A History of Mining in Wallagga, Western Ethiopia, 1899-1991
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-07
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
A HISTORY OF MINING IN WALLAGGA, WESTERN ETHIOPIA, 1899-1991.
In the 19th century the local people of Wallagga were engaged in the extraction of gold as well
as iron and brought the items to some local markets in western Ethiopia. In the 20th century the
local miners of Wallagga, however, began to see the coming of more organized and consolidated
foreign and domestic mining agents which controlled and extracted gold and platinum ores
found in Wallagga.
The dissertation explores the engagements and the activities of these mining agents including the
local miners in gold and platinum mining industry in Wallagga and the benefits they had
obtained from these activities in the 20th century. To this end, it has relied on archival sources,
British foreign office documents, travelers’ accounts, oral sources, newspapers and secondary
materials. I have analyzed the sources using qualitative and quantitative historical methods.
I argue that gold and platinum mining industry in Wallagga in the 20th century were shaped
maintaining continuity because of the engagements and the activities of both the disorganized
and the consolidated mining agents which distributed the benefits of gold and platinum
extraction among themselves.
It reveals that the undertakings of gold and platinum prospecting, exploration and extraction
activities by these mining agents in Wallagga were for their own benefits and that it was the
traditional mining industry with its methods and tools of extracting these precious metals which
was maintained in Wallagga in the 20th century.
It also unravels that the foreign concessionaires and their companies like A.Ilg and the Mines
d’Or du Wallaga, A.Prasso and the Societiè Minière des Concessions Prasso en Abyssinie, the
Western Abyssinian Mining Syndicate, the Italian intruders and the S.A.P.I.E. and the central
government of Ethiopia distributed the benefits of gold and platinum extraction in Wallagga
disproportionately among themselves in which the local miners became less beneficiaries. But
such distribution had made the central government of Ethiopia to win much of the gold extracted
in Wallagga between 1899-1936 and the Mines d’Or du Wallaga, S.A.P.I.E. and S.M.I.T. to
obtain thousands of grams of gold extracted there in the period before 1941. In the case of
platinum, among the consolidated mining agents when Prasso and the Societiè Minière des
Concessions Prasso en Abyssinie emerged as platinum tycoon in Wallagga and Ethiopia in the
1920s, the platinum miners in Yubdo and the Ethiopian government had remained spectators of
the platinum capitalists. However, during the study period the local miners had limited access to
their earlier goldfields and became the victims of cheap labor.
Between 1941-1991, although the government of Ethiopia had controlled the goldfields and their
output in Wallagga, because of various factors, it had received reduced amount of gold as
compared to the output of gold it received in pre-1936 period. During that time, the Ethiopian
government, however, monopolized the Yubdo platinum mine and received all the platinum
extracted in Yubdo. However, the efforts which the government of Ethiopia had made to solve
some problems of the miners and the mining industry in Wallagga did not basically change the
poor living standard which was noticed among the local miners in Wallagga. It also did not alter
the slow change which the gold and the platinum mining industry in Wallagga had undergone
particularly in the second half of the 20th century.
Description
Keywords
A History of Mining in Wallagga, Western Ethiopia