The Indians are tame and humble, and bring us food. Often, after these unfortunates bring food to the chief of the section, he has them murdered.
Declaration made by Señor João Baptista Braga, a Brazilian citizen, thirty-eight years of age, of the State of Pará, before Lieutenant José Rosa Brazil, Commandant of the detachment of Constantinopolis.
In the year 1902 I was contracted as fireman of the launch Preciada, which ran from Iquitos to the River Putumayo and belonged to Messrs. J. C. Arana and Hermanos. About one year, more or less, after this, I resigned and began work on the launch of Mr. David Cazes, British Consul in Iquitos, where I worked for the space of one year.
On December 6, 1904, I was again engaged by the J. C. Arana and Hermanos Company to direct a band of sixty-five men (Peruvians), with a salary of S.80 per month, besides a gratification of S.100. My chiefs were Abelardo Agüero and Augusto Jiménez.
Immediately after my arrival Señor Agüero called me in order to show me the method of proceeding with the prisoners they have there; so taking eight Indians out of the cepo where they had been barbarously martyrised, he had them tied to eight posts in the patio, and, after drinking a bottle of cognac with his partner Jiménez, they began to murder these unfortunates, who perished, giving vent to horrible shrieks, helpless victims of the ferocious instincts of their masters. The crime they had committed was that of having fled to escape the horrible treatment to which they were subjected.
About three months after this, Señor Agüero, the chief of the section, ordered me to shoot thirty-five men, whom he had in chains for the same crime as the others had committed. As I refused to commit such a hellish crime, he insulted me and threatened to have me shot if I did not obey this order.
In spite of this menace, I roundly refused to carry out this order, telling him that I was a Brazilian citizen and would never be an assassin.
“Well, then,” he replied, “if you won’t obey my orders, I have another who will,” and calling the second chief, Augusto Jiménez, ordered him to “kill those worthless wretches at once!” Those thirty-five unfortunates, still in chains, were thus murdered in cold blood, and from this instant forward they began to persecute me, making me endure all kinds of miseries. They began by refusing me food to such an extreme that I was frequently obliged to eat airambo (a leaf resembling the Brazilian vinagrera), caguana, palmito, &c.—the few things that they gave us to prevent our dying from hunger being quite insufficient for the numerous band.
In these conditions, and seeing that at any moment I might become the victim of the ferocity of the chiefs of the section, I resolved to resign my position, and wrote asking for permission to return to Brazil. This I repeated four times, always receiving the reply that, as they had no other employee to take my place, they could not let me go.
Thus I remained without anybody to appeal to, without resources, and without means of transportation, for there was no canoe in which I could escape.