What they did with the children was still more barbarous, for they jammed them, head-downwards, into the holes that had been dug to receive the posts that were to support the house.
The Peruvians, after taking possession of the merchandise, conducted the Colombians, the tuchaua of the Andoques, two Indians, and an Indian woman, to Matanzas, the dwelling-place of the criminal Norman, the journey taking two days. Here the prisoners were tied up with cords and afterwards shut up in one of the houses, where they passed a night of torture. In the morning the tuchaua and the two Indians were taken out to an adjacent knoll and clubbed to death.
At about mid-day those who had escaped with their lives were taken to La Sabana, where the chief is Juan[117] Rodríguez, arriving there at about 10 p.m. and stopping for the night. In the morning they were sent to Oriente, the chief of which is a Peruvian named Velarde.
Here still more barbarities were committed, the Colombians suffering horrors, for on the day after their arrival they were chained up by the neck and by the legs. As they were unable to endure such cruel treatment, the unhappy prisoners appealed to their jailers, who took off the chains, but in exchange put their legs in stocks.
In the house that these poor people were imprisoned in there were also a large number of Indians in chains, who received daily violent castigations, flagellations, and clubbing. Some of these Indians suffered from awful wounds, many of them produced by firearms. Five days afterwards the chiefs of the Colombians, Messrs. Felipe Cabrera, Aquileo Torres, and José de la Paz Gutiérrez, were taken to the section known as Abisinia. It is not known what fate has been meted out to them.
The other prisoners remained nearly two months in Oriente, until it was known that the steamer Liberal was in the Igaraparaná, an affluent of the Putumayo. Here the principal branch establishment of the J. C. Arana and Hermanos Company in the Putumayo is situated.
The Colombians were then embarked in the Liberal, which was to take them prisoners to Iquitos. They remained on board this vessel four days, but just before they reached the Brazilian fiscal port at Cotuhué the commandant, fearing that the Brazilian officials might discover the prisoners when they visited the vessel, disembarked the victims, abandoning them in a canoe in midstream, with a few tins of sardines and a little fariña. The victims, rowing with all their might, started for the fiscal port, but did not reach it until after the Liberal had left for Iquitos. Here they presented themselves to Señor Nestor, the chief of the port of Cotuhué, and narrated to him what had passed. In Brazilian territory the unfortunates were kindly received and well treated.
As the Colombians had to make their living, they asked Señor Nestor for work, and the Brazilian official, taking pity on these poor men, gave them work at fair pay. When the Governor of the State and General Marques Porto visited that port on the Virginia, the Colombians were still there.
Some days afterwards the war-launch Amapá, under Lieut. Olavo Machado, while en route to the frontier to relieve a sergeant and some soldiers, stopped at Cotuhué. Then Roso España, who has given us this narrative, approached that official of our navy and asked him for passage to this city. Lieut. Machado, after learning of his misfortunes, gave Roso España a passage on the Amapá, and the officials afterwards employed him as servant, giving him 50 milreis per month.
Translated from “La Sanción,” of Iquitos,
August 22, 1907.