Chapter VI: The Devil's Paradise (2)

Tribe after tribe of the peaceful and hospitable Indians of these forests has disappeared before the onslaughts of Peruvian "_civilisation_." Colombian after Colombian has been foully murdered by these miserable criminals, until at last they were exterminated and their establishments, so long coveted by the syndicate of crime, passed into its unclean hands.

As we shall see in the subsequent pages of this catalogue of horrors, the Peruvian authorities of the Department of Loreto, thanks to an unparalleled system of wholesale bribery--for in this way only can we explain their conduct--do absolutely nothing to put a stop to this state of affairs. We observe a type of the _comisarios_[100] of this region; and also the attitude of the Prefect[101] in regard to these horrors; and we are aware that the denunciations of Saldaña were neglected, passed over and finally pigeon-holed by the judicial authorities of Iquitos. From this it is evident that justice cannot be looked for from that quarter.

I venture to state that within four or five years more--if this awful butchery is allowed to continue (which I do not believe)--these immense forests, formerly occupied by tens of thousands of peaceful, industrious Indians, quite capable of civilisation and Christianity, will be but huge and silent sepulchres, sown with the unburied bones of the unfortunate victims of an exploitation without parallel in history.

But is this to be permitted? Although we are too late to save the larger part of these victims, who have already passed out of existence, let us rescue the few we can and mete out punishment to the fiends who are filling their pockets with the gold produced by the very life-blood, the sweat, the tears, the agony of these unfortunates. Let us do what we can, at this late hour, to release the helpless Indians of the Putumayo from the cruel and inquisitorial yoke that these human hyenas have riveted upon them.

Think of nine-year-old girls torn from their homes, ravished, and afterwards tortured or flogged to death; of sucking infants snatched from their mothers' arms and their heads smashed against a tree; of a wife having her legs cut off merely for refusing to become one of the concubines of these bandits; of men flogged until ...[102] or of old fathers shot to death before their sons' eyes merely because they were old and could work no longer!

The poor Indian, in spite of the diabolical "_civilisation_" of the Peruvians, has never been taught to read or write, has no friends to protect him, and, notwithstanding his _thirteen_ years of contact with this "civilising company" of Arana, has never even heard of the existence of God, and his untutored mind is seared and benumbed by the long years of cruel suffering at the hands of these monsters. Heathen and Indian they are, but they are human, just as we are; they have souls; they have affections and love and cherish their dear ones just as we do ours; they are our brothers. And if they are stupid, heathen, ignorant, whose fault is it? Is it not the fault of these fiends who for years have taken advantage of their ignorance and helplessness, exploited their meekness and humility, and fastened upon them the iron chains of the shocking slavery in which they are now held? And when we see that they are ignorant, heathen, and helpless and cannot protest against their horrible fate, is it not our duty, for that very reason, to defend them the more energetically?

The origin and history of the Peruvian Amazon Company are as follows:--

In the latter eighties of the last century Julio César Arana arrived at Iquitos barefooted, hawking Panama hats; but soon, by good luck and a certain low cunning with which he is endowed, he succeeded in building up a small business in peddling along the rivers. This business, confined at first only to hats, &c., he afterwards extended to a variety of articles and did fairly well at it.

Learning of the rich rubber forests of the Putumayo, which were then being exploited by several small Colombian companies established there, he entered the Putumayo in 1896, and soon afterwards formed a partnership with Benjamin and Rafael Larrañaga,[103] owners of the establishments of La Chorrera. Subsequently he also associated himself with other Colombian companies there, and these enterprises proving profitable, in 1898 he opened a house in Iquitos, and in 1903, together with his brother Lizardo,[B] and his brothers-in-law, Pablo Zumaeta[B] and Abel Alarco,[104] founded the celebrated J. C. Arana and Hermanos Company, with a branch house in Manaos, Brazil.

In 1904 this company bought out the Larrañagas' holdings at La Chorrera, taking advantage of their ignorance and stupidity to rob them scandalously. Thus they remained sole masters of the whole Igaraparaná. A little later they also acquired the establishments of Calderón Hermanos at Encanto and that of Hipólito Pérez at Argelia, robbing them also, according to their custom. They were now the principal company in the whole Putumayo.

