History of Carboneros
The name of the town refers to the former wealth derived from its ancient mining activity, which dates back to the times of the Carthaginian General Aníbal. In the references that appear in the written sources of the silver mines in the Cástulo area, the Well of Baebelo is mentioned, identified with the mining town of Los Palazuelos, in the municipality of Carboneros, from which Aníbal obtained huge quantities of silver.
After the Roman conquest, exploitation of the mine continued, as evidenced by sources and the localised ceramic materials. The current urban and landscape configuration of Carboneros has the imprint of the colonial towns founded in 1767, under the patronage of King Carlos III and the direction of the Mayor, Pablo de Olavide, within the New Populations Program. This project aimed to colonise large desert areas of the Sierra Morena, populate an empty zone formerly renowned for unmonitored banditry, and put potentially rich but wild and desert areas under cultivation to counteract their neglect. The colonisation model reflects enlightened thought, a combination of utopia with social and political reformism. An ideal society of middle-class owners was projected, who could be self-sufficient and provide what was necessary for their cultivation.
In 1767, the first settlers arrived, brought by the Bavarian adventurer, Thürrieguel, from different parts of Central Europe. The establishment of the colony was not without difficulties and disappointments. In Carboneros, the process began with the construction of five houses, a church, an enclosure dedicated to a prison and a granary. The process was consolidated little by little; by the beginning of the nineteenth century, it already had about 515 inhabitants. By the middle of the 1800s, its production activity had come to specialise in oil. This led to the expansion of the settlement, the population of which had almost double by the beginning of the twentieth century. However, the novelty of this project was based not only on the new social model proposed for these localities or the new agrarian organization, but also on the fact that a totally different urbanism was drawn from that which until then characterized the Spanish towns. Several villages were created that depended on Carboneros; these were El Acebuchar, La Mesa and Los Cuellos, whose purpose was to bring the poorer community closer to their land.