For lack of time, it is impossible for me to relate all the crimes that these criminals have committed. But I think that if I were called some day before a tribunal of justice I could tell the places, days, and hours in which they deluged the region of the Putumayo with these crimes, unequalled in the history of the entire world and committed upon men, women, and children of all ages and of all conditions.

To bring this narrative to a close I will mention some of the crimes committed in Santa Catalina by the chief of that section, Aurelio Rodríguez. On the 24th of May of last year this man ordered a compadre of his, called Alejandro Vásquez, to take nine men and go to the village of the Tiracahuaca Indians and make prisoner an Indian woman who had formerly been in his service; as soon as they had captured her they were to kill her in the cruellest way possible.

Having received these orders, the commission set out at once and, arriving at the village, took the Indian woman prisoner. After proceeding a few minutes on the return journey, they tied her to a tree alongside the road, where Vásquez had three sticks of wood, with sharp points, prepared ...then they killed her by strangling her with a rope around the neck.[122]

Such are the crimes constantly committed on the Putumayo by the chiefs of sections and their assistants whose names I have mentioned. Trusting that this account may help you in drawing the attention of justice to this region.

Daniel Collantes.

(Sworn before) Arnold Guichard,
Notary Public.

A number of documents of a similar character complete Hardenburg’s account, not included in this book, with a description of the Peruvian attack on the Colombian rubber station of La Unión and the destruction of its people, the Peruvians believing, or professing to believe, that the Colombians were descending the river to attack them.

CHAPTER VIII
CONSUL CASEMENT’S REPORT

THE history of the Putumayo occurrences after the exposure by Messrs. Hardenburg and Perkins, due to the persistence of the Anti-Slavery Society and the courage of the editor of Truth, who alone incurred the risk of libel proceedings attaching to such exposures, so performing a notable service to humanity,[123] is contained in the Blue Book, or Foreign Office Report, already quoted. The proceedings leading to the sending of Consul Casement to the Putumayo by Sir Edward Grey and the Report itself are worthy of wider notice than that received by an official pamphlet. The Report itself is of much geographical and ethnological value and of general interest as a work of travel, apart from its purpose of confirming the existence of the terrible and almost incredible abuses.

Mr. Casement went to Peru in July, 1910, and transmitted his Report in January, 1911.[124] The result was transmitted by the Foreign Office to the British Consul in Lima, with instructions to lay particulars before the Peruvian Government, and to the British Minister at Washington in order that the United States Government should be informed of the action of the British Government. The British Foreign Office repeatedly urged upon the Lima Government that the criminals, whose names had been immediately transmitted by cable, should be arrested. The Peruvian Government promised to take action and sent a commission to Iquitos, but failed to arrest the criminals. In July, 1911, they were informed that the Report would be made public, but the chief criminals were not arrested. Further promises to the same effect made by the Peruvian Government were unfulfilled, and the British Government asked for the support of the United States Minister at Lima, which was accorded in October, 1911. After repeated communications had passed, during which the Peruvian Government had not prevented the escape of several of the criminals, or taken adequate steps to protect the Indians, the British Foreign Office laid the correspondence before Parliament in July, 1912, and published the Report.