Sometimes two or three Indians and their families do not appear at this assembly on account of not having been able to collect the amount of rubber assigned to them. In this case the chief of the correría orders four or five of his agents to collect ten or twelve Indians of a tribe hostile to the fugitives and to set out in pursuit of the poor wretches, their capitán being dragged along, tied up with chains, to act as guide to reveal their hiding-place, and being threatened with a painful and lingering death in case he does not find them. After some search the hut where they have taken refuge is found, and then takes place a horrible and repugnant scene. The hut constructed by the refugees is of thatch, of a conical form and without doors. The chief orders his men to surround the house, and two or three of them approach and set fire to it. The Indians, surprised and terrified, dash out, and the assassins discharge their carbines at the unfortunate wretches. The men killed, the bandits turn their attention to the rest, and the old, the sick, and the children, unable to escape, are either burned to death or are killed with machetes.
Another method of exploiting these unfortunate Indians takes the form of selling them as slaves in Iquitos, and this business in human flesh yields excellent returns to the company or its employees, for they are sold in that capital at from £20 to £40 each. Every steamer that goes to Iquitos, loaded with the rubber from the Putumayo, carries from five to fifteen little Indian boys and girls, who are torn, sobbing, from their mothers’ arms without the slightest compunction. These little innocents, as we have already said, are sold at wholesale and retail by this “civilising company” in Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto, the second port of a country that calls itself Christian, republican, civilised, and, let it be well understood, with the knowledge, consent, and approval of the authorities there.
But to relate all the crimes and infamies committed in this tragic region by this company and its employees in its almost incredible persecution and exploitation of the Indians, would prove an interminable task, so many are the crimes committed in this devil’s paradise.
The following are the directors of the Peruvian Amazon Company[108]:—
Henry M. Read, 4 Lancaster Gate Terrace, Hyde Park, London, W.
Sir John Lister Kaye, Bart., 26, Manchester Square, London, W.
John Russel Gubbins, Esq., 22, Carlton Hill, London, N.W.