The Putumayo, The Devil's Paradise/Chapter 4

The present writer has, in South America, been hailed as a "fellow-countryman", by chance Barbadoes men, with that singular cordiality which is one of their characteristics. "How do you do, sir! I'm an Englishman too," they will say, with outstretched hand.

It is noteworthy that one of the worst criminal chiefs of sections was a Peruvian or Bolivian who had been educated in England, frequently referred to. After the exposure of the scandals the Peruvian Government sent a commission of its own to the Putumayo, which confirmed all that had been published. The principal official of this com- mission was Judge Paredes, the proprietor of El Oriente, an Iquitos newspaper; and he made a full report "embodying an enormous volume of testimony, of 3,000 pages involving wellnigh incredible charges of cruelty and massacre" and "issued 237 warrants" against the criminals, as stated in Sir Roger Casement's Report. But between issuing warrants and actually making arrests and convictions, in South America, there is a wide gulf.

Furthermore, Judge Paredes endeavoured, in a recent statement, to show * that the "English Rubber Company" was solely responsible for the atrocities, and that the English Consul at Iquitos has been aiding the guilty parties in keeping from the Peruvian Government an exact knowledge of what was taking place, is the contention of Peru. Mr. David Cazes, English Consul in Iquitos since 1903, would have been in a good position to find out about the management of the rubber plantation. All the rubber gathered in the Putumayo is shipped from Iquitos. And yet he always swore that he knew nothing. No one can enter the territory of the rubber company without the permission of the Company's representative in Iquitos. The twenty- one constables whom the Peruvian Government kept in the Putumayo in those days had all been bribed by the English traders and shut their eyes to what was happening in the jungle."

In this way the Peruvian Commissioner seeks to excuse his country, laying stress on the term "English company and traders," when he knows that the only representatives of the English com- pany were its Peruvian directors and managers. The judge adds: "You must not imagine that the Indians are any less protected than the white man in Peru. Barring, of course, the times of the early Spanish conquerors, the native Indians have been treated very humanely in Peru." This latter statement, read in conjunction with the translations from official documents and El Comercio of Lima, previously given, about Peruvian treatment of the Indians, will enable this statement of the judge to be judged in its turn.

Senor Paredes, when asked by his American interviewer "to what he attributed the recent exposure of wrongs committed several years ago," replied, "It may be that certain Englishmen are a little jealous of the cordial relations existing between Peru and the United States." There is revealed here the somewhat singular situation of Peru's international relations, with its atmosphere of jealousies. Peru strives to look towards what it considers the dominant power in that hemisphere, and years past has been engaged in what might be termed a one-sided political flirtation with the United States. Peru has hoped to enlist the sympathy of the great northern republic, which might strengthen her hands against her old enemy Chile, between whom and the United States there exists a veiled antagonism. The rankling question of Tacna and Arica has been at the base of the Peruvian attitude.

The friendship of the United States would be more valuable, in Peruvian eyes, than that of Great Britain. Furthermore, questions between Peru and the Peruvian Corporation, the powerful company which controls all Peru's railways and which, though international as regards its shareholders and its capitalisation of £22,000,000 sterling, is operated and controlled from London, have often been acute. Each claims that the other has failed to fulfil its contracts, and whilst there have been faults on both sides, the Peruvian Governments of past years were those who first created the difficult situation.

The Corporation has been accused of a sustained, un- friendly attitude towards Peru and of an endeavour to block outside foreign enterprise in the country. It is, however, in Paris that feeling among financiers against Peru has been most acute, and Peru has been in the past practically shut out from the French financial market owing to the unsettled claims of French creditors. In general terms the United States is considered to be the more desirable friend, not Europe, and thus it is that North American friendship is cultivated. There is, however, no unfriendliness between Peru and Great Britain, and the best Peruvian statesmen have done their best to cultivate good relations. But, like all American people, the Peruvians are sensitive, and they deeply resent outside criticism.

