A History Of Mining In Wallagga Western Ethiopia 1899-1991

A HISTORY OF MINING IN WALLAGGA, WESTERN ETHIOPIA, 1899-1991.rnIn the 19th century the local people of Wallagga were engaged in the extraction of gold as wellrnas iron and brought the items to some local markets in western Ethiopia. In the 20th century thernlocal miners of Wallagga, however, began to see the coming of more organized and consolidatedrnforeign and domestic mining agents which controlled and extracted gold and platinum oresrnfound in Wallagga.rnThe dissertation explores the engagements and the activities of these mining agents including thernlocal miners in gold and platinum mining industry in Wallagga and the benefits they hadrnobtained from these activities in the 20th century. To this end, it has relied on archival sources,rnBritish foreign office documents, travelers’ accounts, oral sources, newspapers and secondaryrnmaterials. I have analyzed the sources using qualitative and quantitative historical methods.rnI argue that gold and platinum mining industry in Wallagga in the 20th century were shapedrnmaintaining continuity because of the engagements and the activities of both the disorganizedrnand the consolidated mining agents which distributed the benefits of gold and platinumrnextraction among themselves.rnIt reveals that the undertakings of gold and platinum prospecting, exploration and extractionrnactivities by these mining agents in Wallagga were for their own benefits and that it was therntraditional mining industry with its methods and tools of extracting these precious metals whichrnwas maintained in Wallagga in the 20th century.rnIt also unravels that the foreign concessionaires and their companies like A.Ilg and the Minesrnd’Or du Wallaga, A.Prasso and the Societiè Minière des Concessions Prasso en Abyssinie, thernWestern Abyssinian Mining Syndicate, the Italian intruders and the S.A.P.I.E. and the centralrngovernment of Ethiopia distributed the benefits of gold and platinum extraction in Wallaggarndisproportionately among themselves in which the local miners became less beneficiaries. Butrnsuch distribution had made the central government of Ethiopia to win much of the gold extractedrnin Wallagga between 1899-1936 and the Mines d’Or du Wallaga, S.A.P.I.E. and S.M.I.T. tornobtain thousands of grams of gold extracted there in the period before 1941. In the case ofrnplatinum, among the consolidated mining agents when Prasso and the Societiè Minière desrnConcessions Prasso en Abyssinie emerged as platinum tycoon in Wallagga and Ethiopia in thern1920s, the platinum miners in Yubdo and the Ethiopian government had remained spectators ofrnthe platinum capitalists. However, during the study period the local miners had limited access torntheir earlier goldfields and became the victims of cheap labor.rnBetween 1941-1991, although the government of Ethiopia had controlled the goldfields and theirrnoutput in Wallagga, because of various factors, it had received reduced amount of gold asrncompared to the output of gold it received in pre-1936 period. During that time, the Ethiopianrngovernment, however, monopolized the Yubdo platinum mine and received all the platinumrnextracted in Yubdo. However, the efforts which the government of Ethiopia had made to solvernsome problems of the miners and the mining industry in Wallagga did not basically change thernpoor living standard which was noticed among the local miners in Wallagga. It also did not alterrnthe slow change which the gold and the platinum mining industry in Wallagga had undergonernparticularly in the second half of the 20th century.

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