Wall Street, Rebels, and Rio Branco - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 140

A Spanish Subversive
Spanish journalist, adventurer, and café revolutionary Luis Galvão, 6 whose job it was
to report on the doings of illustrious visitors in Belém, portal to the Amazon, noted the
unusual confluence of dignitaries and, as a good journalist, began his interviews. Thor-
oughlycharming,andsharingthesametongueastheBolivians,hewassoonabletosup-
plement his income as a writer for the newspaper Provincia do Pará with another job,
onewiththeBolivianlegationinPará.Itwasthroughthisconnection,itsaccesstodiplo-
maticpapers,andtherevelationsofhisdrinkingbuddyIbarra,whowasupsetbywhathe
viewed as disloyalty on the part of Paravacini (who Ibarra thought was trading away his
country), that Galvão discovered that the United States and Bolivia were in negotiations
over the Acre territories. The first months of 1899 had shown the Bolivians that any
control over the Acre was going to be very difficult because of the number of Brazilian
settlements and seringalista displeasure at taxation and annoyance at Bolivian rule. The
Bolivians,fortheirpart,wereseeking“diplomaticsupport”fromtheUnitedStatesinthe
face of an increasingly insurgent population. The Wilmington then proceeded to Iquitos,
the capital of the Ucayali and center of the latex trade in the northwestern tributaries,
where the passengers were visiting with Peruvian rebels who dreamed of controlling the
Ucayali and its rubber economy, at least according to the some press reports. 7 Perhaps
some larger US regional strategy was afoot.
Galvão's revelations were a major journalistic coup that triggered infuriated denun-
ciations at all levels of Brazilian society, international outcry, and tropical revolution in
Acre when a copy of the pact between the US and Bolivia was printed in the Provincia
do Pará on June 6. The region and nation exploded. The Brazilian statesman, inter-
national jurist, and famous abolitionist Rui Barbosa entered the fray, reminding fellow
Brazilians about US activities vis-à-vis Cuba and Hawaii and cautioning that history
could repeat itself. 8 Others, such as the journalist and historian João Lucio de Azevedo,
placed the episode firmly in the realm of economic imperialism with direct references
to the European ventures in Africa, situating the Amazonian case within the political
economics of the African Scramble. 9 The voyage of the Wilmington was an object of
formal protest by the Brazilian legation headed by Joaquim Francisco de Assis-Brasil
in Washington to Secretary of State John Hay. Hay apologized to Assis-Brasil, asserting
that Todd had had no intension of violating the laws of Brazil, but also took the stern
posture that in fact Todd was the wronged party and the population of the Amazon had
been discourteous to an American official. 10 The public outcry was such that the first
Bolivia-US agreement about the Acre territory became a dead letter, but it galvanized
the Acrean rebels. Meantime, Luis Galvão made his way to Acre.
The Acrean revolution was directly related to the Wilmington episode and the dan-
gerous agenda revealed by Galvão. The insurgents used the agreement point by point