A royal alvará reorganized mining administration and established mining boards to regulate the extraction economy. Gold and diamond production depended on enslaved labor, but African and Afro-Brazilian workers also brought knowledge of prospecting, washing, sorting, and processing. Administrative reform treated extraction as a state revenue problem; a labor-centered history asks how workers’ expertise and coercion made that revenue possible.
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What perspective does the 1803 mining reform invite?
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Explanation
African and Afro-Brazilian workers’ knowledge and labor were central to extraction.
The 1803 mining reform made enslaved workers’ technical knowledge irrelevant to gold extraction.
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Explanation
Workers’ knowledge of mining processes was essential, although administrative documents tend to foreground officials and owners.