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
In the last days of 1906 Aquileo Torres, Felipe Cabrera, Feliciano
Muñoz, Pascual Rubiano, José de la Paz Gutiérrez, Bonifacio Cabrera,
Jorge Carbajal, Carlos María de Silva, Heleodoro X -- --, Crisanto
Victoria, Roso España, and two women, all employees of the firm of
Urbano Gutiérrez, set out from Florencia, Dept. of Tolima, Republic of
Colombia.
They embarked in six canoes, with a large quality of merchandise, for
the River Caquetá or Japurá, where they were going to extract rubber and
begin traffic with the Indians, so that the latter would help them in
this work. After a tedious journey of thirty-five days, they reached the
Lower Caquetá, where a tribe of Indians called the Andoques live. Here
they were well received by the indigenes of this Colombian territory. In
order to gain the friendship of these natives, the Colombians presented
them with various trifles and received from them in return manioca and
bananas. Thus the first difficulty was conquered, for within a few days
the Indians yielded themselves up completely to the new-comers.
As the construction of a house for the shelter of the _personal_[115]
and the merchandise was of urgent necessity, the chief of the party,
Felipe Cabrera, ordered some of the men to begin this operation, with
the help of the Indians, while the rest proceeded to burn the brush, in
order to make the necessary plantations.
A few days afterwards, when the clearing was finished and the
construction of the house well advanced, a group of nearly 20 Peruvian
_caucheros_,[116] all armed with rifles, appeared upon the scene. Two
Barbados negroes formed part of this band. The Peruvians first
encountered a group of eight persons--four men and one Colombian woman,
two Indian men and one Indian woman, all of whom were apart from their
companions, engaged in the fabrication of mandioca flour. Of this
inoffensive group the two Indians fell, shot dead. Then the Peruvians
sent a letter to one Señor Norman, an agent of the Arana Company, who
arrived on the scene three days later, accompanied by another group of
individuals. Norman, questioning the prisoners, learned that Felipe
Cabrera, the chief, was among them, and forced him, with threats, to
send an order to José de la Paz Gutiérrez, who was absent with the rest
of the men, to deliver up all the arms they had.
The prisoner, in fear of his life, wrote the order, which Norman took to
its destination.
The guide was the Colombian prisoner, Roso España.
Then, in possession of the arms, they began another butchery. The
Peruvians discharged their weapons at the Indians who were constructing
the roof of the house. These poor unfortunates, pierced by the bullets,
some dead, others wounded, rolled off the roof and fell to the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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