The Silver of the Sierra Madre: John Robinson, Boss Shepherd, and the People of the Canyons (review)

416 Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJanuary River and then moved on to Sierra County. In 1 859 word of the Comstock discoveries lured him to that site. Mackay married the widow Louise Bryant when he was in his mid thirties. It was a lifelong but largely long distance relationship since she chose Paris and London as her principal domiciles. During the course of the marriage he was sued at least once by a woman after a failed relationship. The author shows Mackay's struggles with local cartels and banking interests that exploited small-scale mine operators while depicting the growth of his own business. As an inquiring reader I would like to know more about Mackay's financing and where it came from, if it did not come from the same sources as the others . At the highest levels Mackay interfaced with New York financiers including J. P. Morgan, but no analysis of that relationship is offered. In die later phases of his career he expanded into the transoceanic cable and land communications industries. This would have meant competition, cooperation, or both with George Baker of the First National Bank, Junius and J. P. Morgan of the Morgan Bank, Lloyd Tevis and William Fargo of the Wells Fargo Bank; and Moses Taylor, John Jacob Astor, and James Stillman of the National City Bank. His high standing in the financial community of New York ledJ. P. Morgan to offer him the opportunity to participate in the Cerro de Pasco Mines in Peru. The offer is not discussed in the book, but was accepted by his fellow mining tycoons Tevis, James Ben Ali Haggin, and George Hearst. Mackay's role could have helped us understand just how deeply he was involved in the creation of what Morgan called the American Empire in South America. The opportunity to investigate these further issues, however, requires research in New York City, and this is a work focused on local and more intimate issues. My impression of Mackay's personal life, based on this book, is that of a man who literally buried himself in work. Appreciated by his friends, he was supportive of them when they needed help. Rough and tumble, he also intimidated people when he felt it necessary and even entered into fisticuffs with rivals and men who accosted him in bars and on the street. Why he did not retain an ample supply of bodyguards is beyond me. Robust, he seemed to have had an intimate life apart from his family, but the exact nature of that life remains to be more fully examined. The author has done a good job of capturing the color of the times and the more romantic image of the man. The book is well worth the read for those interested in the gold rush, the Comstock Lode, and the mining regime in Nevada and northern California during the second half of the nineteenth century. University ofHoustonJohn Mason Hart The Silver oftL· Sierra Madre:fohn Robinson, Boss Shepherd, and tL· People of the Canyons . ByJohn Mason Hart. (Tucson: University ofArizona Press, 2008. Pp. 256. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780816527045, $45.00 cloth.) Building on his earlier, highly acclaimed studies of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and North American investment in Mexico after the United States Civil War, 2010Book Reviews417 John Mason Hart, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History at the University of Houston, offers a compelling study of the Batopilas Consolidated Mining Company (BCMC), the two men whose drive and management skills made it one the of most spectacularly rich silver-producing operations in the world, and the multifaceted, often tragic, effects that such exploitation had on the environment, the culture, and people of the remote Sierra de Tarahumara and Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) area of southwestern Chihuahua. Skillfully combining biography, entrepreneurial history, and ethnography in a well-written narrative, Hart provides a unique case study of foreign economic intrusion into Mexico between 1861 and 1921, particularly the years coinciding with the regime of President Porfirio Díaz (1876-191 1). Hart focuses on the interaction of his central characters, John R. Robinson and Alexander "Boss" Shepherd, with the people and resources of this isolated...