The work of Messrs. Hardenburg and Perkins, to whom the exposure of the Putumayo atrocities is primarily due, has scarcely received sufficient acknowledgment. The risks they ran in obtaining evidence were considerable, and such as can only be understood by a traveller accustomed to Latin American ways. Human life is held cheap in such communities. Murder and treachery to secure personal or political ends are only repressed in the Latin American republics by the presence of collective opinion. Where that is absent or perturbed there is no restraining influence, such as the personal sense of fair play and hatred of treachery which the British character affords. It is not only a matter of education, but of soil, climate, race, and character. Those who arouse the antagonism of any person in power, where the law is weak, may expect anything, from charges of blackmail to the knife or bullet of the assassin. The terrible political murders constantly taking place in the Latin American republics indi- cate the ruthless spirit prevalent among certain classes in those communities. The trouble taken by Hardenburg to collect his evidence, and the repugnance displayed towards the authors of the crime, and the appeal to English justice are worthy, of recognition.*

The British public might feel constrained to ask how it was possible that the British Consul at Iquitos, whence all the rubber is shipped— who has been stationed at that town since 1903, had never heard of nor investigated the abuses committed against the Indians ; that it remained for a chance traveller to bring them to general notice. Furthermore, the British Vice-Consul at Manaos appears to have had no knowledge of the subject. When the Peruvian Amazon Company imported foremen from Barbadoes-British subjects — and these men learned of the terrible nature of the duties they were to perform, which was that of slave-driving and flagellating the Indians, and complained to the Consul, asking for an annulment of their contracts, they were unable to obtain release by the official. The rubber from the Amazon Valley is all exported in English vessels, moreover. Notwithstanding the extensive British interests in Peru, no inkling of the treatment and fate of the unfortunate Indians had reached the outside world before.

It is to be noted that the American Consul at Iquitos appears not to have been able to afford any assistance to Mr. Hardenburg and his companion, and that action was taken by the American Government consequent upon the ill treatment of its citizens, only after a considerable lapse of time. The ill treatment of the two travellers afforded an opportunity for intervention by the United States Government, even if it had not been indemnity of £500. The Peruvian Legation at the same time was publishing letters in the London Press actually denying that such occurrences had taken place, aroused to action on grounds of humanity alone. It was only in July, 1911, a year after Consul Casement had been dispatched by the British Government to Peru, and after six months of tele- graphic dispatches between the British Foreign Office and the British Minister in Lima — dispatches communicated to the Peruvian Government — that the United States Government, having been urged thereto by the British representative, consented to make "informal representations" at Lima. Again urged by the British Government to support their representations, as no progress was being made in bringing the criminals to justice, the United States Minister, six months afterwards, was instructed to support the British representative. Thus, had action not been taken by Great Britain none would have been forthcoming by the United States, a con- dition which, for a nation that has assumed and been granted the position of policeman in South America, must be regretted.

The Monroe Doctrine carries with it a greater responsibility than has been exercised so far by the United States in Latin American affairs, and this is becoming plainer to the great body of well-meaning American people. The United States at the present time are actively engaged in increasing their commercial standing with their southern neighbours, but it is the case that these doubt the moral superiority of their neighbour, and naturally resent his right to interfere in their political and international affairs. Under the most favourable conditions the collection of rubber is an arduous and generally unhealthy work. Years ago an estimate was made that every ton of rubber from the Amazon Valley cost two human lives, and although at that time the estimate seemed to be an exaggerated one, the methods of the Putumayo must have quadrupled it.

If the native rubber-gatherer were treated as an ordinary labourer and paid a due wage, it is safe to say that it would not pay to gather wild rubber at all, or only by increasing its price in the world's market very considerably. As a cheap commodity it represents a definite ratio of human lives lost. In Sir Roger Casement's Report it is shown that for the twelve years 1900 to 1911 the Putumayo output of 4,000 tons of rubber cost 30,000 lives. Various rubber companies in Peru and Rolivia have been obliged already to suspend operations due to scarcity of labour. The remedy lies in planting, in conjunction with the wild rubber forests. The amount of rubber collected by the slave labour in the Putumayo district for the benefit of the company and its predecessors, for six years ending in December, 1910, was 2,947,800 kilograms, of the value on the London market of nearly £1,000,000.

