The Miguel Burnier district: An encapsulation of Brazil's mining history

Abstract

The Miguel Burnier mining district has been part of Brazil’s mining history since its early developments in Portuguese colonial times. All the great cycles in Brazilian mining history were first witnessed in this mining district of Ouro Preto and its close vicinity within the Quadrilátero Ferrífero in the state of Minas Gerais. The district was founded during the Brazilian gold rush, the longest in the world’s history, which lasted from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century and which had a dramatic impact on the economy and history of Brazil, Europe and Africa. Attracted by the mineral wealth of Minas Gerais, several nineteenth-century naturalists visited Miguel Burnier. They were responsible for important observations and studies in the district, including the discovery of large manganese deposits. At the dawn of the twentieth century, a manganese rush began, and the manganese mines of Miguel Burnier came to be known worldwide for their high-grade ores, especially those mined by Usina Wigg, a company that operated in the district from the 1890s to 1996. This company, a pioneer of the Brazilian steel industry, had its apogee in World War I when Brazil became the main manganese supplier to the US market. Manganese mining in Miguel Burnier also contributed to the development of geology and its application to ore deposits in Brazil, leading to studies of the world-class iron ore deposits of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero and to iron ore becoming Brazil’s main mineral commodity since the 1940s.