[CHAPTER III]
THE HISTORY OF RUBBER
Of course, you have already guessed that the material used by the “poor savages” I have been talking about was rubber. But I should not be at all surprised if you are thinking that I have made up the whole story I have told you about the discovery of the product.
For the moment, I will neither confess nor deny that I have spun you a fairy story. Instead, I will ask you to give your attention to a few well-known facts about the history of rubber.
On the authority of an old and honoured historian, Herrera by name, Columbus saw the natives of the Island of Haiti, in the West Indies, playing with balls which were said to be made of gum from a tree. This was during his second voyage of discovery, in 1493 to 1496. A sixteenth-century document refers to elastic balls which the aborigines of the New World used in their games. And early in the seventeenth century a report was issued dealing with a tree growing in Mexico, from which the natives extracted a milky liquid that came to be used by the Spaniards for the purpose of making their garments water-tight.
In each case, the historical reference is generally admitted to concern the material we now call rubber. Therefore, by the way, so far as history enlightens us, Columbus was the first European to become acquainted with this forest product.
According to history, then, the aborigines in different parts of Southern America discovered rubber, and made use of it, without any help from the civilized world. By the way, they called the material “cahucu.” When an English scientist, by name Priestley, discovered in the latter part of the eighteenth century that cahucu would rub out pencil marks, this wonderful product was named india-rubber, in plain English. In nearly every other country it is now spoken of as caoutchouc.
Now, to come back to that story I told you “out of my head.” As regards the time in which the events occurred I have already proved to you that rubber was discovered before Columbus discovered America; and as there is no authority which permits me to be more definite on this point, I think you will agree with me that I was bound to give the period of my narrative as Once Upon a Time. The scene of that story is, I now frankly admit, laid in Brazil—to be more exact, in the Valley of the River Amazon.
Here, you will surely ask what explanation I have to offer for selecting Brazil as the home of the great discovery—why not Haiti, since the first mention of rubber in history is connected with this island? Or why not Mexico, since the natives of this country are also credited by history with being amongst the earliest folk to make themselves acquainted with the uses of rubber?
I am quite ready to reply to such very natural questions. Just as no one can deny that the discovery of rubber has brought about a great revolution in the industrial world, so no one who knows the whole history of that revolution can dispute the fact that it was the discovery of Brazilian rubber which has been far and away the most powerful agent in effecting it. And although history does not give me a cut-and-dried date to support my belief that the aborigines of Brazil collected rubber sap, and made use thereof as early as, or even earlier than, did the natives of Haïti and Mexico, it supplies me with facts which uphold this theory.
The Portuguese founded the colony of Brazil early in the sixteenth century, but naturally their first settlements were on the coast. About a hundred years later they began to explore the Amazon. The first European pioneer to journey along this wonderful waterway was a Portuguese missionary, and it is said that he was the first civilized man to see the natives of Brazil making use of rubber. Be this as it may, it is certain that the natives had long been acquainted with the product when the Portuguese began to colonize the Amazon Valley, for the settlers found that the aborigines of the district were skilled in making not only balls for playthings, but such useful articles as water-tight shoes and bags out of the sap of a tree that flourished in this locality.