The output from Iquitos, however, has not decreased, which has been taken as a proof that native labour is still being hard driven. The crop year 1911-12 shows a consider- able increase over that for 1910-11.* Perhaps one of the most remarkable circumstances affecting the rubber company is the ease with which it was possible to float, in London, a property of which, to a large extent, possession was imaginary and without proper title. It is but another instance of the astute methods of company promoters and the gullibility of the British shareholder. It will be recollected that in 1909 shares in rubber companies to the amount of £150,000,000 sterling were taken up, a great part of which have proved useless or fraudulent. Laws seem inadequate against the combination of knave, fool, and victim which is so marked a feature of modern company promoting finance.

The occurrences on the Putumayo accentuate a moral which is bound to be presented to the conscience of the investing British public. In South America, as in Latin America generally, and in many other parts of the world where aboriginal labour is cheap, great sums of British capital are invested, and a steady stream of gold turns its course therefrom towards the British Isles. But these numerous and complacent shareholders in their comfortable surroundings know nothing, and have not made it their business to care anything, about the conditions of life of the humble workers who produce the dividends. Do they know that their gains are often secured by the labour of ill-paid, half-starved, and often grossly abused brown and black folk?

How long does the British shareholder of foreign enterprises expect to live upon the toil of distant "niggers," who themselves reap little or nothing from the soil upon which they were born? There are approximately £600,000,000 sterling of British money invested in bonds, stock, and shares in South American enterprises, quoted on the London Stock Exchange, which return in the aggregate a steady average dividend of nearly 5 per cent, per annum. Some of these enterprises pay 12, 20, and 25 per cent, interest. Much of this is the result of poor native labour.

In various instances what amounts to spoliation is practised upon the cheap labor by British-owned companies. Similar conditions hold good with American concerns- mining and rubber gathering in Mexico and Central and South America. The Americans are often extremely oppressive to the Indian labourer. In the American -owned copper mines of Peru serious outbreaks due to this cause have occurred of recent years. The white American foreman rapidly gets used to oppressing the Indian. The miserable con- ditions of native labour in Latin America ought to be brought home to the directors and shareholders of British and other foreign companies. There are hundreds of rubber, mining, oil, plantation, railway, and other companies with scores of noblemen— lords, dukes, baronets— as well as doctors of science, bankers, and businessmen, and even ministers of religion, distributed among their boards of directors. What knowledge have these gentlemen of the conditions of the poor native labourers under their control? There is a grave responsibility, which has been very easily carried, about this system of absentee capitalism. British investment in and trade with the Latin American countries is an important part of British commercial prosperity. But this trade is not increasing in nearly the same ratio as that of other countries, notably the United States and Germany. In some cases it is falling off. This is due partly to a lack of organisation, and is constantly pointed out in consular and trade reports.*

The occurrences on the Putumayo have at least tended to arouse the religious element, if not the commercial conscience, of the British people. A severe indictment of the directors of the Peruvian Amazon Company was made from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, in August, 1912, in a sermon by Canon Henson. The English directors were denounced by name, and the demand made that they should be arrested and brought to public trial, the preacher stating that he chose that famous pulpit for delivering the indictment in order that the widest possible publicity might be given to the subject. The directors, in the public Press, then made through their solicitors an emphatic and in- dignant denial of their responsibility, alleging that in the first place they were ignorant of the occurrences, and that when these were shown to have some foundation in fact they voluntarily dispatched a commission to inquire into the matter.

Aroused by the revelations made, several religious missions started to being in London, asking for support by public subscription to enable missionary work to be carried out and stations established in the Peruvian Amazon region. There is a strong religious moral to be drawn from the occurrences of a strong Latin American Bureau in London, for the purpose of fostering trade with those lands, of bringing forward their geographical possibilities and natural resources, and of insisting upon attention being paid to the condition of Latin American labour. In the United States a strong organisation exists in the Pan-American Union at Washington for dealing with the first two items here proposed, and due to its exertions the United States are securing a much larger share of Latin American trade than formerly.

