Rubber Boom Research Articles

Ari’s Burger: Vignettes of Iquitos

This is the first of a three-part account of a visit to Iquitos at the time of the New Millennium by the narrator, who lives in Colombia, has been drinking yajé (ayahuasca) with its indigenous shamans and for a book he is writing about the subject, decides to investigate the rituals in Peru. It is in the form of a travelogue divided into vignettes: his voyage upriver from Leticia to Iquitos, his impressions of a city which revolves around eco-tourism and his encounter with his host, Zappa, an American expatriate who exports shamanic plants and runs ayahuasca ceremonies but lacks the due rigor and respect for indigenous traditions, the narrator believes, who measures what Zappa does against the relatively unspoiled source of Native-American healing he experienced in the Putumayo. Despite Iquitos´s lack of authenticity, he is charmed by its local color, friendliness and reminiscences of the age of the rubber boom, but does not ignore the poverty, provincialism and backwardness of a big city which, like any other in the Amazon, is losing its original environment and indigenous customs, nor the absurd division of what he regards as a single nation of the Amazon into three countries which equally exploit its jungles. But he makes those points in a humorous rather than propagandistic way as he ruefully relates his hassles at the border control, sights of a useless military presence and other “folkloric” incidents.

“ <i>Yo fuí vendida</i>”: Reconsidering Peonage and Genocide in Western Amazonia

The Amazon Rubber Boom (1885-1930) has long been known by its worst outrage: Julio Cesar Arana’s brutal enslavement of 13,000 Indians around 1904 in Peruvian-held territory along the lower Putumayo River. In contrast, where indigenous people were not driven by the whip, researchers have argued that they remained largely unaffected by rubber collection. Archival evidence and a reexamination of older ethnographies suggest a different conclusion: debt peonage and forced labor, not brutality, drove most native workers to gather rubber. Few if any Indian households in western Amazonia escaped from this commerce. As the Rubber Boom receded, survivors often constructed new ethnic identities in what James Scott has called “shatter zones.” Such findings call for a revised, historically grounded scholarship that problematizes commodity booms and their impact on native communities.

