In the Realm of Rubber - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 218

extraction carried outbyfamilies wasa“nocost”oratleast “nooutlay” systemandthus
was competitive with the coercive rubber economies of debt peons and native slavery,
systemsthathadtoincludethecostsofprovisioningworkers,transportingoverdistance,
and repression.
Historically, extensive extraction systems in peripheries were maintained by “non-
waged” forms of labor deployment, such as chattel slavery, terror slavery, debt peonage,
and indenturement, or, alternatively, the “affinal economies of affection”—family, clan,
and community duties—or obligations such as tributes or labor corvées. In these forms
of extraction, direct labor costs—wages—did not really exist. For the various slaveries,
however, there were the costs of conquista or capture, or the monies paid to a trader.
In affinal economies, there were the “currencies” of reciprocity. For the debt peons and
tributes, labor would be paid later with products. 66 Many analysts argue that profits in
the rubber sector were realized less through efficiencies—it was, after all, men, knives,
andsmoke—thanthroughprocessesofunequalexchangeandcommerce,localizedtrade
monopolies produced by private steam vessels, “captive” rivers, and manipulation of
markets, information, and speculation on the latexes. 67
The export of latexes encompassed more than a century, a period of profound change
inglobaleconomiesandsocialrelationsinAmazonia.Chiefsorheadmencouldmobilize
kin, clans, and even indigenous slaves in the gathering of latex. Based on community
labor, these tribute economies offered latex in exchange for goods that were redistrib-
uted. Rubber was built into older patterns of commodity exchange between Indians
and traders within mercantile circuits that had prevailed for hundreds of years. Bates,
traveling in the 1850s in Amazonia, recorded the collection of “India rubber”—in his
case, Hevea —in almost every native settlement where he spent any time; of all groups,
the Mundurukú were famous for their integration into the commerce as autonomous
traders. 68
IntheupperUcayali andPurús,native peopleswerepartofacomplex social dynamic
where some tribal leaders themselves became caucheiros ; others allied with rubber bar-
onsagainsttheirtraditionalenemiesandsuppliedtheslavetrade.Someworkedoutreas-
onable systems with suppliers, while others fled as far as possible from the entire eco-
nomy, which, given how widespread the industry was, was quite difficult to do. Most
famous among native “rubber barons” was Chief Venâncio (see figure 17.2 , a photo
takenduringdaCunha'sexpedition),whohadorganized caucho extractionontheUcay-
ali and Purús in concert with Carlos Scharff. Scharff, as noted earlier, was instrument-
al in fanning the flames of the Purús conflict and met da Cunha in his travels. Indeed
ScharffisthemodelfortheCauchoKingindaCunha'sessay“Oscaucheiros”in chapter
21 . Scharff was later killed by “his” Indians—perhaps an occupational hazard in terror
slavery.TheFitzcarraldoswerefamousfortheirPiromilitia,alsochillinglydescribedby