The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-07-20
RUBBER PLANTATION HORRORS.

RUBBER PLANTATION HORRORS.
The making of synthetic or artificial
rubber a profitable and commercial
success will have vastly I'M
proving humanitarian effect upon
the world. The gathering OF
rubber in the native forests of Africa
and of South America has been attend
ed by reports of atrocities such as have
sickened the world.
The management of the Kongo rubber
output by the cruel. callous, and avari-
cious King Leopold of Belgium was a
black blot upon Christian civilization.
The world shuddered at the horrors de-
picted, where the natives were pun
ished by barbarous tortures, by maim-
ings, and by killing where they failed
TO bring in their tale Of rubber. The
world stood aghast at these atrocitIls;
but it appears that wherever the like
efforts to gather rubber in remote re-
gions. and wherever primitive, helpless
people furnish the labor, these atroci-
ties are sure 10 occur.
The latest reports of this sort are
from South America, and are referred
to in this mornings news. A Brit
districts of Peru, on the upper Amazon
and Para rivers, furnishes the horrors.
This British company was anxious to
rival the Kongo rubber operations in
profit, and took about the same means
to achieve its ends. Nothing could
be done by way of relief in Kongo
until the Belgian Parliament bought
out the interests of the King, Leopold,
and sent agents Of the state, who were
to operate under strict sense of re-
sponsibility, and were enioined to OBJ
serve civilized methods in their opera
tions.
The British company, in South Amer
lea, however, while it lacked royal au-
thority and backing, also lacked the
enIoined responsibility imposed upon
the Belgian agents who succeeded the
Kings taskmasters Accordingly, on
evil reports coming, British com
missioner, under royal authority, has
investigated these outrages on the up
per Amazon. The report of this Brit
ish official is that the British company
which succeeded the original Peruvian
company, had to depend upon the ma
tive labor of the region, in order to
collect rubber. This native population
was composed of Indians, who were do
cile, trustful, and in no way rebellious
or hard to manage. They were willing
workers, also. in their way, which, Of
course, was the Indian way, not ener-
getic, constant, and persevering as the
British managers would have liked.
Accordingly the question arose in the
minds of these managers how to Sim
prove that Indian labor. The way
they hit upon for doing il was to en-
ploy negro overseers, and the company
brought in thirty-six of these negro
overseers from Barbados, all of whom
were British. subjects. but who made
cruel and eXactiDg drivers. The Brit
ish commissioner declares that there is
hardly parallel TO the horrors intro
duced under these overseers, in pur-
suance of the system of pretending to
pay the natives for the rubber that
they brought in The Indians were sub
lected to system of unremitting toll
under which they were naturally ex-
hausted, and then they were punished
in the most brutal manner for shirking
their work, or for trying to run away,
or for any delinquency whatever. Ier-
rible cases of cruelty and revolving
crimes were reported. Adults were
Gogged for not collecting rubber
enough, women were burned to death
in the presence Of their little children,
who were forced TO stand by. Men
and women who attempted to escape
the torture were hung up, their arms
twisted behind their backs, and tied
at the wrists, and in this agonlzinp po-
sition and with their feet drawn up
from the ground, were scourged on
their back and legs. Kerosene oil was
poured on men and women and then
set on fire. Arms and legs were hacked
of and the living victims left to
slow death on the trails. Offending
persons had their ears cut of, and the
laboring gangs were kept on short ra.
tions and even starved. Many died on
long marches carrying burdens OF rub,
Der beyond their strength. The report
says that the chain gang officials
seemed to delight in murder One OF
these in one day, it is reported, killed
twenty-seven persons, shooting some,
cutting off the heads of others. aud
hanging up the rest. No regard was
paid to age or sex, women were killed
as frequently as men. An Indian chief
was burned alive in the presence OF
his wife and children. and the wife was
then beheaded and the children cut TO
pieces and thrown into the FIRE. An
infliction of 200 lashes day is report.
ed 20 have been common penalty. OF.
fenses against morality were rank, and
were perpetrated "under circumstances
of hendish ingenuity
The fact that such a report as this
could be made bv British official with