Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1888-04-28 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

APPALLING STORY FROM  BRAZIL.  MURDER OF 3,803 INDIANS.  PLOT TO POISON 5,030 MORE. An astounding, but it is to be feared not an incredible, story is sent to us (says the Times) by a correspondent from Rio Janeiro. No fewer than 3.000 Indians in one part of Brazil and 800 in another are said to have been poisoned by means of strychnine and chlorate of mercury, administered by "persons employed by the authorities." And further horrors are said to be imminent; there is a scheme for poisoning 5.000 more of the miserable natives by means of some unknown drug. No circumstance of atrocity is wanting in the narrative. Senhor Joaquin Bueno, if only a small part of what is told of him be true, has outdone all recorded prodigies of infamy. With a force of 70 men he attacked an 'urban village, drove away the inhabitants, poisoned the wells, water, wiue, and food left by the fugitives, and withdrew. When Beene and his followers returned to the village some days afterwards the poison had done its work; clouds of crows hovered over the scene of their crime, where lay 3,000 corpses. The murderers then fell upon another village, of 800; inhabitahts : resorting to the same stratagem. they made use of chlorate of mercury, with the same effect. And Seetior Bueno boasts of what he has done! Ile says that anyone who exterminates Indians with a view to taking possession of their land deserves great praise; it is all done for civilisation,and this Tropreann and apostle of culture is "supported by influential people and by five provincial deputies." To be sure, there is & denial, but in terms far from satisfying, of the hideous tale. "We contest," says the Area do Coninie;.cir. "the truth of the report, because there are no more Indians left in this , district, nor do we hear that such an occurrence , has now taken place "—in localities 120 miles from Paranapaneraa, the place where the murders are alleged to have been committed. "The report," continues the Tirees, "would have been barely credible but for this contradiction. The ; nature of the source from which we receive the information, together with the feeble, 'faltering character of the denial, leaves ;little doubt that Beene is not alto' gother a monster of fiction. The Indian has been treated with almost uniform cruelty wherever he has met with the white man. Whisky and gin have been his scourge when he ; was not shot down as vermin. The history of the , intercourse of the Indian and the white elan in , the United States is a dark page which ought ; not to be read witbout shame and remorse. ;There people have been much too fond of mourning that they had done their duty to the rod man when they framed a theory of his extinction. But strychnine and the other direct moans employed by Seuhor Bueno are all his own; he , has surpassed the cruelties of the Spanish conquerors. There has long been a suspicion that in Brazil, which professes to hold up the light of progress in South America, the ;Indian population had a cruel lot. No one, however. was prepared for the narrative told by our correspondent ; and yet it is to be feared that it has a basis of truth. It lifts the veil from people who in darkness and unknown to the world are being hunted out of existence. \i'e require more reassuring contradictions than that which we have mentioned in order to reject the report. If Bueno and his followers be not the fictions of philanthropists, the Brazilian Government ought not to lose an hour in tuakiug examples of the authors of unheard of atrocities