In the Times of Scrambles in the Land of the Amazons - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 67

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In the Times of Scrambles in the Land of the Amazons
Scrambles in the Old World and New
Africa was partitioned by the European powers after the Berlin Congress of 1885. Much
has been made of this meeting of the diplomatic powers when lines were drawn on
maps, deals were made, and the “Scramble for Africa” formalized what had been a
rather disorganized process of reconnaissance and imperial annexation. Five European
nations—France,England,Germany,Belgium,andItaly—carvedupAfricafortheiruses,
under the pretext of advancing the three Cs: Commerce, Civilization, and Christian-
ity. They managed to assign themselves some thirty mostly tropical, largely unexplored
colonies and protectorates, with sovereignty over more than a hundred million people.
These terrains proffered the gold, gems, oils, plantations, and Langdorfia latex, the vine
whose sap vied with Amazonian Heveas and Peruvian Castillas in the global rubber mar-
ket.
FarlessattentionhasbeenpaidtotheScramblefortheAmazon.Thisreflectedthereal-
itythatthecontestshadbeengoingoninslowmotionforcenturies.TheIberianex-colon-
ies continued in their internecine squabbles. French, English, and Dutch colonies sat on
the Guyana periphery of the boom lands of the Caribbean, inching down toward Brazil.
Hemispheric aspirants like the United States lurked, schemed, andfilibustered aroundthe
edges of the great basins of the Orinoco and Amazon. Overall, South American colon-
ies had been low-value chits in the larger dynamics of European diplomatic exchanges,
and the attention of European powers was blurred by earlier failed colonialisms—their
own (all had made earlier attempts at capturing the Amazon) 1 —as well as their disdain
for the residue of a rickety imperium, in the case of Brazil, and republics run by tempera-
mental caudillos on the ruins of the Spanish empire. There was a hodgepodge of vague
treaties and old claims that could be activated in the interstices of the vast unknown ter-
ritories. Tropical geopolitics, mostly languid, periodically exploded in clashes in swamps
and forests far removed from the gilded government halls where the fates of these places
were often decided.