W. E. Hardenburg

“ The Peruvians are alive to its value and possibilities, but they are poor. Days, weeks, months of arduous travel on mule-back, on foot, cutting trochas, or paths, through the impenetrable under- brush, by raft and by canoe, suffering all the hardships of the tropics, of torrential rain, burning sun, scarcity of food. ”

“ The otherwise good qualities and fine latent force of the Latin American character are overshadowed by its more primitive instincts, which time and the growth of real democracy will eliminate.*
Furthermore, there are other rubber-bearing regions in the Amazon Valley where hidden abuses are committed, in the territory of other South American republics; and Peru does not stand alone, and atrocities are not confined to the Putumayo. It was shown that many of the murders and Hoggings at the rubber stations were committed by the Barbadian negroes at the order of the Peruvian chiefs of sections. ”

“ The difficulties of Peru in the government and development of their portion of the Amazon Valley, known as the Oriente, or Montana, must not be lightly passed over. The physical difficulties against what has been termed the Conquest of the Montana are such as it is impossible for the European to picture. ”

“ It is not to be supposed that the Indians are all pacific or docile in the Peruvian Montaila. Whole villages which were established in earlier times by the Spaniards and afterwards enlarged by the Peruvians, with buildings, plantations, and industries, have been wiped out by attacks of the Indians, probably in reprisals. In some districts the danger from savages prevents settlement, and the blow-pipe and the spear greet the traveller who ventures there incautiously. Tales of savagery have been told in which the white man has been the sufferer ”

“ Power is always abused in such places by the Latin American people, be they Peruvians, Colombians, Bolivians, Brazilians, Argentinos, or others. Tyranny is but a question of opportunity, in the present stage of their development. ”

“ Thus Indians are shot at in sport to make them run or as exercise in tiro al bianco or target practice, and burnt by pouring petroleum over them and setting it on fire in order to watch their agonies. This love of inflicting agony for sport is a curious psychic attribute of the Spanish race. The present writer, when in remote regions in Peru and Mexico, has had occasion to intervene, sometimes at personal risk, in the ill treatment of Indians and peones, who were being tortured or punished to extort confession for small misdemeanors, or even for purely frivolous reasons. ”

“ Their Governments in some cases pay them no salary, and they are concerned in promoting and earning commissions from the flotation of rubber and mining companies in the particular regions they represent. Such a condition is often discreditable to the Latin-American republics. Officials who are shareholders in and recipients of commission from rubber company promoters with whom they are hand-in-glove are not likely to take an impartial view of the unfortunate native workers. ”

“ The torture or mutilation of the Indian is therefore regarded much as it would be in the case of an ox or a horse. This attitude of mind was well shown in the barbarous system of forced labour in the mines in the times of the viceroys of Peru and Mexico, where the Indians were driven into the mines by armed guards and branded on the face with hot irons. ”

“ Another circumstance affecting the action of the Peruvian Government is that, in the republican form of government, the judicial authorities are independent of the Executive, The educated people of the Peruvian capital and coast region must, in general, be exonerated from knowledge of the occurrences of the Putumayo. ”

“ In the Peruvian Montana, in its upper regions, Nature has been lavish of her products and oppor- tunities. The rancher who should take up his abode there, with a small amount of capital, can rapidly acquire estates and wealth. Abundant harvests of almost every known product can be raised in a minimum of time. ”

“ It is sufficient to cut down and burn the brush and scratch the soil and sow with any seed, to recover returns of a hundred for one. Sugarcane, vines, maize, cocoa, coffee, and a host of products can be raised. The sugarcane, once planted, yields perpetual, some existing plantations being more than a hundred years old. ”

“ The investigation carried out by the Consular Commission showed that some of these Barbadian negroes committed terrible crimes at the instigation of their superiors. The first contingent of these men, imported by Arana Brothers, reached the Putumayo at the end of 1904. These Barbadoes men generally term themselves "Englishmen" rather than "British subjects." They are good workers generally, and to their labour it is that the work of the Panama Canal owes its speedy execution. ”

“ Apart from topographical considerations, the sinister occurrences on the Putumayo are, to some extent, the result of a sinister human element, the Spanish and Portuguese character. The remark- able trait of callousness to human suffering which the Iberian people of Portugal and Spain — themselves a mixture of Moor, Goth, Semite, Vandal, and other peoples — introduced into the Latin American race is here sho\vn in its intensity, and is augmented by a further Spanish quality. The Spaniard often regards the Indians as animals. ”

“ Other European people may have abused the Indians of America, but none have that peculiar Spanish attitude towards them of frankly considering them as non-human. Today the Indians are commonly referred to among Spaniards and Mestizos as aiiimales. ”

“ The cane frequently measures thirty feet in height, and is cut seven to nine months after sprouting. The whole Amazon Valley, when it shall have been opened up, will prove to be one of the most valuable parts of the earth's surface. ”