to it. I have six hundred men armed with Winchesters, he cabled the president. Essential you send me a supply of Mannlichers.
By 1902, when Abuelito, my grandfather, was twenty years old and moving the tassel from one side of his graduation cap to the other at the University of Notre Dame, Julio César had thousands of rain-forest Indians making him rich. They were the Huitoto, the Bora, the Andoke, the Ocaina: from fierce headhuntersto doe-eyed forest folk. They would rise at dawn under the vigilance of overseers, head for the trees in the gray light of morning when the latex flows freely, score V channels in the bark, and let the white milk well into little tin bowls. Each tree could yield a hundred pounds of rubber before it shriveled into a husk. When a stand of caucho dribbled all day, a rain-forest Indian might gather enough to roll a cable the size of a human leg.
Julio César’s henchmen recruited flagelados, scourged ones, fugitives from the great dust bowl of Ceará. Hundreds of thousands were making an exodus from the wasteland of Brazil’s northeast. The streets of Iquitos and Manaus were full of them—gaunt, toothless desperados, willing to board ships for the promise of work and food. By the time Arana got them to Iquitos, they were in debt to him for passage, for food, for buckets, for bullets, for Winchesters. It didn’t take much to get them to drive slaves.
By 1903, when my great-grandfather was governor of Cusco, campaigning for the vice presidency, dreaming of a fine, democratic republic, Julio César had become one of the wealthiest men in the hemisphere, and his domain—twenty-five million acres of it—stretched from Peru to Colombia. Two years later, he incorporated his business in New York and London, under the name of the Peruvian Amazon Company. He hired a British board of directors, put the company on the London exchange, and began making the gringos rich.
In the space of a decade, the Casa Arana had become a towering enterprise. Julio César and his brothers ran it from his palace, a sprawl of red and white magnificence overlooking the Amazon, not far from the point where the river splits. He called his boulevard Calle Arana and lined it with royal palms. From his raised balconies, he could survey his dominion. From his oleander gardens, he could stride out to a triumphant balustrade thatabutted the gray-green water and watch his barges approach. Out in the jungle were the armies of four hundred, the overlords, the guards, the weighers, the tappers. Out they would go, on trails they could run blindfolded, knowing instinctively which trees would bleed. Once the bundles were brought into the camps, the workers would weigh them, cure them to a smoky charcoal, then ship them downriver on flotillas of armed barges.
Some overlords decided to breed their own workers, in shacks where slave girls were kept for that purpose, six hundred women at a time. The Huitoto children born in those camps were taught to kiss the overlords’ hands, worship them as deities. By the time they were seven, the natural Huitoto gentleness was bred out of them: They were an army of diminutive guerrilleros, wielding rifles, shooting trespassers, trained to kill.
Eventually, Arana decided to import black men from Barbados to consolidate his empire. He needed disciplinarians, punishers. The Caribbeans were tall, imperious, dark as onyx, and they terrified the rain-forest people. He hired two hundred of these colossuses, put whips in their hands, and promised to pay according to how much rubber their Indians could haul. It was a masterful plan. The Barbadians were British subjects, hired into a firm he was making increasingly British: incorporated in England, traded in London, paid for in sterling, ruled by him in the heart of a no-man’s-land. When he saw that the British directors did not object to having British blacks involved, he sent representatives back to Barbados to hire several hundred more.
By 1905,
By 1902, when Abuelito, my grandfather, was twenty years old and moving the tassel from one side of his graduation cap to the other at the University of Notre Dame, Julio César had thousands of rain-forest Indians making him rich. They were the Huitoto, the Bora, the Andoke, the Ocaina: from fierce headhuntersto doe-eyed forest folk. They would rise at dawn under the vigilance of overseers, head for the trees in the gray light of morning when the latex flows freely, score V channels in the bark, and let the white milk well into little tin bowls. Each tree could yield a hundred pounds of rubber before it shriveled into a husk. When a stand of caucho dribbled all day, a rain-forest Indian might gather enough to roll a cable the size of a human leg.
Julio César’s henchmen recruited flagelados, scourged ones, fugitives from the great dust bowl of Ceará. Hundreds of thousands were making an exodus from the wasteland of Brazil’s northeast. The streets of Iquitos and Manaus were full of them—gaunt, toothless desperados, willing to board ships for the promise of work and food. By the time Arana got them to Iquitos, they were in debt to him for passage, for food, for buckets, for bullets, for Winchesters. It didn’t take much to get them to drive slaves.
By 1903, when my great-grandfather was governor of Cusco, campaigning for the vice presidency, dreaming of a fine, democratic republic, Julio César had become one of the wealthiest men in the hemisphere, and his domain—twenty-five million acres of it—stretched from Peru to Colombia. Two years later, he incorporated his business in New York and London, under the name of the Peruvian Amazon Company. He hired a British board of directors, put the company on the London exchange, and began making the gringos rich.
In the space of a decade, the Casa Arana had become a towering enterprise. Julio César and his brothers ran it from his palace, a sprawl of red and white magnificence overlooking the Amazon, not far from the point where the river splits. He called his boulevard Calle Arana and lined it with royal palms. From his raised balconies, he could survey his dominion. From his oleander gardens, he could stride out to a triumphant balustrade thatabutted the gray-green water and watch his barges approach. Out in the jungle were the armies of four hundred, the overlords, the guards, the weighers, the tappers. Out they would go, on trails they could run blindfolded, knowing instinctively which trees would bleed. Once the bundles were brought into the camps, the workers would weigh them, cure them to a smoky charcoal, then ship them downriver on flotillas of armed barges.
Some overlords decided to breed their own workers, in shacks where slave girls were kept for that purpose, six hundred women at a time. The Huitoto children born in those camps were taught to kiss the overlords’ hands, worship them as deities. By the time they were seven, the natural Huitoto gentleness was bred out of them: They were an army of diminutive guerrilleros, wielding rifles, shooting trespassers, trained to kill.
Eventually, Arana decided to import black men from Barbados to consolidate his empire. He needed disciplinarians, punishers. The Caribbeans were tall, imperious, dark as onyx, and they terrified the rain-forest people. He hired two hundred of these colossuses, put whips in their hands, and promised to pay according to how much rubber their Indians could haul. It was a masterful plan. The Barbadians were British subjects, hired into a firm he was making increasingly British: incorporated in England, traded in London, paid for in sterling, ruled by him in the heart of a no-man’s-land. When he saw that the British directors did not object to having British blacks involved, he sent representatives back to Barbados to hire several hundred more.
By 1905,
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