The Diaries of George C. Woolley, Volume 2: 1907–1913 by George C. Woolley

Reviewed by: The Diaries of George C. Woolley, Volume 2: 1907–1913 by George C. Woolley H. S. Barlow The Diaries of George C. Woolley, Volume 2: 1907–1913 George C. Woolley Danny Wong Tze Ken and Stella Moo-Tan (eds) Kota Kinabalu: Department of Sabah Museum, 2016. ISBN: 978-903-9638. xiii, 1482 pp. The first volume of Woolley’s diaries was reviewed in JMBRAS Vol 89 Part 1 (June 2016). This second, more substantial volume, covers the years 1907–113. The main episodes in Woolley’s life at this time were a brief stint as District Officer in Beaufort, then a stint from 8 November 1907 till March 1910 when he served as District Officer, Province Clarke, based at Sipitang. This was on the west coast of Borneo, readily accessible from Labuan and, also, partly by the new railway line to Tenom from Jesselton. It was a dagger-shaped district, extending from the Klias Peninsula in the north, south to beyond Long Pa Sia, bounded on the west by the Sarawak border. Woolley’s stint in Sipitang appears to have been an extremely agreeable and happy one. Here he was away from the petty politics of colonial Jesselton, and encouraged to undertake long trips into the interior of his district to report on conditions there, and arrange for the introduction of such modest facilities as the Chartered Company would afford. This seldom extended beyond court hearings, and the establishment of rudimentary government offices. Ross Ibbotson on p. 63 has attempted, with some success, to superimpose on a 1:500,000 Tactical Pilotage Chart from the UK Ministry of Defence the routes of Woolley’s major excursions. Although routes along the coast, generally by boat, were well travelled, the country inland, was rough and roadless with two mountains well over 6000 feet. There were, of course, no proper resthouses, so on such excursions Woolley was obliged to sleep in the houses of village headmen or in sulap (primitive huts, often consisting of little more than an attap roof and a raised bamboo floor). It must have been a harsh and tough life, laced with danger and uncertainty: headhunting raids from over the Sarawak border were not uncommon occurrences. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, Woolley gives no account of the fascinating talks he must have had with his hosts on these travels, not to mention detailed accounts of the village ceremonies he must have witnessed. For the reader, the diaries in this volume are greatly enhanced in value with Woolley’s own photographs. At this time he became an extremely enthusiastic amateur photographer, developing his own prints. Many of the resulting photographs have survived and are reproduced alongside the diary entry which specifically refers to them. The majority are of individuals, or groups of local people, or views of sulap or rather grander buildings Woolley encountered on his travels. [End Page 167] Woolley was anxious to stay in his Sipitang post for as long as possible and, by keeping a low profile, managed to stay for 2½ years. He was then, in one of the frequent reshuffles of expatriate officers, posted back to Jesselton as Commissioner of Lands. This took him all over British North Borneo at the time of a rubber boom. This made the post particularly important. The Chartered Company was keen to establish rubber estates along the west coast, in view of the success of the Sapong and Melalap estates, in the Interior Residency, linked to Jesselton by the recently completed railway line. Woolley’s generally brief and cryptic comments on his land work indicate that there were frequent disputes with traditional land owners objecting to arbitrary confiscation of their property. These issues remain, over a century later, in disputes over land now taken over, not for rubber but for oil palm, without adequate free, prior and informed consent. Plus ça change . . . Perhaps the most important of these was the Papar Land Case, in which Woolley was deeply involved, initially assessing whether claims by dispossessed Dusun landholders near Papar had been adequately compensated. The overall result was that, thanks to the activities of the Dusuns themselves, the Roman Catholic Church and the dissident lawyer R. B. Turner, the...

Scaling green rubber cultivation in Southwest China—An integrative analysis of stakeholder perspectives

The rubber boom across much of Southeast Asia has led to environmental destruction, and the resultant crash in the price of rubber has destabilised livelihoods. We investigated the necessary factors required to enable a transition towards a more sustainable model for rubber cultivation in Southwest China (i.e. the 'greening' of rubber cultivation), using a framework for the integrative study of multiple aspects in complex land use issues. We present findings from stakeholder interviews and a stakeholder workshop, and discuss their relevance within and beyond Southwest China. The current focus of researchers and development practitioners tends to be on finding technical solutions to address unsustainable rubber cultivation practices. However, stakeholder consultations revealed that the key barriers were more social: low levels of trust and knowledge exchange between stakeholder groups and fragmented visions about the future of the landscape. It is very important to continue the economic prosperity initially brought by rubber, but, without improved communication between government and researchers and smallholder farmers, this will be very difficult to achieve. A wider landscape perspective is needed to address issues in rubber cultivation to avoid repeating the same problems of cash crop boom and bust experienced with other crops, most notably bananas. We conclude that more effort should be put into developing mechanisms that integrate technical knowledge, enhance social relationships, and present a forum for reconciling - or at least acknowledging - the differing needs, knowledge, and objectives of different groups, and transcending the power dynamics between smallholder farmers and government and researchers.

Resguardo e sexualidade(s): uma antropologia simétrica das sexualidades amazônicas em transformação

O artigo investiga o cruzamento de olhares indígenas e não indígenassobre a sexualidade do outro na Amazônia Peruana. Começa por descrever o regimede consumo sexual dos corpos indígenas imposto pela economia extrativista eo surgimento das cidades a partir do auge da economia da borracha. Em seguida,foca nas concepções indígenas sobre as relações entre sexualidade e resguardo quearticulam os processos cotidianos e rituais de produção de corpos genderizadose seus agenciamentos sociocosmológicos. A partir daí, examina as percepçõesindígenas da sexualidade dos não indígenas habitantes das cidades, associados àfigura do boto do mundo subaquático. Argumenta, então, que o abandono daspráticas de resguardo é um ponto de inflexão da atual urbanização e transformaçãoda população amazônica em mestiça.

