thinking of rubber only. He was on a mission to dispel the notion that the Amazon was unsafe for commercial development. He decided to make a show of that point by going downriver himself.
There was good reason entrepreneurs were wary of the jungle. Two young sailors by the names of Tavara and West had been lost in the land of Cashibo cannibals, and Benito Arana decidedto find out exactly what had happened to them. In the company of a journalist, Governor Arana made his way to the heart of Cashibo territory. He strode into the camp, searched out the largest hut, and called for the fearsome chief, Yanacuna, to come out and say what had become of the boys. Yanacuna’s wife ran out of the hut in a fury, accusing Benito Arana of invading sacred territory. Two intruders had come into Yanacuna’s village, she cried to him. Dos hombres de hierro! Iron Men, toting their iron torches. They had cooked up quite nicely, in thirteen clay pots, over thirteen fires. The chief’s wife flung down two jawbones—two sets of teeth—at Governor Arana’s feet. There are your “boys,” she snarled. Take a look. The same could happen to you.
When Benito Arana returned to Iquitos, it was as Moses descending from Mount Sinai with commandments: The rain-forest Indians were beasts, not people. They were less than simian, incapable of real, human feeling. Henceforward they would be dealt with as animals. And with that, a road was paved; two decades later, my ancestor Julio César would travel it.
He was a charismatic man, Julio César: a ringleader, a schemer. He was straight-backed, with powerful shoulders, a high, arrogant forehead, and a weakness for elegant clothes. By eighteen, he’d decided to make a career in rubber. He married Eleonora Zumaeta, a small-town aristocrat, and with her brother established an enterprise called J. C. Arana Brothers, Inc. By twenty, he’d recruited an army of foremen. By twenty-five, he was buying up land from Colombian adventurers, putting rain-forest Indians to work—forcibly—by the thousands, running a business from Iquitos to Manaus, two medullas of rubber that would drive the automobile into the industrial age. By the turn of the century, Julio César had finagled enough leases and staked enough claims to master the rubber-rich Putumayo, a lush stretch of jungle between two tributaries that echoed his name: the Igaraparaná and the Caraparaná.
Precious rubber, white latex, caucho: The Amazon was pulsing with it, and nowhere in that jungle was it more copious than the Putumayo, the ungovernable border where Colombia faces Peru—the very point at which the cocaine plant now flourishes. The finest rubber—Para fine hard—was to be found in twelve thousand acres of land no flag had laid formal claim to: the territory between Peru and Colombia that Julio César Arana had established as his. His armies of slaves hacked their way into the green, sending caracaras and marmosets screeching back in retreat. The cauchos —“trees that weep white tears,” as the Omagua call them—were slashed, drained, their desiccated trunks left to creak in the wind.
The entire Putumayo was under the rule of this one man: The “Casa Arana” had a monopoly on Para rubber, and treasure hunters from as far away as Pakistan and Australia streamed to Peru to work for its founder. Julio César had put Iquitos—a jungle outpost that was unreachable by land—on the map of the civilized world. He had made it one of the wealthiest cities on the planet. He had six hundred gunmen scouring the jungle for slaves. Hombres de hierro, the rain-forest Indians called them: Iron Men, for the dread guns they toted. They would sweep into the villages, make bloated promises, lead able-bodied natives away. Julio César had forty-five centers of operation at strategic points along the border with Colombia, an area that was too feral for either country to defend. By the turn of the century, he had the Peruvian military helping him hold on
There was good reason entrepreneurs were wary of the jungle. Two young sailors by the names of Tavara and West had been lost in the land of Cashibo cannibals, and Benito Arana decidedto find out exactly what had happened to them. In the company of a journalist, Governor Arana made his way to the heart of Cashibo territory. He strode into the camp, searched out the largest hut, and called for the fearsome chief, Yanacuna, to come out and say what had become of the boys. Yanacuna’s wife ran out of the hut in a fury, accusing Benito Arana of invading sacred territory. Two intruders had come into Yanacuna’s village, she cried to him. Dos hombres de hierro! Iron Men, toting their iron torches. They had cooked up quite nicely, in thirteen clay pots, over thirteen fires. The chief’s wife flung down two jawbones—two sets of teeth—at Governor Arana’s feet. There are your “boys,” she snarled. Take a look. The same could happen to you.
When Benito Arana returned to Iquitos, it was as Moses descending from Mount Sinai with commandments: The rain-forest Indians were beasts, not people. They were less than simian, incapable of real, human feeling. Henceforward they would be dealt with as animals. And with that, a road was paved; two decades later, my ancestor Julio César would travel it.
He was a charismatic man, Julio César: a ringleader, a schemer. He was straight-backed, with powerful shoulders, a high, arrogant forehead, and a weakness for elegant clothes. By eighteen, he’d decided to make a career in rubber. He married Eleonora Zumaeta, a small-town aristocrat, and with her brother established an enterprise called J. C. Arana Brothers, Inc. By twenty, he’d recruited an army of foremen. By twenty-five, he was buying up land from Colombian adventurers, putting rain-forest Indians to work—forcibly—by the thousands, running a business from Iquitos to Manaus, two medullas of rubber that would drive the automobile into the industrial age. By the turn of the century, Julio César had finagled enough leases and staked enough claims to master the rubber-rich Putumayo, a lush stretch of jungle between two tributaries that echoed his name: the Igaraparaná and the Caraparaná.
Precious rubber, white latex, caucho: The Amazon was pulsing with it, and nowhere in that jungle was it more copious than the Putumayo, the ungovernable border where Colombia faces Peru—the very point at which the cocaine plant now flourishes. The finest rubber—Para fine hard—was to be found in twelve thousand acres of land no flag had laid formal claim to: the territory between Peru and Colombia that Julio César Arana had established as his. His armies of slaves hacked their way into the green, sending caracaras and marmosets screeching back in retreat. The cauchos —“trees that weep white tears,” as the Omagua call them—were slashed, drained, their desiccated trunks left to creak in the wind.
The entire Putumayo was under the rule of this one man: The “Casa Arana” had a monopoly on Para rubber, and treasure hunters from as far away as Pakistan and Australia streamed to Peru to work for its founder. Julio César had put Iquitos—a jungle outpost that was unreachable by land—on the map of the civilized world. He had made it one of the wealthiest cities on the planet. He had six hundred gunmen scouring the jungle for slaves. Hombres de hierro, the rain-forest Indians called them: Iron Men, for the dread guns they toted. They would sweep into the villages, make bloated promises, lead able-bodied natives away. Julio César had forty-five centers of operation at strategic points along the border with Colombia, an area that was too feral for either country to defend. By the turn of the century, he had the Peruvian military helping him hold on
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