Wall Street, Rebels, and Rio Branco - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 142

MagalhãeshadworkedwithRioBrancoinWashingtonontheMisionesarbitration,so
hewasnotanoviceinthisarena,butthesituationwasrapidlydeteriorating,andBrazil's
president, Manuel Ferraz de Campos Sales, did not really have the measure of what was
unfolding in the Amazon forests. The United States was the main buyer for Brazil's cof-
fee, and Campos Sales, a native of São Paulo, was aligned with the mercantile interests
of his home state and thus loath to alienate North American commerce through what he
viewed as some silly Amazonian incident, an insignificant boundary squabble. Further,
previouschancellors,includingMagalhães,hadbeencompliantabouttheobliquelineof
the Ayacucho Treaty even as the region rang with Brazilian surnames and the twang of
the sertanejo Portuguese. These earlier diplomats had upheld Bolivian rights over these
vastforestsinhabitedbyBrazilians,anunfortunateprecedentgivetheeconomicvalueof
the lands. In the meantime, Bolivian customs houses had been raised on the Iaco, Juruá,
upper Purús, and Acre Rivers.
From Washington, Assis-Brasil alerted Magalhães that Bolivia was seeking business
alliances through the agency of Charles R. Flint of Export Lumber. Flint was one of the
great capitalists of the Gilded Age, a great consolidator of companies, and indeed his
conglomerate of adding-machine companies would eventually become IBM. He had de-
veloped a major merchant bank and most centrally had merged a number of enterprises
into the company known as US Rubber. He was also well known as a munitions deal-
er. 16 Flint's efforts on Wall Street could carry great weight, and his business coteries
werecomfortablewithinternationalventures.Theyhadconsolidatedextractiveeconom-
ies in Central America (including chicle latex used in Chiclets and Beemens chewing
gum) and were central to Wall Street speculations in Panama, including the latex in-
dustry there. 17 And then there was Felix Aramayo, the Bolivian diplomat who was ex-
ploring other forms and sources of financing in Europe.
Outsourced Colonialism: Charter Companies
Bolivia's agent in London, Felix Avelino Aramayo, was especially active with and very
clearonthevirtuesofchartercompanies.WithAramayo'sproximitytoLondonbanking
houses,theubiquityofchartercompaniesinBritain'sempire,andhispenchantforinter-
national deals, the possibilities of “charter” colonialism captured Aramayo's enthusiasm
asaBoliviandevelopmentoption.Boliviahadlittledomesticcapital,anditseemedquite
likely that the zone would become expensively militarized if other strategies of getting
the revenues (and reducing the costs of governing) did not prevail. 18 Aramayo decided
to approach the Belgians, the masters of colonialism in ultra-peripheries.
Aramayo hoped for funds from various Belgian consortia and overseas banking en-
terprises, a move that made sense since Leopold's imperial team had successfully deve-
loped African charter companies for the “Free Congo State,” had flourished in the hu-