Not content with this, however, and urged on by the rapacity of Julio César Arana and his accomplices, they forced José Cabrera, owner of Nueva Granada, to sell out to them at an insignificant price 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.[105]

The next step in the progress of the syndicate was the beginning of a systematic persecution of the three remaining Colombian establishments of Ordoñez, Serrano, and Gonzalez, with the object of making them abandon the region and then taking possession of their properties. This persecution took the form of robberies of their merchandise, rubber, and Indians, murders of their employees, refusals to sell them supplies, and all other vile expedients that cunning could suggest. The Colombians held on, however, in spite of these persecutions, and it was not until 1908 that the black flag of this criminal company, planted over their dead bodies, finally waved over the whole of this unfortunate region.

In 1905 Julio César went to England and succeeded in interesting some London gentlemen in the "possessions" of the J. C. Arana and Hermanos Company in this region. An accountant was sent out to examine the _books_, which were apparently found to be satisfactory, and on October 1, 1907, the Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company, Ltd., was formed, with a capital of £1,000,000 sterling, divided, according to the prospectus, into 300,000 7 per cent. participating preference shares at £1 each and 700,000 ordinary shares, also at £1 each. In 1908 the word "Rubber" was stricken out, and this syndicate of crime is now known as the Peruvian Amazon Company, Ltd.

Having failed in their attempt to foist upon the public their worthless shares, they decided to increase the assets of the company. This was done in 1908[106] by the simple process of collecting a small army of their assassins and murdering the already mentioned Colombians and their employees and taking possession of their establishments. Serrano, Gonzalez, and their employees were murdered in cold blood, their women were added to the harems of the employees of the company, their Indians were enslaved, their rubber and merchandise stolen, and their establishments taken possession of. Ordoñez succeeded in escaping with his life, but had to abandon everything else--his rubber, his house, his Indians--to the agents of the company, who are now in full possession of everything and are exploiting the properties of their unfortunate victims.

Let us now take a glance at the system pursued by this "civilising company" in the exploitation of the products of this region--that is, the exploitation of the rubber and of the Indians.

The whole territory is divided up into sections, at the head of which are placed chiefs, each one with a gang of bandits, varying in number from five to eighty, to control the Indians and force them to work. The chief of the section keeps a list of the Indians and assigns to each one the number of kilos of rubber he must deliver every ten days. The prettiest of the women are taken away from the Indians and become concubines of the chief of section and his band, the chief generally having from three to twelve and the others in proportion.

La Chorrera, the chief of which is the celebrated Victor Macedo, is the centre to which the products of all the sections of the Igaraparaná and those distributed between that river and the Caquetá are sent periodically. Here all the books, &c., are kept and all payments to the employees are made. Macedo is the chief of all the employees in this territory, and has the power of employing or discharging men, the fixing of salaries, &c.; and it is with the knowledge, consent, and approval of this wretch that these incredible crimes are carried out. This torturer and assassin is the justice of the peace of the Putumayo.

El Encanto is the chief centre of the Caraparaná, exactly as La Chorrera is of the Igaraparaná, and its manager, Miguel S. Loayza, has similar powers to those of Macedo. This is the individual who superintended the murders of Serrano and Gonzalez and the other crimes committed upon these two unfortunates, upon Ordoñez, and upon their women and children, Indians and employees.

All the rubber produced in the whole region now being exploited by the "civilising company" is transported upon the backs of Indians, in canoes, or in small launches to these two centres, from whence it is shipped to Iquitos about every three months.

Macedo, Loayza, and the chiefs of sections are paid, not salaries but commissions upon the amount of rubber produced. Thus it is to their interest to extract the greatest amount of rubber in the least possible space of time, and to do this it is necessary to force the Indians to work night and day. The best method of obliging them to do this is to impose certain amounts which they should deliver in a fixed time. Once this rule is made it must be enforced, and if the Indian does not deliver as much as he has been ordered to he must be punished. The punishment must be severe enough to strike terror into the hearts of the other Indians, so that they will not follow the example of the culprit.

