The Riotinto Mining Column was a grouping of volunteer fighters formed on 18 July 1936 from the Riotinto mining basins of

Huelva Huelva (, ) is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is between two short rias though has an outlying spur including nature reserve on the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The ria ...

to transport dynamite to

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsul ...

. The plan was for the miners to join a group of republican civil guards and

assault guards The Cuerpo de Seguridad y Asalto ( en, Security and Assault Corps) was the heavy reserve force of the blue-uniformed urban police force of Spain during the Spanish Second Republic. The Assault Guards were special police and paramilitary units c ...

in La Palma del Condado, so that they could enter Seville together. However, the commander of these guards betrayed his command, joined the

nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...

, and on the morning of 19 July, ambushed the mining column in La Pañoleta, on the outskirts of Seville. The guards machine-gunned the miners, blowing up the dynamite, and killing and catching many of them. A military officer broadcast on the radio that they were coming to "blow up the

Giralda The Giralda ( es, La Giralda ) is the bell tower of Seville Cathedral in Seville, Spain. It was built as the minaret for the Great Mosque of Seville in al-Andalus, Moorish Spain, during the reign of the Almohad dynasty, with a Renaissance-style ...

and the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

History

When the July 1936 military uprising in Seville took place on 18 July, fighting broke out between rebellious soldiers and those loyal to the Government. Sebastián Pozas ordered that miners with explosives, assault guards, civil guards and

carabineros The was an armed carabiniers force of Spain under both the monarchy and the Second Republic. The formal mission of this paramilitary gendarmerie was to patrol the coasts and borders of the country, operating against fraud and smuggling. A ...

be sent to Seville to help put down the coup attempt. The column was formed in the Huelva municipalities of Riotinto,

Nerva Nerva (; originally Marcus Cocceius Nerva; 8 November 30 – 27 January 98) was Roman emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became emperor when aged almost 66, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the succeeding rulers of the Flavian ...

and

Calañas Calañas is a town and municipality located in the province of Huelva, Spain. According to the 2005 census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This ...

that same afternoon. It was made up of several hundred

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...

party and union activists, mainly miners, led by Luis Cordero Bel. Ortiz, pp.136-139 Juan Gutiérrez Prieto and Rafael Jurado Chacon. Along the way they were joined by volunteers from the Huelva municipalities of Valverde del Camino and San Juan del Puerto. Their main armament was a shipment of 250 kg of dynamite. Gil, p.476 They also had some

rifles A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with b ...

. Their means of transport was 14 trucks seized from the

Rio Tinto Company Rio Tinto Group is an Anglo-Australian multinational company that is the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). The company was founded in 1873 when of a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto, ...

, including two artisan

armored vehicles Armour ( British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or ...

, as well as some passenger cars and motorcycles.Episod
El Golpe
from the series" Civil War in Andalusia "(Channel 2 Andalucía) The column undertook a route to Seville bypassing Valverde del Camino and La Palma del Condado because the plan was to join some 120 civil guards and assault guards sent from

by the civil governor. But these guards had previously reached La Palma, and followed the nationalists to Seville and joining them there. Very early on 19 July the column continued on its way to Seville. In Castilleja del Campo they seized some

shotguns A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub-proje ...

; then in

Castilleja de la Cuesta Castilleja de la Cuesta is a town and municipality in the province of Seville, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Hernán Cortés died in this town on December 2, 1547. He is not buried here, as his will directed that his remains ...

they stopped for breakfast. In Castilleja de la Cuesta a car passed by the column without being disturbed. In it were two Falangists, who went to the center of Seville and joined the rebels. At 10:00, the commander-in-chief of the nationalist forces in

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The ...

ordered the civil guards, who had arrived from

the night before, to intercept the column. Gil, p.474 The guards drove their vehicles to Castilleja, bypassing La Algaba to avoid the barricades erected in Triana by the popular militias. Passing through Camas they stopped to liquidate the leftist resistance and put the city council into

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, autho ...

hands. At twelve o'clock on 19 July, when arriving at the "Cuesta del Caracol" in the neighborhood of La Pañoleta, the column fell into an ambush set up by the civil guards. A confused verbal exchange ensued, after which the guards machine-gunned the miners. One or more of the trucks loaded with dynamite exploded. 25 miners died and 71 were taken prisoner. Some trucks were able to turn around and flee while the rest of the column broke up on foot. Gil, pp.478-479 The captured miners were tried by the nationalists in a

council of war A council of war is a term in military science that describes a meeting held to decide on a course of action, usually in the midst of a battle. Under normal circumstances, decisions are made by a commanding officer, optionally communicated ...

. Three died in Seville prisons. Of the remaining 68, all but one, a minor, were sentenced to death on 29 August and shot. The Nationalist faction used the mining column episode in its propaganda, accusing the miners of having intended to "blow up Seville" or more specifically the

. In 2007 the town hall of Camas erected a monolith in memory of the Huelva mining column. In 2014 the remains of nine of the miners were found, buried in the old Camas cemetery.

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

* Photographs of the miners on the way out of the council of war in Seville in August 1936 in {{cite web , title = Summer 1936: from Ríotinto to La Pañoleta, a nightmare come true , url = http://www.cosasdeandalucia.com/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=427&Itemid=185 , access-date = February 10, 2012 , author = Fernando Repiso , publisher = Things from Andalusia , date = August 23, 2009 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171210194629/http://www.cosasdeandalucia.com/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=427&Itemid=185, archive-date=10 December 2017 Military units and formations of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction) Miners' labor movement Miners' labor disputes

History

See also

References

Bibliography

External links