Dialectical Postcards

This is by all accounts the best view of Ouro Preto, and indeed, this picture postcard of the Baroque gold rush town could adorn any tourist biscuit tin or bar of chocolate. I took it from the grounds of the recently restored Palacio de Ouro. Built in 1681, it claims to be the first colonial mansion in the area and within its immediate vicinity, there were an estimated sixty mines, a testament to the presence of rich veins of precious metal that ignited the dreams of a Brasilian El Dorado.  Behind me there is a strange rectangular single storey stone building comprised of two rooms, each one nine square metres in plan. One is enclosed, lightless and accessed through a heavily fortified wooden door. The only opening is a small ground level hatch through which food was delivered. This is where African miners were kept prisoner. The other half resembles a small medieval fortress with bow and arrow slit windows. This was home to soldiers whose brief was to protect the miners at all costs. Europeans had scant knowledge about how to extract and process gold ore, but it was a tradition with a long history in Africa. Angola and Mozambique were famous for gold production and possessed highly skilled miners whose knowledge was as valuable as the metal itself. This made them a target, first of slave traders, and then once in Brasil, of raiding parties from other mine owners desperate for their skills. Imprisoned in the darkness  of a mine during the day. Imprisoned in the darkness of a cell at night. A truly disturbing hell on earth that should by rights leave visitors in complete silence. It should not be possible to process the picturesque panorama of white  and terracotta in the valley below  with the carceral  architecture of utter misery behind me. This is why postcards of buildings and cities, whether  English gothic cathedrals or glitzy Dubai towers, should contain warnings  which explain that without the ruthless exploitation of  human labour, they simply wouldn’t exist.