In the Realm of Rubber - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 214

pogenic forests. 49 Cacao was so dense that da Cunha urged development of the ca-
cao industry there. Historically, the rebellious Mura Indians were reviled because they
made collection from the vast groves exceedingly difficult. Extensive areas of bamboo
stands—an important marker for human impacts—have also been recorded. 50 Rather
than a periphery, a backwater, or a pristine refuge as it is thought of today, the region
was a cosmopolitan crossroads, as da Cunha suggests, connecting Andean and west-
ern Amazonian cultures in the complex domesticated landscapes of the pre-Columbian
world. 51 Modern linguistic data support this view. 52
The rubber period was perhaps a reengagement with elements of earlier production
ecologies and their integration into modern commodity circuits. It was not an accident
that in the early nineteenth century colonial administrators had closed the Purús because
of the extraordinary quantity of commodities—the drogas do sertão —that had been
flowing untaxed down it. 53
“A Most Useful Product”: Industrial Innovation and Amazon Latex
In Europe, a place without anything much resembling waterproofing other than oily
wool,rubbersoonfoundanessentialniche.Bythe1750sPortugalwasoutfittingitsmil-
itary with army boots and knapsacks treated with latex in Belém, and indeed, European
militaries were eager markets for rubber products.
Figure 14.2. Production of rubber shoes on lasts for export. Note the tapping of the tree on the right,
and racks of shoes in the background.
Syringes had existed among Amazonian natives (hence the Portuguese name for the
tree, seringa or syringe), and by 1768, Pierre Macquer had learned how to make rub-
ber tubes and catheters by molding the latex around tubes. Latex-coated silk taffeta bal-
loons lofted the Montgolfier brothers over the Île de France in 1783, fueling the craze
for this early airborne conveyance. By 1811 Champion was waterproofing materials for
the French army. In the early 1800s Belém was exporting rubber shoes to New Eng-
land, and this trade, localized on tributaries near Belém—the Mojú, the Acará, and the