The Ashaninka and the violence of correrías during the rubber boom and afterwards

A lo largo de los siglos, el pueblo ashaninka ha enfrentado diversos episodios de violencia, algunos de los cuales han afectado de manera especial la historia y la identidad de este pueblo. Uno de estos momentos fue el de la colonizacion de la region de la Selva Central peruana, a fines del siglo XIX, marcada por la extraccion del caucho y el cultivo de cafe en grandes haciendas. Esta epoca se caracterizo, ademas, por ser particularmente violenta, sobre todo debido a las continuas correrias que aterrorizaban y diezmaban a las comunidades indigenas. Este episodio pone tambien en cuestion el rol cumplido por los propios ashaninkas a los que simultaneamente viajeros e intelectuales de la epoca calificaban de feroces salvajes o de amables y dociles. Finalmente, las correrias y la crueldad de esta epoca se siguen recordando hoy en dia, relacionandose con la violencia de Sendero Luminoso y con las amenazas crueles que los ashaninkas siguen enfrentando hoy.

Barbarie en plural: percepciones del indígena en el auge cauchero boliviano

Se analiza la construccion de los diferentes discursos, miradas y representaciones en torno de los indigenas de la region amazonica boliviana durante el boom del caucho. Desde fines del siglo xix hasta las primeras decadas del siglo xx, las sociedades indigenas de esa zona mantuvieron relaciones ambivalentes (comercio, alianza, enfrentamientos belicos) con el frente colonizador. Sin embargo, las imagenes y representaciones sobre ellas no fueron estables ni homogeneas, puesto que araonas, cavinenos, pacaguaras, caripunas y chacobos fueron estereotipados de diversas maneras por sus observadores.

Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America

The ten essays in Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America, edited by Suzanne Oakdale and Magnus Course, present the tense relation between cultural forces and personal agency, between individual particularities and cultural diversity or the universality of human sociability. But this is not an abstract discussion. In line with one of the most valuable aspects of the anthropological tradition, the contributors consider this question with reference to ethnographic materials, collected in this case in different parts of lowland South America (Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile), and with attention to native voices. The intensive use of autobiographical narratives (in some essays more than others) makes the book germane to those interested in discourse as a social practice both situated and at the same time linked to multiple aspects of social life in every group.One essay examines the biography of a Waorani leader with a porous identity into which other individuals are incorporated and for which victimization is a marker of personhood and sociability. The topics of other essays include family stories of the Asháninka, a group whose members conceive of the person as an active seeker of external resources; Piro (Yine) narratives of “exemplary personal experience” that are special cases of simultaneous self-singularization and multiplicity; the meaning of the multiple persons of a young Marubo shaman; paradoxical models of Mapuche personhood as described in song and ritual; speech-centered stories about encounters between Kalapalo enemies; the “lascivious” autobiography of a Tukano leader; the logic of assemblage in the autobiographical narrative of a Kawaiwete “captain”; the stressful life of a Xavante leader who has lived between two worlds; and the story of a Kuikuro leader. Together, they illustrate the complex and variable relations of personal exchange that characterize anthropological research.The collection's interest in narrative practices illustrates the centrality of language as a privileged symbolic expression of the categories of self, individual, and person, including how they overlap and how they differ. The essays point to autobiographies as re-creations of personal experience and communicative bridges between social worlds. There are questions as to whether these categories are particular or transcultural, and if so, in what sense. Are there multiple experiences of self? If so, are they comprehensible to us? How are they related to the long and complex history of contact between lowland South American Amerindian societies and colonizers? Are these narratives history or myth? Does that distinction help us to understand them? What is the role of the person who elicits or records the story, and what is the legacy of the relationship between researcher and research subject? What is the role of narratives in the construction of personal and ethnic identities not based on the well-known opposition between tradition and modernity, identities that are hybrid and open to participation? The narratives discussed in this collection are presented in light of all these questions and as ways to structure experience and to understand traumatic events and historical context. They problematize the use of history and myth, as well as the autobiographical form, as evidence for concepts of self and person and as mechanisms for constructing social relations inside and outside the community.The example of the Asháninka of Peru's central Amazon region, Selva Central, which is examined in Hanne Veber's essay “Memories of the Ucayali: The Asháninka Story Line,” illustrates the value of focusing on a narrative's manner of presentation, on the model of a person that it depicts, on the ways in which conceptions of time are entangled with what it means to be a person, and on the interethnic context within which it is presented rather than on narrative as an account of “what really happened” (p. 109). Collective memories are not mechanical copies of reality but constructions that emerge from social interactions in which personal, historical, and political consciousness are formed. Asháninka narratives contrast with stories told by missionaries and other outsiders on one crucial point: the former's stories about the rubber boom do not recount individual victimization and heroism. They model family rather than collective identities. While they recount a series of events that made for a difficult journey, they differ radically from myth. The Asháninka regard outsiders as potentially dangerous, but they consider contact necessary in order to obtain resources. They think of themselves not as victims but as seekers of resources who assume necessary risks — including but not limited to colonial contact — and thus confront danger and loss. In this sense, their narratives are more than simple retrospectives. They are structured and retold in order to organize their vision of a world not fully or exclusively imposed by bosses and gringos but open to the influence of their own actions as well (p. 113).

