The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise / Travels in the Peruvian Amazon Region and an Account of the Atrocities Committed upon the Indians Therein

by W. E. Hardenburg

By way of amusement these employees of the company often enjoy a little tiro al blanco, or target-shooting, the target being little Indian children whose parents have been murdered. The little innocents are tied up to trees, the murderers take their positions, and the slaughter begins. First they shoot off an ear or hand, then another, and so on until an unlucky bullet strikes a vital part and puts an end to their sport.

Often on holidays and fiestas, in order to see the weak, starving, and cadaverous Indians run, these people fire into a group of them, and generally manage to bring down several before their victims have got out of reach.

When one of these agents sees a girl he wants he takes her, and her father or husband dare not protest, for he would be tortured to death at once. After he is satisfied, if he still likes the woman, he adds her to his harem; if not, he either lets her go or, as has happened, has her flogged to death. As I have before remarked, nearly all these agents possess a harem of two to twelve Indian girls, varying in age from eight to fifteen years. These defenceless children are violated without the least compassion, and when they tire of one she is either brutally kicked out of the house and sent back to her tribe or else murdered on the spot.

Murders and assassinations are so common here that some of the chiefs of sections and their subordinates do not pass without killing in cold blood from one to five, or even more, of the helpless Huitotos. Any pretext serves, as when the Indian does not understand them or when he is not punctual to the minute; and, indeed, they often kill them for amusement, to fill the other Indians with a fear of the “whites,” or to practise target-shooting. These murders, let it be understood, are not confined entirely to the slaughters of Indians, for many are the civilizados, Peruvians as well as Colombians, who have incurred the ill-will of these bandits.

Extortions are practised continually in this part of Peru by the company and its employees. Apart from the robberies of the rubber extracted by the Indians, the lesser employees are robbed of a part or of all their salary balances. The profits from these thefts generally go to swell the pockets of the chiefs of sections and those of the higher employees.

As I have before remarked, the unhappy Indians, far from getting paid for the rubber they deliver, are not even given food to eat while they work, and what appears more incredible is that they are given no opportunity to cultivate food of their own; for such is the criminal rapacity of this company that they not only compel the Indian women to cultivate the food for their men and themselves, but also for their oppressors, who help themselves to all they want and waste and destroy as much as they please, the little that is left constituting, with a few forest products, the food of the unfortunate and starving Indians.

The dress of the Huitotos has already been described, and, after thirteen years of close contact with the company, we find these people still stark naked.

But most remarkable are the correrías which the agents of the company carry out periodically. The crimes of the Spanish Inquisition are pale compared with the deeds committed in this vast den of crime. Upon the occasions of these correrías the operation is as follows: The chief of section orders his subordinates to arm themselves and set out for the village of the Indians to receive the rubber, which, as we have observed, should be delivered every ten days. They make their way to the principal house, where the Indians should be assembled ready to deliver the rubber. Once here they call the roll, on which is noted the number of kilograms each Indian should have ready.

As each Indian’s name is called he steps up and delivers the rubber he has collected, which is weighed on the spot. Occasionally a kilogram or two are lacking, and in this case the Indian is given from twenty-five to one hundred lashes by the Barbados negroes, who only for this purpose—that is, as executioners—have been brought here. At about the tenth blow the victim generally falls unconscious from the effects of the intense pain produced.