The Indians collect all this rubber gratis: the only compensation they receive is flagellation, torture, and death if they should lack half a kilo of the amount imposed upon them; a mirror, a handkerchief, an ounce of beads if they deliver the full amount. They are doomed and defenceless victims of an exploitation unparalleled in the history of the entire world.

Should the unfortunate Indian lack even half a kilo of rubber, he is mercilessly flogged, being given from five to two hundred lashes, according to the enormity of his crime. As the poor wretches receive absolutely no medical treatment, within a few days these wounds putrefy, maggots make their appearance, and the miserable victims of this form of Peruvian "civilisation" die a lingering and repulsive death. Their bodies are left to rot where they fall, or else the well-trained dogs of their "civilisers" drag them out into the forest. Indeed, in some sections such an odour of putrefying flesh arises from the numerous bodies of the victims that the place must be temporarily abandoned.

Often when some poor Indian, seeing that he could not deliver at the fixed time the amount of rubber imposed upon him, has fled, they take his tender children and torture them until they disclose the whereabouts of their unhappy father. Their favourite mode of torture is by suspending them from a tree and building a fire beneath them, by using the celebrated "water cure," and by suspending them from four posts, piling logs of wood, &c., on their tensioned bodies until they are forced to speak. Besides the methods already mentioned they frequently employ others,[107] so revolting that it is impossible to describe them.

Another common form of _punishment_ is that of mutilations, such as cutting off arms, legs, noses, ears, penises, hands, feet, and even heads. Castrations are also a popular _punishment_ for such crimes as trying to escape, for being lazy, or for being stupid, while frequently they employ these forms of mutilation merely to relieve the monotony of continual floggings and murders and to provide a sort of recreation. The victims generally die within a few days, or if they do not die they are murdered, for it is said that in 1906 Macedo issued an order to his subordinates advising them to kill all mutilated Indians at once for the following reasons: first, because they consumed food although they could not work; and second, because it looked bad to have these mutilated wretches running about. This wise precaution of Macedo's makes it difficult to find any mutilated Indians there, in spite of the number of mutilations; for, obeying this order, the executioners kill all the Indians they mutilate, after they have suffered what they consider a sufficient space of time.

By way of amusement these employees of the company often enjoy a little _tiro al blanco_, or target-shooting, the target being little Indian children whose parents have been murdered. The little innocents are tied up to trees, the murderers take their positions, and the slaughter begins. First they shoot off an ear or hand, then another, and so on until an unlucky bullet strikes a vital part and puts an end to their sport.

Often on holidays and _fiestas_, in order to see the weak, starving, and cadaverous Indians run, these people fire into a group of them, and generally manage to bring down several before their victims have got out of reach.

When one of these agents sees a girl he wants he takes her, and her father or husband dare not protest, for he would be tortured to death at once. After he is satisfied, if he still likes the woman, he adds her to his harem; if not, he either lets her go or, as has happened, has her flogged to death. As I have before remarked, nearly all these agents possess a harem of two to twelve Indian girls, varying in age from eight to fifteen years. These defenceless children are violated without the least compassion, and when they tire of one she is either brutally kicked out of the house and sent back to her tribe or else murdered on the spot.

Murders and assassinations are so common here that some of the chiefs of sections and their subordinates do not pass without killing in cold blood from one to five, or even more, of the helpless Huitotos. Any pretext serves, as when the Indian does not understand them or when he is not punctual to the minute; and, indeed, they often kill them for amusement, to fill the other Indians with a fear of the "whites," or to practise target-shooting. These murders, let it be understood, are not confined entirely to the slaughters of Indians, for many are the _civilizados_, Peruvians as well as Colombians, who have incurred the ill-will of these bandits.

Extortions are practised continually in this part of Peru by the company and its employees. Apart from the robberies of the rubber extracted by the Indians, the lesser employees are robbed of a part or of all their salary balances. The profits from these thefts generally go to swell the pockets of the chiefs of sections and those of the higher employees.

As I have before remarked, the unhappy Indians, far from getting paid for the rubber they deliver, are not even given food to eat while they work, and what appears more incredible is that they are given no opportunity to cultivate food of their own; for such is the criminal rapacity of this company that they not only compel the Indian women to cultivate the food for their men and themselves, but also for their oppressors, who help themselves to all they want and waste and destroy as much as they please, the little that is left constituting, with a few forest products, the food of the unfortunate and starving Indians.