Malaria in the State of Amazonas: a typical Brazilian tropical disease influenced by waves of economic development.

In Brazil, more than 99% of malaria cases are reported in the Amazon, and the State of Amazonas accounts for 40% of this total. However, the accumulated experience and challenges in controlling malaria in this region in recent decades have not been reported. Throughout the first economic cycle during the rubber boom (1879 to 1912), malaria was recorded in the entire state, with the highest incidence in the villages near the Madeira River in the Southern part of the State of Amazonas. In the 1970s, during the second economic development cycle, the economy turned to the industrial sector and demanded a large labor force, resulting in a large migratory influx to the capital Manaus. Over time, a gradual increase in malaria transmission was observed in peri-urban areas. In the 1990s, the stimulation of agroforestry, particularly fish farming, led to the formation of permanent Anopheline breeding sites and increased malaria in settlements. The estimation of environmental impacts and the planning of measures to mitigate them, as seen in the construction of the Coari-Manaus gas pipeline, proved effective. Considering the changes occurred since the Amsterdam Conference in 1992, disease control has been based on early diagnosis and treatment, but the development of parasites that are resistant to major antimalarial drugs in Brazilian Amazon has posed a new challenge. Despite the decreased lethality and the gradual decrease in the number of malaria cases, disease elimination, which should be associated with government programs for economic development in the region, continues to be a challenge.

Castles in the air: rise and fall of the hacienda system in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 1910–1940

The present article investigates the formation and partial disappearance of a rural elite in a frontier region of Upper Amazonia. The time-span is c. 1910–1940, that is, following the collapse of the rubber boom, a period that has not received much academic attention. Using previously neglected primary sources, both published and unpublished, this study maps the making of a network of haciendas along the banks of the Upper Napo River, in present-day Ecuador. Unlike the haciendas in the highlands, these were not large inherited landholdings fuelled by the use of a more or less stable indigenous workforce. Amazonian haciendas were small by comparison and they were subjected to numerous unpredictable risks. The hacienda system was undermined by the early developments of the oil industry and the border disputes between Ecuador and Peru.

Evidence for the identification of Carabayo, the language of an uncontacted people of the Colombian Amazon, as belonging to the Tikuna-Yurí linguistic family.

