Peru, Purús, Brazil - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 159

MonroeandhisplenipotentateWilliamPickneyconcerningtheboundariesofLouisiana,
that were set forth in a letter to Pedro Cevallos, the Spanish minister of state. The legal
substance of this position would later structure what would become the US doctrine of
Manifest Destiny. Following the Monroe/Pickney argument about the Mississippi drain-
age,MooreassertedthatBrazil'ssovereigntyovertheAmazonRiverimplied“deepsov-
ereignty” over the hinterlands of the Amazon's tributaries, especially since most of the
upper watersheds of the Juruá and Purús were occupied by Brazilians. Next, Moore ar-
gued, “a settlement is entitled not only to the lands actually inhabited, but to all those
which may be needed for its security” 20 —an especially important point given the guer-
rilla war unfolding on the Purús, but one that, given the enormous size of the hinter-
lands of these rivers, justified territitorial claims over huge watersheds. Thus, “effective
occupation” as required by uti possedetis was not the only form of claim on the upper
Amazon forests; “deep sovereignty” over tributary watersheds and the broader needs of
national defense were others. Using this reasoning, Moore folded the Amazon into the
logics of acquisitive US territorial jurisprudence, consolidating this with uti possedetis
of Roman law. These complemented the more traditional ideologies of “discovery” as
claim, since the presence of Brazilians preceded that of the Peruvians. These more the-
oreticalpositionsofRioBranco-Moorediplomacywerefurtherbuttressedbythereality
that Acre had been a purchase, just like Louisiana.
The Ground War on the Caucho Frontier
The clash between Peru and Brazil was due in part to the complexities of their historical
treaty politics, but there were material pressures as well. The caucho system had led to
local extinctions of the Castilla s and a gradual eastward shifting of caucho hunters in
search of the trees, even as the soaring demand for Hevea rubber kept stimulating up-
riverwesternmigrationfromBrazil.Eventuallythesetwomigratoryflowsclashedinthe
upper Purús and Juruá.
In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Peruvian rubber patrones such as Carlos Scharff
began to move large numbers of indigenous workers from Peru into the Juruá and Purús
watersheds of Brazil to avoid the having their native workers hunted out and incorpor-
ated into the Casa Arana (or Fitzcarraldo) monopolies and to avoid possible state inter-
vention in their activities as rumors and newspaper denunciations of caucho slavery be-
came more widespread. 21
TheupperUcayaliandMadredeDioshadlandconnections— varadouros —totheup-
per Juruá and Purús, products of some of the historic trading routes of the Piros Indians
and possibly even some ancient Incan supply routes. Leopoldo Collazos, a foreman of
the Fitzcarraldos, is often described as the first Peruvian into the region, although oth-
ers credit Delfim Fitzcarraldo. 22 Collazos arrived in 1899, established an outpost, then