Iquitos, May 15, 1909.
Sr. W. E. Hardenburg.
Dear Sir,—I have just received your letter of yesterday asking for information about the rubber possessions of the Peruvian Amazon Company in the Putumayo and its tributaries, and I have pleasure in answering it, narrating voluntarily some of the things I have witnessed in that ghastly region, and authorising you to make any use of this letter that you deem convenient.
On March 6, 1908, I left Iquitos on the small steamer Liberal, bound for El Encanto, from where we descended to La Chorrera. Here I began work as an employee on April 1st of the same year.
As soon as I had landed at this port I noticed the unfortunate Indians, who loaded and unloaded the small steamers at the port—thin, hungry, weak, and covered with great scars produced by the lash and the machetes—I saw that they were the helpless victims of excessively barbarous system of forced labour. When any of these wretched beings fell down, overcome by weakness, or sat down to rest, their taskmasters, the employees of the Peruvian Amazon Company, clubbed them cruelly and brutally with sticks of firewood and huge, raw-hide scourges, laughing at the cries and moans of agony emitted by the unfortunate victims.
I also saw Dancurt, the official executioner of La Chorrera, flog the poor Indians almost daily for the most trivial faults: all with the knowledge and approbation of Victor Macedo, manager of La Chorrera and Justice of the Peace of the Putumayo.
Abelardo Agüero, who had just arrived in the war-launch Iquitos, asked me to go with him to Abisinia, a section he was in charge of, assuring me that they did not flog the Indians there, that they had good food, and that he would pay me 80 dollars per month. Believing in his good faith, and, above all, not wishing to witness any more crimes, I accepted his offer, and within a few days we began the journey, going in a launch as far as Santa Julia. From here we continued the journey on foot to a place called Araras, where I was overcome by weakness, owing to lack of food. But Agüero and his companions, who had offered me so much, left me in the forest without medicines or a grain of food.
In this state, and seeing that death was certain unless I got something to eat, I started to crawl painfully about in search of herbs to eat, and found a tree called huava. I picked some of its fruit and ate it, but shortly afterwards had terrible pains in the stomach, and vomited up all the fruit that I had eaten.
After acute sufferings I managed to reach Abisinia, without having eaten anything during the two days and a half of the journey.
In Abisinia I saw the eight concubines of Agüero. Some of these were of the Boras tribe, and others were Huitotos, all of different ages—for this group of unfortunates was composed of girls from nine to sixteen years. Agüero kept his eight women separated from each other, the Boras on one side and the Huitotos on the other, so that they would not quarrel, on account of the antagonisms that exist between the different tribes.