To speak of mining in newly independent Mexico is to speak of silver. And silver, historically abundant in the Real del Monte–Pachuca district, was the object of the Company of Adventurers in the Mines of Real del Monte. Organized in response to a plea by Pedro Romero de Terreros for help in rehabilitating his famous family’s once-rich properties, the English Real del Monte was led by men convinced that the application of English capital, management practices, and technology to those ruined mines and mills would reap them a profit and would revitalize the new nation’s most promising industry. The adventurers were to be disappointed. The story of the English company is one of financial disaster: the loss of more than $5 million between its beginning in 1824 and its dissolution in 1849. Yet this failure was ironic, for upon the foundations of the English company was built a modern concern that yielded great rewards to Mexican and American successors to the hapless Englishmen. A full account of a single risky venture, this inquiry is a microcosm of early foreign economic penetration into the Mexican mining industry. It offers specific solutions to poorly understood historical problems concerning the wave of capital that flowed from Great Britain into Latin America upon the disruption of the Spanish Empire, problems hitherto treated only in generalizations.

This is a true story of discovery and discoverers in what was the northern frontier region of Mexico in the years before the Mexican War. In 1826, when the story begins, the region was claimed by both Mexico and the United States. Neither country knew much about the lands crossed by such rivers as the Guadalupe, Brazos, Nueces, Trinity, and Rio Grande. Jean Louis Berlandier, a French naturalist, was part of a team sent out by the Mexican Boundary Commission to explore the area. His role was to collect specimens of flora and fauna and to record detailed observations of the landscapes and peoples through which the exploring party traveled. His observations, including sketches and paintings of plants, landmarks, and American Indians, were the first compendium of scientific observations of the region to be collected and eventually published. Here, historian Russell Lawson tells the story of this multinational expedition, using Berlandier's copious records as a way of conveying his view of the natural environment. Lawson's narrative allows us to peer over Berlandier's shoulder as he traveled and recorded his experiences. Berlandier and Lawson show us an America that no longer exists.