significant labor inputs which mainly have consisted of local and indigenous laborers. Conditions in these mines have resulted in many miners’ deaths due to fire, collapse, or other hazards. These conditions and lack of regulations culminated in 1945 when Chile experienced its worst mining accident. This catastrophe took place in the North American, Braden Copper Company, owned El Teniente copper mine. These North American companies held a monopoly over copper mining in Chile. El Teniente was and still is one of the major producers of copper throughout Chile.
The El Teniente accident was the result of a fire in the mine. At least three hundred and fifty-five workers were killed as a result of their entrapment in the mine during the fire. Following the accident, local and Chilean press blamed the lack of security and safety regulations at the mine as well as the lack of prompt efforts from Braden Copper Company to rescue the trapped miners. This accident brought to light the exploitation of these Chilean workers at the hands of these North American companies.
As a result of the accident and the ensuing press, Chilean citizens and the government were brought to action. The tragedy resulted in new regulations and safety procedures being put in place in these mines in order to prevent miners’ injuries as well as to limit future accidents. In addition, the tragedy fueled a movement throughout Chile to nationalize copper mining and take control of the industry from the North American monopoly. This movement resulted in the nationalization of Chile’s copper mines in 1971 by a unanimous vote from Congress. Pablo Neruda, the author of this poem, was a senator representing the northern mining districts of Chile. His poem outlines the exploitation of both the land and workers by these North American mining companies.
“Sánchez, Reyes, Ramírez, Núñez, Álvarez.
These names are like Chile’s foundations.
The people are the country’s foundation.
If you let them die, the country keeps collapsing,
keeps bleeding until it is drained.
Ocampo has told us: every minute
there’s a wound, and every hour a corpse.
Every minute and every hour
Our blood falls, Chile dies.
Today it’s smoke from the fire, yesterday
firedamp,
the day before the cave-in, tomorrow the sea or
the cold,
machinery and hunger, the unforeseen or acid.
But there where the seaman dies,
but there where people from the pampa die,
but there in Sewell where they disappeared,
everything is maintained—machinery, glass,
iron, papers—
except man, woman, and child.
It’s not the gas: it’s greed that kills in Sewell.
That tap turned off in Sewell so that not even a
drop
of water for the miners’ poor coffee would fall,
there’s the crime, the fire’s not to blame.
Everywhere they turn off the people’s tap
so that the water of life won’t be distributed.
But the hunger and cold and fire that consume
our race (the flower of Chile’s foundations),
the tatters, the miserable house,
they’re not rationed, there´s always enough
so that every minute there’s a casualty
and every hour a corpse.
We have no gods to turn to.
Poor mothers dressed in black
already wept all their tears while they prayed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This human cave-in cannot be,
this bleeding of the beloved country,
this blood that falls from the people’s heart
every minute, this death
of every hour.
My name’s the same as theirs, as the ones who
died.
I, too, am Ramírez, Muñoz, Pérez, Fernández.
My name’s Álvarez, Núñez, Tapia, López,
Contreras.
I’m related to all those who die, I’m people,
and I mourn for all the blood that falls.
Compatriots, dead brothers, from Sewell, Chile’s
dead, workers, brothers and sisters, comrades,
as you’re silent today, we’re going to speak.
And may your martyrdom help us
to build a severe nation
that will know how to flower and punish.”
Translated by Jack Schmitt
Neruda, Pablo. “Catastrophe in Sewell.” 1950. In The Chile Reader: History, Culture, and Politics. Edited by Elizabeth Quay Hutchinson, et al., Pages 42-44. Duke University Press, 2014.