In the Realm of Rubber - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 225

ity to many small-scale traders implied competition among them rather than the domin-
ation by a single seringalista with monopoly over a “closed” watershed. Henry Pearson,
editor of India Rubber World , whose interest in all aspects of the industry was naturally
quiteacute,notesthenumberof aviadores andtherelativeeasewithwhichonecouldbe-
comeoneintheLowerAmazon.Thepatron-client relationwasoftenaffinalandinfused
withagreatdealofsocialmeaningandmutualobligation.HistorianBarbaraWeinstein's
work presages elements of contemporary research on Amazonian middlemen, who are
often themselves tappers, so that the relations may have been more nuanced, a kind of
“moral economy.” 99 This autonomy was assured in the rubber systems closer to Belém
through the ability to provide one's own subsistence, to market other extractive goods
likepalmfruitsanddriedfish,andtohavemorechoiceabouttowhomonecouldsell,so
that one could, if necessary, avoid oppressive traders. Further, to move up and down the
river with the tides did not require expensive steamboats, so “freelance marketing” was
possible. The immense and complex mangrove swamps and islands also hid and protec-
ted communities and provided escape routes that made “spatial coercion” very difficult.
This appears to have been typical in the well-traveled part of the lower basin and “zona
dasIlhas,”theestuarybasinincluding theislandsofMarajóandanenormousnumberof
small islets, which actually rivaled the Acre territory in the volume of its latex products
at the tail end of the rubber period. 100 Pearson reported that in the “island district,” the
area near Belém, including Marajó, in the Amazon estuary, as many as eighty “brands”
orsourcescameinononesteamboattoanarrayofcommercialhouses,fardifferentfrom
some of the river monopolies of the upper Amazon.
The upper Amazon itself did not have one simple story. On the “sister” river of the
Purús, the Juruá, historian Cristina Wolff provided evidence of a much more varied so-
cial landscape near cities. Based on the data of the 1904 census focused on the town of
Cruzeiro do Sul, Wolff noted that 27 percent of the population was female, a striking
statistic if one is accustomed to the masculine version of the lonely tapper engaged in
his rounds in a relentless circuit of dearth and oppression. 101 In addition, Wolff's review
of legal cases pressed by women (usually over false promises of marriage) revealed that
almost half of the men involved defined themselves as agriculturalists, not seringueir-
os (although one was an artist). Photographs from the region in the early 1900s show
a great deal of clearing and livestock. 102 This suggests more elaborate economies in
these regions than we have come to expect. While there is no question that there were
debt peons living in the outback languishing with beriberi due to a diet of canned foods
and manioc flour, the situation was far more complex. Da Cunha also described several
different types of extractive settlements including those of peasant yeomen, as we will
see later, and a great deal of personal agency as well as enslavement. Historian Barbara
Weinstein's research, like Stephen Nugent's, reveals the importance of autonomy to tap-