This paper provides evidence for the identification of the language of the uncontacted indigenous group called Carabayo, who live in voluntary isolation in the Colombian Amazon region. The only linguistic data available from this group is a set of about 50 words, most of them without reliable translations, that were collected in 1969 during a brief encounter with one Carabayo family. We compare this material with various languages (once) spoken in the region, showing that four attested Carabayo forms (a first person singular prefix and words for ‘warm’, ‘father’, and ‘boy’) display striking similarities with Yurí and at least 13 Carabayo forms display clear correspondences with contemporary Tikuna. Tikuna and Yurí are the only two known members of the Tikuna-Yurí linguistic family. Yurí was documented in the 19th century but has been thought to have become extinct since. We conclude that the Carabayo – directly or indirectly – descend from the Yurí people whose language and customs were described by explorers in the 19th century, before they took up voluntary isolation, escaping atrocities during the rubber boom in the early 20th century.

In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region by Seth Garfield (review)

Reviewed by: In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region by Seth Garfield Brian J. Godfrey In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region. Seth Garfield. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013. xiii + 343 pp., maps, tables, photographs, notes, bibliography, and index. $26.95 paper (978-0-8223-5585-4) or $94.95 cloth (978-0-8223-5571-7). Long before construction of the Transamazon Highway across northern Brazil captured the world’s attention in the early 1970s, Amazonia had already been subject to large-scale regional development efforts. The most famous of the extractive cycles was the historic “rubber boom,” which lasted from approximately 1850 to 1910, when native Amazonian rubber (primarily Hevea brasiliensis) became a valuable primary commodity in industrial processes. This classic period of Amazon rubber extraction has been the subject of influential studies by Barbara Weinstein, Warren Dean, and others. Seth Garfield’s In Search of the Amazon resumes the region’s environmental history during the transformative, but often overlooked period of World War II. Although competition from more productive rubber plantations in Southeast Asia – born of rubber seeds smuggled out of their native region by a British adventurer – ended Amazonian supremacy in the early twentieth century, a resurgence of extraction occurred during World War II. Given the sudden wartime disruption of trade with Asia, the United States embarked on a frantic search for new sources of rubber to support the Allied war effort. This mid-century period has previously lacked the scholarly attention of the earlier classical period of Amazonian rubber extraction, but recent works have begun to address this gap in the literature. Greg Grandin’s Fordlândia (Picador 2010) recounts the saga of Henry Ford’s not-so-excellent adventure with rubber plantations on the Tapajós River between 1928 and 1945, which ended in total failure. Garfield’s book covers the same period, but broadens the regional framework to link the Brazilian Northeast to Amazonia through wartime recruitment and migration of rubber tappers. While lacking the sharp focus and high personal drama of Fordlândia, Garfield’s work provides a meticulous environmental history and systematic analysis of Amazonian political ecology in the context of swirling regional, national and international forces. As a result, the recent works by Grandin and Garfield complement each other and together provide essential references on Amazonia in the mid-twentieth century. In Search of the Amazon examines an important, if often ignored period of regional change. Brazil’s modern transformation from a regional South American power to a developmental state with industrial aspirations and rising international significance can be traced to the Revolution of 1930, which brought Getúlio Vargas to power. Vargas ruled as a populist with increasingly authoritarian tendencies after the proclamation of the Estado Novo in 1937. By the time that Vargas stepped down in 1945 at the close of the Second World War, which Brazil entered on the side of the Allies, the country had undergone profound changes in the state’s political-economic role, official recognition of labor unions, broadened electoral representation (including female suffrage), and the growth of industrialization. While the national politics and policies of Vargas have been the subject of wide scholarship, the Estado Novo’s role in promoting more effective integration of Amazonia has received relatively little scholarly attention. [End Page 233] Against a national background of institutional reorganization, state planning, and political conflict, Garfield analyzes Amazonian environmental debates and regional policies of the period. The book’s early chapters situate the geopolitical and developmental contexts of the Vargas regime’s “March to the West” and the creation of new governmental agencies to pursue Amazon integration. This campaign led Vargas in October 1940 to deliver a dramatic “Speech of the Amazon River” in Manaus, which put the leader’s personal prestige behind a strong national presence there. Geographers will be particularly interested in the creation of a regional identity through governmental programs, institutional definitions, and regional planning designations. The approach to political ecology – “…as a study in conflicts over the use, rights, and definition of territory and resources among distinct social groups” (p. 3...

