This way of life in Cauca, however, dramatically shifted in the early 2000s, when the Colombian government under rightwing, neoliberal President Álvaro Uribe began to grant mining concessions to domestic and multinational companies without the consultation of its residents. Like their ancestors, these women and their families are committed to artisanal mining production, refusing to use contaminating substances such as mercury or other toxic materials, whose use transforms clear water streams into gray masses (which I saw for myself in the Pacific coastal department of Chocó) with multiple life threatening consequences. For centuries, these communities supported their families through artisanal mining, agricultural production, and fishing. Enslaved Africans were brought to what became La Toma in the early 1600s to mine gold in the mountains and river streams in service of the growing Spanish empire in the so-called “New World.” In 1636, La Toma was officially established by slaves and runaways, becoming one among many “free towns” and maroons that emerged across the African Diaspora. Nestled atop rolling green hills and valleys in the southwestern department of Cauca, La Toma, like many towns across Colombia, was built with blood and perseverance.
“ Our Love for Life is Greater Than Our Fear of Death”
That’s why as of November 27, 5PM, these twenty-two women have been occupying the offices of the Ministry of the Interior until their demands-all ten of them-are met. Yet, despite the law, constant protests, and multiple commissions, these companies and paramilitaries continue to function without impunity in Cauca. Since 2009, these companies have illegally entered La Toma without the permission required by the prior consultations, or consultas previas, a legal mechanism guaranteed by the 1991 Colombian constitution requiring that communities in historically ancestral communities like La Toma must approve of any interventions into their territories. Arriving to Bogotá on November 27, these women were marching hundreds of miles from their historic gold-mining community of La Toma to speak against the violence and destruction caused by the explosion of illegal, large-scale gold-mining projects controlled by national and transnational corporations and protected by paramilitaries who continuously threaten the women and their families. As thousands across the United States emptied into the streets demanding an end to police brutality and state violence in the wake of a grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson in late November, a group of twenty-two black women from northern Cauca in Colombia were marching on foot to the nation’s capital of Bogotá to assert that black lives also matter in Colombia.
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