The long-awaited “The Cornish in Latin America: ‘Cousin Jack’ and the New World” - by Cornish mining migration specialist Dr Sharron P. Schwartz - sheds light on a little understood aspect of the mining migration story of the nineteenth century.

Dr Schwartz has produced an exhaustively researched but thoroughly readable work which recounts in detail how the Latin American mining fields of Peru, Mexico, Chile, Cuba, Brazil and elsewhere became established, or were reshaped through the application of Cornish skills and technology, allied with British capital. Not content with documenting the impacts of the Cornish in communities throughout Latin America, Dr Schwartz also addresses the effects that this migration had on the many towns and villages across Cornwall from whence the migrants came.

"In this new and comprehensive study Sharron Schwartz stands considerably apart from her predecessors. A Redruth girl herself, her prime concern is with her fellow-Cornish overseas in Latin America; their adventures and achievements, their families, descendants and associates, their legacies matching those of the Scots in New Zealand or the Welsh in Patagonia." - The late Professor Charles Thomas

This publication addresses a glaring gap in the literature covering Cornish-related migration studies. But more importantly, it demonstrates the significant Cornish contribution to the British development of nineteenth century Latin American mining resources, thus ensuring that the labour migrants from this small and remarkable region of Britain are finally recognised for their involvement in this process.

http://www.cornubianpress.com/Publications/default.html 

http://www.cornubianpress.com/preview/default.html 

Sharron will be signing copies of her book on the Cornish Studies Library, Redruth on Saturday 26th November 2016 between 10:15 and 12:30 where the book can be brought post free.

Martin Critchley