Azulejos: Tile Buildings in Iquitos

Tiles (Azulejos) on buildings in Iquitos, Peru represent the past glory of a city once known as the main port for the export of rubber. The tiles also indicated the border between the prosperous areas of the city and the poorer living areas of the country side. Although the decline of the rubber boom brought changes in the architect of the city, efforts have been made to preserve the heritage. This article provides information on the history of tiles and documents some of the patterns and uses.

Shajaó—Histories of an Invented Savage

Through multiple stories about Shajaó, an untold history of the Peruvian Amazon unfolds. This article, based on extensive archival research and fieldwork, brings together multivocal accounts about an Ese Eja man who allegedly killed a Catholic priest in 1932 and who, despite the large-scale expeditions sent out to capture him, was not apprehended until 1942. Through ongoing tales of Shajaó, the intersubjective ways in which memory is shaped and employed to influence and make sense of sociopoltical contexts is revealed in the exchanges between a notable “savage” and various economies in different historical settings—the rubber boom, extractivism upheld by debt-peonage, Catholic missionization and today's environmental service economy. This exploration questions the construction, reproduction and transformation of the multiple, though not always shared, experiential and interpretive frameworks that shape the historical consciousness of individual and collective memories over time. It also suggests that “disremembering”, in archival and oral accounts, reflects a critical political awareness of history's valid flexibility. Here, narratives are rewoven so that history continues to be told in ways that ensure that “Shajaó stories” never truly end.

Surtos de Crescimento de Manaus

São poucas as cidades dinâmicas na Amazônia. As que existem o são, sobretudo, graças ao comércio associado a posições privilegiadas quanto à circulação e aos recursos a privilégios políticos, e a uma indústria moderna, no caso singular de Manaus. O modelo de Manaus uma cidade industrial planejada em meio à floresta e de marca cabocla pode ser considerado bem sucedido. Entretanto, sua história, registra surtos intermitentes que correspondem à expansão e colapso. O legado do surto - ou surtos -- vividos por uma cidade, é um fator importante a considerar na diferenciação das cidades. Manaus caracteriza-se por dois surtos bem marcados. Após longos séculos de ausência de crescimento, tanto de crescimento demográfico como econômico, dá-se um vertiginoso surto da borracha em poucas décadas, seguido de colapso. Encerrada a estagnação, novo surto se configura a partir de 1967, por iniciativa do Estado brasileiro. Baseado na indústria, revela certa sustentabilidade, respondendo pela posição atual da cidade como metrópole regional. A ausência de dinamismo através dos séculos revela, contudo, uma outra função cumprida nesse período: a de assegurar a posse por Portugal das terras amazônicas no interior da América do Sul.

Nobody Knew Their Names: The Black Legend of Tetete Extermination

Alternately hunted and ignored while they were alive, the Tetete were a small group of Western Tucanoan speakers living in the Amazonian borderlands between Ecuador and Colombia. From 1877 through the 1920s, Ecuadorian rubber collectors shot or kidnapped Tetete people whenever they showed themselves. Unlike other groups, the Tetete chose resistance rather than accommodation or slavery. Sometime before 1940, most of the remaining Tetete were apparently killed in a raid by neighboring Siona people. Although three survivors were found in 1966, a persistent legend claims that large numbers were driven to extinction by missionaries and petroleum companies after oil exploration began nearby in 1964. This article reconstructs the final decades of Tetete history beginning with the rubber boom and analyzes their subsequent use by diverse actors in modern political discourse.

