Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Amazonas and its intrigue-minded (and open handed) governor, José Cardoso Ramalho
Junior, the Acrean
seringueiros
rose up and expelled the Bolivian delegation based in
Puerto Acre. The Acreans feared complete dispossession of their holdings and had mo-
TheIndependentStateofAcrewasproclaimedwiththeSpanishadventurerandjourn-
alist Luis Galvão as its president. With his usual dramatic flair, Galvão proceeded to is-
sue decrees and proclamations, baptizing the new revolutionary state as the “Republic
of Poets.” What the uprising unleashed, frivolous though it seemed and gilded with the
romance of rebellion, was serious in the extreme. Bolivia began a military invasion of
the region and its infant republic.
Bolivian president José Manuel Pando knew the Amazon well, having been incarcer-
ated there for revolutionary activities in his youth, and had been part of a boundary sur-
vey team in 1891, along with Belgian astronomer Luis Cruls, then head of the Brazili-
an Astronomy Institute. Pando was aware that the Purús, Iaco, and Juruá were full of
Brazilians in territory that he thought Bolivian under the 1867 Treaty of Ayacucho. Also
the Suárez brothers, Nicolás and Gregorio, the masters of latex production in the Bolivi-
an lowlands, were applying political pressure, since lands that should have been under
their aegis as lords of the Bolivian Amazon were claimed at every bend in the river by
ritory that had defied Bolivian sovereignty, Pando sent another military expedition in-
to the Acre. This was an arduous mission: the company traveled from the Mamoré to
the Orton River, north into the Acre valley, and overran the
seringais—
the rubber es-
tates—that were central to the rebel base. In this instance Bolivia defeated the insur-
gents. Galvão was secreted to Manaus and paid off with seven thousand pounds, al-
legedly for some sensitive information in his possession, probably pertaining to the
Amazon”—Galvão—vanished after this adventure (and with a tidy sum) from the pages
of history.
Bolivian flags unfurled over the Acre valley, survey teams were organized, and the
Acre River was opened to international navigation. Control of the region was still very
muchopentoquestion,givenincessantguerrillaskirmishes.LaPazsentaplenipotentate
andextraordinaryministertotheUnitedStatestorequestUSinterventioninthepending
chancellor of Brazil, held his own in the flurry of diplomatic communiqués but urged
Assis-Brasiltoimpedeinsofaraspossibleanyinternationalrepressionagainsttherebels,
even though Brazil formally did not recognize their sovereignty over the Acre. At least
not yet.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search