Peruvian Amazon Company


The Peruvian Amazon Company, also known as the Anglo-Peruvian Amazon Rubber Co., was a rubber boom company that operated in Peru during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Headquartered in Iquitos, it gained notoriety for its harsh treatment of Indigenous workers in the Amazon Basin, whom its field forces subjected to conditions akin to slavery. The company's exploitative practices were brought to light in 1912 through an investigative report by British consul-general Roger Casement and an article and book by journalist W. E. Hardenburg.
The company of the Arana Brothers, which had sought capital in London, merged with the PAC in 1907. Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana ran the company in Peru. British members of the board of directors included Sir John Lister-Kaye, 3rd Baronet.
The company operated in the area of the Putumayo River, a river that flows from the Andes to join the Amazon River deep in the tropical jungle. This area, inhabited by numerous Indigenous peoples, was contested at the time among Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. Some of the Indigenous populations that were affected by the Peruvian Amazon Company during the Putumayo genocide include the Witoto, Bora, Ocaina, and Andoque tribes.

Origins of the company

The Cinchona boom and the start of the rubber boom incentivised exploration as well as settlement of previously uncolonised land in the Amazon. One of the first prominent expeditions into the Putumayo River basin during the 19th century started as a business venture by future Colombian president Rafael Reyes in 1875. The group found the region richly inhabited by rubber trees and an abundant potential work force to collect that rubber. Members of that original expedition like Benjamin Larrañaga, Crisóstomo Hernández, the Calderón brothers, and other Colombians established themselves along the Putumayo.
In 1896, Julio César Arana, the owner of a small peddling business based in Iquitos, began trading with Colombian settlers in the region. Shortly after, a business partnership was arranged between Arana and Larrañaga who at the time owned La Chorrera along the Igara Paraná River. Arana adopted the common practices of the local Colombians in the region at the time, who made it their business to enslave and exploit the natives as a work force to extract rubber. Often, if a weight quota imposed by the caucheros was not met by the indigenous rubber collectors, the resulting punishment ranged from execution, dismemberment, starvation, or potentially flagellation where the victim is left to die from their festering wounds. The Huitotos, Resígaro, the Andokes, the Boras, and other tribes were forced to work for Arana and other rubber companies he associated with in the region.
Before the rubber boom reached the Putumayo, the city exporting the largest amount of rubber from the Amazon was Pará on the coast of Brazil. Under the influence of Arana, Iquitos claimed that title. In 1898, a commercial house was established in Iquitos by Arana. At the time, the city was already a major center of export for Amazonian rubber. The following year, the Booth Steamship Co. of Liverpool established a monthly connection from Iquitos to Liverpool and New York. In a few years, Arana would be shipping a third of the total rubber exports in Iquitos to Liverpool, Le Havre, Hamburg, and New York.
In 1900, Arana was exporting 35,000 pounds of rubber a year. By 1906, he was exporting 1.4 million pounds of rubber. Sometime in 1900, the Larrañaga, Arana y compañia was formed from the partnership with the Larrañagas. Shortly after Benjamin Larrañaga's death in December 1903, Arana bought out Rafael Larrañaga's share from the company: "taking advantage of their ignorance and stupidity to rob them scandalously". Arana employed manipulation, deceit, and force to acquire the property of other entrepreneurs in the area. The Calderón brothers at El Encanto and Hipólito Perez, who owned Argelia, lost their property to Arana due to manipulative business arrangements. Subsequently, José Cabrera, the owner of Nueva Granada on the Caraparaná River, was coerced into selling his estate at a disadvantageous price to Arana. He was intimidated "by threats of killing him, by shooting at him from ambush, by forcibly taking away his Indians, and by the other methods for which this company is known".
In 1905, Arana travelled to London with the aim of attracting investment. The Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company, Ltd. was registered in London on 26 September 1907, with the assistance of English investors and a capital of £1,000,000. This new company acquired the assets of Arana's previous firm, J.C. Arana y Hermanos. The following year, "rubber" was dropped from the name, making it the Peruvian Amazon Company, Ltd. At that time, the company had headquarters branches in Iquitos, managed by Julio's brother-in-law Pablo Zumaeta. Zumaeta was responsible for the operations in the Putumayo and the outflow of rubber. Another branch in Manaus was managed by Julio's brother, Lizardo Arana.

