La estrategia diplomática-militar de España reflejada en la correspondencia extraoficial del Duque de Huéscar entre 1747 y 1748

[ES] En este artículo se pretende contribuir al conocimiento de los sucesos bélicos acaecidos en Génova durante la primavera de 1747, a través del intercambio de correspondencia inédita entre algunos de los principales aliados españoles de esta república, capitaneados por Carvajal y Ensenada que encontraron en don Fernando de Silva, duque de Huéscar (luego de Alba), el mejor enlace para la conformación de una red social que permitiera un conocimiento extraoficial que mejorara la capacidad de actuación a favor de los intereses de España en dicha república. Un análisis interpersonal de un hecho histórico que pone de manifiesto la «tensa relación» diplomática entre Francia y España, unidas por el Pacto de Familia de 1743 y que determinó las estrategias diplomáticas llevadas por ambos durante las negociaciones de la paz de Aquisgrán, que puso fin a la Guerra de Sucesión Austriaca.

Federal Authority and the Development of Corporate Mining, 1807-1847

While the 1913-1914 copper country miners’ strike undoubtedly plays an important role in the identity of the Keweenaw Peninsula, it is worth noting that the model of mining corporations employing large numbers of laborers was not a foregone conclusion in the history of American mining. Between 1807 and 1847, public mineral lands in Missouri, in the Upper Mississippi Valley, and along the southern shore of Lake Superior were reserved from sale and subject to administration by the nation’s executive branch. By decree of the federal government, miners in these regions were lessees, not landowners. Yet, in the Wisconsin lead region especially, federal authorities reserved for independent “diggers” the right to prospect virtually unencumbered. In doing so, they preserved a comparatively egalitarian system in which the ability to operate was determined as much by luck as by financial resources. A series of revolts against federal authority in the early nineteenth century gradually encouraged officers in Washington to build a system in the copper country in which only wealthy investors could marshal the resources to both obtain permits and actually commence mining operations. This paper will therefore explore the role of the federal government in establishing a leasing system for public mineral lands in the years previous to the California Gold Rush, highlighting the development of corporate mining which ultimately set a stage for the wave of miners’ strikes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.