(Sworn before) Federico M. Pizarro,
Notary Public.
Iquitos, May 17, 1909.
Señor W. E. Hardenburg,—I have just received your letter of yesterday, in which you ask me for information about my residence on the River Putumayo, and especially concerning the things that I have witnessed. I will inform you that during a stay of seven years up there I have witnessed crimes, floggings, mutilations, and other outrages.
In 1902 I went to the Señores Arana of this city and asked them for work in the rubber business which I was told they had in the Putumayo. My application was at once accepted by Julio C. Arana, who promised me S.40 per month good food, medicines, and passage there and back. I will state that these promises were not carried out, but were disregarded to such an extreme that I became almost a slave of this company.
When I arrived at La Chorrera they gave me a position as fireman on the launch Mazán, where I remained seven months. At the end of this time Victor Macedo ordered me to leave my position on this launch, for he wished me to start on a journey through the forest to enter the service of Elías Martenegui; but as I was already aware of the crimes that they carried out in the centre of the forest I refused.
This was sufficient for them to treat me brutally. For this reason I was tied up with an enormous chain around my waist and put in solitary confinement in one of the cells of La Chorrera. Here I remained ten days, guarded by the sentries, who had orders to shoot me if I attempted to protest against this imprisonment. Once I tried in my agony to speak to this Victor Macedo, but upon hearing my complaints he ordered them to give me a hundred lashes and to cover my mouth so that I could not cry out.
Thanks to some of those who were aware of my innocence and who protested, I was enabled to obtain my release at the end of ten days, but with the condition that I should leave at once to enter the service of the criminal chief of the section Atenas, Elías Martinengui.
The day after being released I set out for the section, accompanied by the chief Martinengui and his colleague O’Donnell. After a journey of two days we arrived at Atenas, and as Martinengui was aware that I would not serve as an instrument for the commission of crimes he ordered me to serve in the house. On the second day I became ill with rheumatism, which was probably caused by the imprisonment I had suffered in a damp and dirty cell of La Chorrera a few days before. This disease kept me prostrate for seven months, and had it not been for two Colombian employees who took pity on me and gave me something to eat whenever they could, I should have died for lack of food.
During my stay in this section I have seen them murder some sixty Indians, among men, women, and children. These poor wretches they killed by shooting them to death, by cutting them to pieces with machetes and on great barbacoas (piles of wood), upon which they secured the victims and then set fire to them. These crimes were committed by Martinengui himself and various of his confidential employees. I have repeatedly heard this monster say that every Indian who did not bring in all the rubber that he had been ordered to was sentenced to this fate.
About eight days after this occurrence Martinengui ordered a commission to set out for the houses of some neighbouring Indians and exterminate them, with their women and children, as they had not brought in the amount of rubber that he had ordered. This order was strictly carried out, for the commission returned in four days, bringing along with them fingers, ears, and several heads of the unfortunate victims to prove to the chief that they had carried out his orders.