The dress of the Huitotos has already been described, and, after thirteen years of close contact with the company, we find these people still stark naked.

But most remarkable are the _correrías_ which the agents of the company carry out periodically. The crimes of the Spanish Inquisition are pale compared with the deeds committed in this vast den of crime. Upon the occasions of these _correrías_ the operation is as follows: The chief of section orders his subordinates to arm themselves and set out for the village of the Indians to receive the rubber, which, as we have observed, should be delivered every ten days. They make their way to the principal house, where the Indians should be assembled ready to deliver the rubber. Once here they call the roll, on which is noted the number of kilograms each Indian should have ready.

As each Indian's name is called he steps up and delivers the rubber he has collected, which is weighed on the spot. Occasionally a kilogram or two are lacking, and in this case the Indian is given from twenty-five to one hundred lashes by the Barbados negroes, who only for this purpose--that is, as executioners--have been brought here. At about the tenth blow the victim generally falls unconscious from the effects of the intense pain produced.

To face p. 208.]

Sometimes two or three Indians and their families do not appear at this assembly on account of not having been able to collect the amount of rubber assigned to them. In this case the chief of the _correría_ orders four or five of his agents to collect ten or twelve Indians of a tribe hostile to the fugitives and to set out in pursuit of the poor wretches, their _capitán_ being dragged along, tied up with chains, to act as guide to reveal their hiding-place, and being threatened with a painful and lingering death in case he does not find them. After some search the hut where they have taken refuge is found, and then takes place a horrible and repugnant scene. The hut constructed by the refugees is of thatch, of a conical form and without doors. The chief orders his men to surround the house, and two or three of them approach and set fire to it. The Indians, surprised and terrified, dash out, and the assassins discharge their carbines at the unfortunate wretches. The men killed, the bandits turn their attention to the rest, and the old, the sick, and the children, unable to escape, are either burned to death or are killed with _machetes_.

Another method of exploiting these unfortunate Indians takes the form of selling them as slaves in Iquitos, and this business in human flesh yields excellent returns to the company or its employees, for they are sold in that capital at from £20 to £40 each. Every steamer that goes to Iquitos, loaded with the rubber from the Putumayo, carries from five to fifteen little Indian boys and girls, who are torn, sobbing, from their mothers' arms without the slightest compunction. These little innocents, as we have already said, are sold at wholesale and retail by this "civilising company" in Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto, the second port of a country that calls itself Christian, republican, civilised, and, let it be well understood, with the knowledge, consent, and approval of the authorities there.

But to relate all the crimes and infamies committed in this tragic region by this company and its employees in its almost incredible persecution and exploitation of the Indians, would prove an interminable task, so many are the crimes committed in this devil's paradise.

The following are the directors of the Peruvian Amazon Company[108]:--

HENRY M. READ, 4 Lancaster Gate Terrace, Hyde Park, London, W.

SIR JOHN LISTER KAYE, Bart., 26, Manchester Square, London, W.

JOHN RUSSEL GUBBINS, Esq., 22, Carlton Hill, London, N.W.

BARON DE SOUSA DEIRO, Chairman of Goodwin, Ferreira Company, Ltd., Manchester.

M. HENRI BONDUEL, Banker, Rue d'Aumale, Paris.

SEÑOR JULIO CÉSAR ARANA, Iquitos, Peru.

SEÑOR ABEL ALARCO, Salisbury House, London, E.C., managing director.

The secretary is Walter Bramall, F.C.I.S., and the registered office of this Christian and humanitarian syndicate is at Salisbury House, London Wall, London, E.C.

Of these seven directors, there are at least two who are well aware of the state of affairs in their "possessions," who are far better informed than I am of the murders, the robberies, the flagellations, the violations of little eight and ten year old girls, the tortures, the incredible mutilations, and the other stupendous crimes committed by this company and its employees in the terrible Putumayo. These criminal employees are not restrained by Julio César Arana and the manager in Iquitos, his brother-in-law, Pablo Zumaeta, but, on the contrary, are actually aided and encouraged by these monsters in their horrible work.