In all probability such a terrible situation would never have grown to being if the fine work of the old Jesuit and Franciscan friars in Brazil and Peru had been allowed to flourish. One of the greatest names associated with the Amazon is that of the famous Padre Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian by birth, who passed the larger part of his life in the service of Spain in Peru as a Jesuit missionary, working from 1686 to 1723, among the Indians of the Amazon forests. Living with the native tribes of the Huallaga, the Napo— which parallels the Putumayo— the Ucayali, and others of the great affluents of the Amazon, this devoted priest carried on his Christianizing work, winning the natives to Christianity in a way so remarkable as has never been equalled since. Venturing at length farther down the Amazon into Portuguese territory, Fritz fell ill, and was detained for two years at Para by the Portuguese, who were jealous and fearful of Spanish domination in the Amazon Valley.

The Portuguese built forts at the confluence of the Rio Negro, where Manaos now stands, in order to assert their sovereignty over that part of the river, and dispatched armed bands upstream which destroyed the Christian missions and settlements Fritz had founded. The atrocious cruelties practiced in these slave-raids, for such in effect they were, caused the tribes to flee to remoter regions, and a great diminution of the population followed in the first half of the eighteenth century. Thus the Portuguese conquistadores accomplished for the Amazon what the Spaniards had performed for the Andine highlands, and what the commercial con- quest of rubber gathering, nominally conducted from London, has accomplished in the twentieth century.

There can be no doubt of the value of religious missions in the Amazon Valley. A mission which should establish itself in these regions ought to be provided with well-appointed launches and motorboats, and to be prepared to exercise a more or less "muscular" kind of Christianity. Between the rival claims that have been advanced for Roman Catholic and Protestant Missions it is difficult to judge. The existing Romish Church in the Andean highlands is a valuable restraining force, but its methods often partake of spoliation of the Indian under the cloak of religion, and of what, as regards certain of its attributes, is practically petty idolatry; whilst the moral character of the village priests leaves much to be desired. There seems little reason why both sects should not exercise their sway. Protestant public worship or proselytising is against the Peruvian laws, but is tolerated. Nevertheless, bitter hostility is shown to it in the upland regions, which are absolutely under priestly control. In the Amazon lowlands and rivers this obstacle would possibly be less formidable.

The occurrences of the Putumayo have aroused public feeling in Lima, where a pro-indigena, or native protection society, has been established, based upon a former, feebler association of similar character ; for there has always existed a party protesting against the abuses practised upon the Indians. The change of Government in the Republic has brought promises of betterment. Telegraphic communications to the London Press have announced, on the one hand, that the Peruvian Chambers of Congress have "moved a resolution protesting against the attitude of Great Britain and the United States," and, on the other, "that in- humanity in the Putumayo has been absolutely abolished." Apart from electioneering devices, it cannot be doubted that the Government has been aroused. But those acquainted with social conditions in South America v^ill greatly doubt if, apart from mutilations and assassination, the social condition of the Indian will yet be bettered or the ruinous system of peonage replaced by civilized labor conditions. If peonage and forced labor still exist in the more civilised upland regions, as they do, the conditions are not likely to be banished in the Amazon forestal lowlands. The subject must not be allowed to sink into oblivion, and the pressure of public opinion must be sustained.

If the occurrences which have been exposed lead to an awakening of the commercial conscience as regards investments in countries where poor native labour is employed, and to the consequent betterment of the lot of the humble worker in Latin America, the cruel sacrifice of the poor Indians in the dismal forests of the Putumayo will not have been in vain. C. Reginald Enock.

*The present writer has proposed at various times, in letters to the Press and to the Chambers of Commerce, the establishment
 * The present writer has, in his books, endeavoured to show forth the possibilities of Peru, and the good points of its people, towards whom as a nation he retains feelings of friendship. But no service is performed by attempting to conceal the serious defects of character displayed in Peruvian individuals and governance.
 * "-■= The two American travellers were left without resources in Iquitos, and came to London under considerable difficulties. Hardenburg was accused by the company of attempted black- mail, in the laying of his evidence iDefore the editor of Truth and the Anti-Slavery Society, By a fortunate coincidence there arrived at that moment a letter, announcing that the Peruvian Government, due to representation made by the United States, had agreed to pay over to the two travellers an
 * (See Board of Trade Journal, September, 1912.)