Amazonian Indians and the Rubber Boom

Context

During the “Neocolonial” period of Latin American history, one of the most prominent aspects of economic imperialism or colonialism was seen in natural resources. For Peru, much of their natural wealth came from minerals, for example, the US Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation’s mining facility (Chasteen 198). However, a story that is told less often is that of the Peruvian Amazon, where rubber was the primary resource that was extracted. The rubber trade was a difficult one for those who participated in it; they often lived lonely lives in the Amazon Rainforest, using latex saps to extract the resources from local trees. Though the work did not earn the actual workers much money, those who traded rubber on the international market become wealthy very quickly (Chasteen 199). As Peruvians, Brazilians, and others converged on the Amazon to participate in the trade, they met indigenous tribes who are often ignored in the histories of countries they ostensibly belong to. Despite the wider foreign dominance of nations like Peru at the time, these tribes took great measures to ensure their continued independence and the survival of their customs and cultures.

For all the talk of nationalism and socialism, there are few groups that resisted foreign influence more than indigenous tribes such as the Amahuaca people, who kidnapped a fifteen year-old mestizo rubber worker named Manuel Córdowa. Córdowa would teach the tribe many of the techniques he knew from his time in the rubber camp, and with the wealth they gained from rubber extraction, they were able to secure firearms and other tools for the tribe. It is just one example of the often invisible struggle that Amerindian tribes went through to maintain their independence in the Neocolonial Era.

Summary

By the time Córdowa’s story takes place, he had lived with the Amahuaca tribe for around three years. As such, he had become somewhat accustomed to this life, though he was still an outsider. Though the experience in Latin American history has often been Europeans influencing and colonizing indigenous peoples, this was almost the opposite case (Starn 215). Though Córdowa was the one teaching the tribe how to harvest rubber from trees, he had been the one who had become accustomed to the local dress, diet, and day-to-day life.

The boy, now seventeen, did his best to help the tribe sharpen their tools for use on caucho trees, which would yield a half ton of rubber (Starn 218). With this, the tribe sent Córdowa and many of their strongest men to take the rubber to the nearest trading post, which happened to be Brazilian. Once there, Córdowa served as the tribe’s representative, though he did not hurry to tell the Brazilians this. His consumption of salt during the meals gave him diarrhea; his time with the Amahuaca had caused his body to become unaccustomed to salt (Starn 223). This is just one way in which his time with the tribe changed him. When he returned with firearms, beads, and mirrors, the tribe was ecstatic, and festivities soon followed. Córdowa could not recall all the myths he had heard, but he did remember that the tribe believed the moon was a man’s head, which had been cut off and found its way into the cosmos.

Conclusion

The continued presence of such beliefs shows that in an era in which European and American economic dominance of Latin America countries was the main focus of many people living in these nations, tribes like the Amahuaca still found ways to resist this influence and even that of their own countrymen. Their participation in the rubber trade was only for their own agency; they traded rubber for firearms and other tools that they would use to better protect themselves against outside invasion. In this way, the tribe chose to participate in the trade of the time, but in their own way, and in a way that allowed them to retain their cultures. This is a trend that continues to this day, and that has existed since the arrival of European colonists centuries ago. The Amazonian tribes have been able to resist European influence in Peru and Brazil in a way that neither Amerindians nor Peruvians or Brazilians have been able to do. Their culture, still largely intact, can perhaps serve as a reminder that even in times of foreign domination, the diverse peoples of Latin America can still maintain their identities and work towards creating their own place in the world.

Works Cited

Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire: a Concise History of Latin America. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Manuel Córdowa. “Amazonian Indians and the Rubber Boom” in The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Edited by Orin Starn, Carlos Iván Degregori, and Robin Kirk. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.