The other five directors are either dupes who have been taken in by the slick tongues of Julio César Arana and his accomplice, Abel Alarco, and who are not aware of the awful and appalling crimes committed in their names by their employees in the sanguinary Putumayo, or else they are hardened ruffians, who deliberately pocket the products of slavery, torture, and crime.

This criminal syndicate has endeavoured to unload its million of worthless shares upon the British public at £1 each. In their prospectus they make such extraordinary statements, misstatements, and omissions that they make themselves liable to the law to answer to the charges of swindling, obtaining money under false pretences, and various others.

In a prospectus published by this company in the _Sunday Times_ of London, December 6, 1908, I note among others, and denounce as deliberate lies, the following statements:--

1. That they have any _legal_ rights or _legal_ titles in regard to their gruesome "possessions" in the Putumayo.

2. That their rubber collection centres _are surrounded by cultivated lands_.

3. That these "cultivated lands" have a population of about 40,000 Indians.

4. That these Indians are being taught to improve the crude methods that were formerly used of treating the rubber.

5. That the "rubber-trees are the same as those which produce Para Fine."

6. That the territory in their possession "contains valuable auriferous quartz and gravel and deposits of coal and other minerals."

7. That "the exportation of rubber from the Putumayo is increasing."

8. That "the boundary question, even should it affect politically a portion of the Putumayo territory, will not affect the legal rights of the settlers."

The following statement, made by the Minister of Foreign Relations of the Republic of Colombia, which I translate from the _Jornal do Comercio_ of Manaos, Brazil, of June 3, 1908, gives an idea of how Colombia views the proceedings of the "civilising company":--

"The companies that are exploiting the adjacent regions of the Putumayo to-day have no legal existence in Colombia, but, on the contrary, are violating many of our legal dispositions and are even committing crimes for which our laws provide penal punishment. When the time comes, the Government of Colombia will not only refuse them protection, but will punish the agents of those companies that are responsible for criminal acts with all the rigours of the law."

They also omit to state the following important and interesting facts:--

1. That their Pevas estate is practically exhausted.

2. That the Nanay estate, utterly neglected and abandoned, is now, and has been for nearly two years, in the possession of Muniz & Co.

3. That their "large staff" of European employees in the sanguinary Putumayo does not exceed eight or ten men at the most.

4. That the "extensive plains" are all covered with the thick, dense forest of the tropics, and that it is a tedious and expensive task to clear even a few acres of land there.

5. That in the short space of three or four years the Putumayo rubber will be completely exhausted.

6. And that "they force the Pacific Indians of the Putumayo to work day and night at the extraction of rubber, without the slightest remuneration; that they give them nothing to eat; that they keep them in the most complete nakedness; that they rob them of their crops, their women, and their children to satisfy the voracity, lasciviousness and avarice of themselves and their employees, for they live on the Indians' food, keep harems and concubines, and sell these people at wholesale and retail in Iquitos; that they flog them inhumanly, until their bones are visible; that they give them no medical treatment, but let them die, eaten up by maggots, or to serve as food for the chiefs' dogs; that they castrate them, cut off their ears, fingers, arms, legs; that they torture them by means of fire, of water, and by tying them up, crucified, head down; that they burn and destroy their houses and crops; that they cut them to pieces with _machetes_; that they grasp children by the feet and dash their heads against walls and trees, until their brains fly out; that they have the old folks killed when they can work no longer; and, finally, that to amuse themselves, to practise shooting, or to celebrate the _sábado de gloria_[109]--as Fonseca and Macedo have done--they discharge their weapons at men, women, and children, or, in preference to this, they souse them with kerosene and set fire to them to enjoy their desperate agony."[110]

And all this, let us remember, is done by a gang of human beasts, who, consulting exclusively their own evil interests, have had the audacity to form themselves into an English company and put themselves and their gruesome "possessions" under the protection of the English flag, in order to carry out more conveniently their sanguinary labours in the Putumayo and to inspire confidence here.

People of England! Just and generous people, always the advanced sentinels of Christianity and civilisation! Consider these horrors! Put yourselves in the place of the victims, and free these few remaining Indians from their cruel bondage and punish the authors of the crimes!