The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise: Travels in the Peruvian Amazon Region and an Account of the Atrocities Committed upon the Indians ThereinHardenburg, W. E. (Walter Ernest)
History
The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise: Travels in the Peruvian Amazon Region and an Account of the Atrocities Committed upon the Indians Therein
Hardenburg, W. E. (Walter Ernest)
Peru -- Description and travel; Peruvian Amazon Company; Putumayo River; Rubber industry and trade -- Peru
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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