Institutions, Geography, and Market Power: The Political Economy of Rubber in the Brazilian Amazon, c. 1870–1910

The thesis applies a political economy approach to the study of how institutions and geography explain the development of a commodity chain. Focusing on the Brazilian Amazon from 1870 to 1910, the analysis develops a new theoretical framework constructed by combining standard trade models with institutions and economic geography. There are two levels of analysis: interactions among and within different nodes of the commodity chain. A quantitative-driven analysis from macroeconomic data supports inferences from microeconomic behavior. The thesis provides new information on rubber prices and exports, trader ledgers, estate accounts, newspapers, traveler accounts, and official documents.The research develops a demand- and supply-side analysis of the history of rubber, from tappers to manufacturers. It features the main rubber manufacturing countries, Britain and the U.S.A., and shows how competition prevailed along the chain, translating into a struggle for rubber supply. Rubber was not a homogeneous product. Due to a combination of quantity and quality, the Brazilian Amazon possessed significant market power, market power that shaped the rubber chain. In this light, the thesis investigates how the Brazilian rubber supply chain was organized and how agents profited from its monopolistic position. It also shows that taxation increased the regional welfare and allowed the government to support two related activities: telegraphs and shipping.The thesis proves that violence and coercion were not necessary features of rubber production, as argued by much of the literature. Through a game theoretic approach, the thesis demonstrates conditions under which production could have occurred without exploitation. In a context of high price inelasticity of demand and rising prices, production was driven by market forces. Inelasticity of demand was indeed one of the main features of the rubber boom. It shaped production, bargaining power between different nodes of the chain and competition within them, defining the distribution of profits along the rubber chain.

Institutions, Geography, and Market Power: The Political Economy of Rubber in the Brazilian Amazon, c. 1870–1910

The thesis applies a political economy approach to the study of how institutions and geography explain the development of a commodity chain. Focusing on the Brazilian Amazon from 1870 to 1910, the analysis develops a new theoretical framework constructed by combining standard trade models with institutions and economic geography. There are two levels of analysis: interactions among and within different nodes of the commodity chain. A quantitative-driven analysis from macroeconomic data supports inferences from microeconomic behavior. The thesis provides new information on rubber prices and exports, trader ledgers, estate accounts, newspapers, traveler accounts, and official documents.The research develops a demand- and supply-side analysis of the history of rubber, from tappers to manufacturers. It features the main rubber manufacturing countries, Britain and the U.S.A., and shows how competition prevailed along the chain, translating into a struggle for rubber supply. Rubber was not a homogeneous product. Due to a combination of quantity and quality, the Brazilian Amazon possessed significant market power, market power that shaped the rubber chain. In this light, the thesis investigates how the Brazilian rubber supply chain was organized and how agents profited from its monopolistic position. It also shows that taxation increased the regional welfare and allowed the government to support two related activities: telegraphs and shipping.The thesis proves that violence and coercion were not necessary features of rubber production, as argued by much of the literature. Through a game theoretic approach, the thesis demonstrates conditions under which production could have occurred without exploitation. In a context of high price inelasticity of demand and rising prices, production was driven by market forces. Inelasticity of demand was indeed one of the main features of the rubber boom. It shaped production, bargaining power between different nodes of the chain and competition within them, defining the distribution of profits along the rubber chain.

To Heal or to Remember: Indian Memory of the Rubber Boom and Roger Casement’s “Basket of Life”

To Heal or to Remember: Indian Memory of the Rubber Boom and Roger Casement’s “Basket of Life”

Vivendo como parente: notas sobre a concepção de pessoa e a organização social apiaká

In this paper, I’ll discuss how the Apiaká Indians person’s conception articulates with their social organization. The Apiaká are a Tupi-Guarani speaking people that inhabit the region of the Tapajós River basin, in the southeastern Amazonia. The historic and ethnographic data presented show that, despite the devastating effects of the Amazonian rubber boom, there is a sociocultural continuity due to the regional social system which articulates Apiaká, Kaiabi Indians and Munduruku Indians. Such continuity, whichintegrates the “familiarizing predation” model (Fausto, 2000; 2001) may be apprehended through the analysis of the local morality and of the witchcraft accusations.