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
After the exposure of the scandals the Peruvian Government sent a
commission of its own to the Putumayo, which confirmed all that had been
published. The principal official of this commission was Judge Paredes,
the proprietor of _El Oriente_, an Iquitos newspaper; and he made a full
report "embodying an enormous volume of testimony, of 3,000 pages
involving wellnigh incredible charges of cruelty and massacre" and
"issued 237 warrants" against the criminals, as stated in Sir Roger
Casement's Report. But between issuing warrants and actually making
arrests and convictions, in South America, there is a wide gulf.
Furthermore, Judge Paredes endeavoured, in a recent statement, to
show[21] that the "English Rubber Company" was solely responsible for
the atrocities, and that the English Consul at Iquitos has been aiding
the guilty parties in keeping from the Peruvian Government an exact
knowledge of what was taking place, is the contention of Peru. Mr. David
Cazes, English Consul in Iquitos since 1903, would have been in a good
position to find out about the management of the rubber plantation. All
the rubber gathered in the Putumayo is shipped from Iquitos. And yet he
always swore that he knew nothing. No one can enter the territory of the
rubber company without the permission of the Company's representative
in Iquitos. The twenty-one constables whom the Peruvian Government kept
in the Putumayo in those days had all been bribed by the English traders
and shut their eyes to what was happening in the jungle.
In this way the Peruvian Commissioner seeks to excuse his country,
laying stress on the term "English company and traders," when he knows
that the only representatives of the English company were its Peruvian
directors and managers. The judge adds: "You must not imagine that the
Indians are any less protected than the white man in Peru. Barring, of
course, the times of the early Spanish conquerors, the native Indians
have been treated very humanely in Peru." This latter statement, read in
conjunction with the translations from official documents and _El
Comercio_ of Lima, previously given, about Peruvian treatment of the
Indians, will enable this statement of the judge to be judged in its
turn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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