The Putumayo estates

While the Peruvian Amazon Company owned territory along the Purus, Napo and Caqueta Rivers, the enterprise's most profitable rubber stations were established in the Putumayo River basin. During the rubber boom, Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador had disputed claims on the Putumayo River basin, the territory owned by the Peruvian Amazon Company was specifically contested by Peru and Colombia. The presence of Arana's company in this area reinforced Peru's claim to the territory, as the Peruvian agents of the company were occupying the land and the company had monopolized the region, essentially removing Colombian competition from the area by 1908. The company exerted such a level of control over the Putumayo River basin that any traveler that desired to traverse the territory would have to depend on the company for transportation, as well as permission to access the territory.
The Peruvian Amazon Company's territory in the Putumayo was part of the Amazon rainforest and a small mountain range. Walter E. Hardenburg, Roger Casement, and several other sources of first hand information described territory in the Putumayo as difficult to navigate on land. Both Hardenburg and Casement implicated Peruvian government officials in the region with accepting bribes from the Peruvian Amazon Company, Casement also noted that several of those officials were simultaneously employed by Arana's company while holding government positions. The company's general manager at La Chorrera, Victor Macedo, even held the position of Justice of the Peace for Peru in the Putumayo River basin. The American consul-general to Iquitos in 1907, Charles C. Eberhardt, was able to obtain a list that contains the documented numbers for the indigenous populations throughout La Chorrera's district prior to December 3 of 1907. The list, contained in one of Eberhardt's consular dispatches, was reported with the following figures:
Name of section.Number of foremenNumber of assistants.Number.Names of Indians
Ultimo Retiro114650Huitotos
Entre Rios114650Do.
Occidente16700Do.
Sur14300Do.
Atenas18600Do.
Oriente18500Ocainos.
Savana1121,000Boras.
Matanzas1185,000Andoques.
Abysinia Morelia1351,600Boras
El Pama Santa Catalina117800Do.

Harvesting of rubber

Within the Putumayo region, two distinct types of rubber were produced and exploited. Castilla elastica yielded caucho negro, or black rubber, and was sourced from tall trees that had to be cut down to harvest. The extraction method for rubber from this tree was often wasteful, involving deep cuts into the trunk, which released all the rubber in one session. The term 'Cauchero' typically refers to the debt peons involved in extracting and exporting caucho rubber. The second type of rubber came from Hevea brasiliensis, producing a product known as jebe or shiringa, which could be tapped long term. The Castilloa tree practically disappeared from the Putumayo region within a span of twenty years.
The rubber collected by the Peruvian Amazon Company was extracted by the forced use of indigenous labour. The company used multiple approaches to entrap the natives of the region into gathering rubber for them. Barbadian overseers and the muchachos de confianza watched over the native population and made sure they did not run away. The 'muchachos de confianza' were indigenous males recruited from a young age to act as enforcers for the company. The Barbadians and their native counterpart often acted as the executioners of the plantation managers, and were used to terrorise the workforce into compliance.
A stock device known as the cepo was also used to punish the natives who did not meet quota. The device was used laying a victim on their backs and spreading their legs apart before restraining them by interring the legs in holes that were cut into the cepo, sometimes the face of the victim was pointed to the ground. According to Roger Casement, the victims would stay in this device for "hours, sometimes for days, often weeks, and sometimes for months in this painful confinement".
Managers at Matanzas, Abisinia, La Sabana, and other plantations demanded five arrobas of rubber every three months. One arroba was equal to 15 kilos or 30 pounds. At times, this was an unobtainable quota. Conditions in the Putumayo region allowed for two to three fabricos a year. A fabrico represented a harvesting period, usually consisting of 75 days. A fabrico was further divided into five periods referred to as puestas, occurring every 10-15 days when the Natives delivered the rubber to a nearby company station. At the end of the fabrico, all five puestas are carried and transported from the station to either the La Chorrera or El Encanto headquarters, where the rubber then shipped to Iquitos.