| Putumayo genocide | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Amazon rubber boom | |
_(14782203995).jpg) Huitoto natives in conditions of slavery | |
| Location | Colombia and Peru |
| Date | 1879 – 1930 |
Attack type | Slavery, genocidal rape, torture, crimes against humanity |
| Deaths | 32,000[1] to 40,000+[2][3][4] |
| Perpetrators | Peruvian Amazon Company |
The Putumayo genocide (Spanish: genocidio del Putumayo) refers to the severe exploitation and subsequent ethnocide of the indigenous population in the Putumayo region.
The booms of raw materials incentivized the exploration and occupation of uncolonised land in the Amazon by several South American countries, gradually leading to the subjugation of the local tribes in the pursuit of rubber extraction. The genocide was primarily perpetrated by the enterprise of Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana during the Amazon rubber boom from 1879 to 1911. Arana's company, along with Benjamín Larrañaga, first enslaved the indigenous population and subjected them to dreadful brutality. In 1907, Arana registered the Peruvian Amazon Company on the London Stock Exchange, this company assumed control over Arana's assets in the Putumayo River basin, notably along the Igara Paraná, Cara paraná and Cahuinari tributaries.
Arana’s company made the local indigenous population work under deteriorated conditions, which led to mass death as well as extreme punishment. Some of the indigenous groups exploited by Peruvian and Colombian rubber firms were Huitoto, Bora, Andoque, Ocaina, Nonuya, Muinanes and Resígaros. The main figures of the Peruvian Amazon Company, including Elías Martinengui, Andrés O'Donnell, and the Rodríguez brothers, committed mass starvation, torture, and killings. The company educated a group of native males—Muchachos de Confianza—in policing their fellow men and torturing them.
Nine in every ten targeted Amazonian populations were destroyed in the Putumayo genocide. The company continued its work even after 215 arrest warrants were issued against its workers in 1911. The dissolution of the company did not stop it from providing Arana and his partners with means to subjugate the native population of the Putumayo region. At least 6,719 indigenous people were forced by administrators of Arana's enterprise to emigrate from their traditional territory in the Putumayo River basin between 1924 and 1930, half of this group perished from disease and other factors after the migrations. Although the genocide is of great historical significance, it remains relatively unknown. Eyewitness accounts collected by Benjamin Saldaña Rocca, Walter Ernest Hardenburg and Roger Casement brought the atrocities to global attention.
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| Genocide of indigenous peoples |
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| Issues |
- ^ Tully, John (2011). The Devil's Milk A Social History of Rubber. Monthly Review Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-58367-261-7.
- ^ "Cien años después, la Amazonía recuerda uno de sus episodios más trágicos" [One hundred years later, the Amazon remembers one of its most tragic episodes]. BBC News (in Spanish). October 12, 2012. Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
- ^ Uriarte, Javier; Martínez-Pinzón, Felipe, eds. (2019). Intimate Frontiers A Literary Geography of the Amazon. Liverpool University Press. p. 120. ISBN 9781786949721.
- ^ Department of State 1913, pp. 119, 160.