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who else.” The arguments that were about to made in the general diplomatic campaign
against the Syndicate were best articulated by Rio Branco:
If the British enter into this business with the Americans, it is natural that interests and commercial
rivalries would lead other European countries to take advantage of this opportunity to bury the Mon-
roe Doctrine. Up to today it has been a means of scaring off Europeans and it has served us well on
many occasions, notably the bitter experiences with France over the limits of Guiana. The fact is if
we appear to disagree with or have a conflict of interest with the United States, who until now have
seemed our firm allies, this will do us considerable damage, weakening our position substantively in
the eyes of Europe. If by chance the US invites European governments to exploit the lands of South
America by imposing complete freedom on the Amazon, it will be difficult for them to refuse the in-
vitation.
Rio Branco closed his note with a chilling coda: “I swear that a half-dozen ambitious
men in La Paz or New York will not succeed in awakening the covetousness with which
the US in other times regarded Amazonia, which caused so much perturbation and trep-
idation in more than one cabinet during the empire.”
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The Baron had the previous US escapades in Amazonia clearly in mind.
Revolution in the Tropics
The Bolivian Syndicate, with its highly internationalized set of partners, set off the next
revolution in Acre and a suite of diplomatic and military events that took Brazil into
warwithBoliviaandPeru.TheAcreans,underrevolutionaryleaderPlácidodeCastro(a
former schoolmate of Euclides), led an armed insurrection. Given the Syndicate's sim-
ilarities with African charters, the Acrean rebels were soon compared to the “Homeric
insurgents” of the Boer War. Others, of a more capitalist bent and inspired by the Syn-
dicate experience, were eager to extend the possibilities of charter companies. Auguste
Plane,thechargéforFrenchcommercialmissions,wonderedafterhistriptotheAmazon
why his nation's capitalists couldn't organize for a similar enterprise.
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The threat of external military intervention was very real to the Brazilians and the
Peruvians alike. Both countries strongly protested the Syndicate, since Perubelieved the
entire area under contest belonged to it, along with a substantial chunk of Brazilian ter-
ritory, as a consequence of the Idelfonso line ceded to the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1777.
The Syndicate, with the powerful military potential of the US behind it would make any
other claim almost impossible to prosecute. Chile was preparing to provide gunboats to
quell the Acrean uprising. Other alliances pro and con were coalescing in covert ways.
The Brazilians registered pointed complaints through diplomatic channels that given the
length of the leases, the company lands were a de facto American colony; that the pres-
ence of an army so close to undemarcated borders was a cause of immense concern; that
theBrazilianpopulationswithintheseareashadnosafeguardsofpersonorproperty;that
Bolivia had unilaterally transferred shipping rights on Brazilian waters.
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