The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-08

cruelty perpetrated individual mem- bers of the Indian tribes and on the other a system of wholesale achievement of the Indian race as such
 Acts of cruelty done to single Indians are to be regarded as isolated fnanifesta- tions of ill-breeding and ferocity. But 1t behooves civilized nations to protest against and put a stop to the systematic enslavement of Indians, whether actual physical cruelty is attended upon it or not
 Thus to take one instance, all the In-
 dians living in the rubber plantation barracks on the Rio Itense, the boundary
 river between Brazil and Bolivia, are in
 their employers debt to the extent of
 several hundred or couple of thousand
 pesos. The wages they earn are so scanty
 that they are unable to pay off their
 debts, their expenses for the year always exceeding their income. ,That state of affairs prevails in the whole of Bolivia and throughout Peru, where rubber is found. A practical result of it is that If you want to engage an Indian as a man servant in any of those districts you
 have first to buy him free, tffat Is to say,
 pay off his debts to his employer, where-
 upon he becomes your slave. This sys- tenn is in force with all the owners of rubber plantations, exceptions being ex- ceedingly rare.
 The most remorSelesS of the planta- tton owners even go to the length of purposely reducing the Indians to still worse straits financially by Nrading on their weakness for gin and other spirits. and even by falsifying the accounts with the1r masters of such of the Indians as are trying their best by the utmost econ- omy to clear themselves of debt and pur- chase their liberty. The most villainous of the planters make the children respon- hI fA.. 1,zs- fa&l quently condemn them to beginning life
 saddled with burdens which render them
 to all intents and purposes slaves from the start.
 "The rubber industry Is highly destruc- tive of human life The numbers of those who succumb to fever and to .e- privations of various kinds are very large and consequently it has become increas- ipgly difficult to procure workmen at the rubber factories. In eastern Bolivia, for instance. there are scarcely any Indians left in the district of Mojos and Chi- quitos. where formerly under the Jesuits, extensive and wealthy missions four ished. The consequence of that has been that Indians from other parts have had to be induced to come and carry out the tapping of the rubber, and so more and more tribes have been drawn in under the devastating influences of the rubber plantations llg
 The most dastardiy instance of evil treatment meted out to Indians that has come under my personal notice was on the forests of the upper reaches of the Rio Manuripi and of the Rio Tahumanu l know of a man there who has earned a livelihood by inclosing the villages of the so-called savage Indians. He and his underlings put the adult Indians to death and sold their children to the rub- Der compounds at about 400 pesos apiece. His example has. moreover, been follow- ed by others
 'The Chiriguano Indians in the region south of Sa. Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia. have been enticed to Sa.. Cruz and have been transported down the Rio Mamors to rubber districts. am personally ac- quainted with the parents of numbers of Indians who have been sold; have also traced out carefully the route by which they are conducted, and know that Chiri- guano Indians arrive at Quatro Ojos, the place where they are put on board river crafts to be guarded like prisoners by men armed with Winchester rifles The Chiriguano Indians know that no Indian ever returns from the rubber districts to parents and friends. The sale of In- dians above described as taking place from SaI Cruz has been and is probably ' still by no means inconsiderabe The Bolivian government has tried and to some extent with success, to check the l. sale of Indians as slaves. Neither they. however, nor the Peruvian government have been able to interfere to put a stop to the systematic enslavement of In- dians by forcing them to run into debt ; It must be remembered that both Peru and Bolivia are very vast countries very sparsely populated and consequently the , governments are seriously handicapped in their efforts at repressing evil prao- tiees in the wilds''