The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1888-04-28 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

WEEKLY GAZETTE.  AN APPALLINGSTORY FROM  BRAZIL.  MURDER OF 3,800 INDIANS.  PLOT TO POISON 5.000 MORE. Au astounding, but it is to be feared not an incredible, story is -sent to us (says the Tines) 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 strychniue and chlorate of mercury, administered by persons employed by the authorities." And farther horrors are said to be imminent; there is a scheme for poisoning 5,000 more of the miserable natives by means of come unknown drug. Is.; 0 circumstance of airocity 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 I attacked an Indian village, drove away the Inhabitants, poisoned the wells, water, wine, and I food left by the fugitives, and withdrew. When I 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 mur&were then fell upon another village, of soo inhabitahts : resorting to the same stratagem, they made use of chlorate of mercury, with the same effect. Anil Scullin Bueno boasts of what he has done! Re says that anyone who esterinitiates Indians with a view to taking possession of their land deserves great praise ; it is all done for civihsation,and this Tropmann and apostle of culture is "supported by influential people and by five provincial deputies." To be sure, there is a denial, hut in terms far from satisfying, of the hideous tale. "We contest," says the .7ornal :to Commercio. " 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 Paranapanema, the place where the murders are alleged to have been committed. -The report," continues the Titne::, " would have been barely credible but for this contradictiol. The nature of the source from which we receive the informatiou, together with the feeble, faltering character of the denial, leaves I little doubt that Buono is not altogether 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 dosn as vermin. The history of the Interco-tires of the Indian and the white man in the United States is a dr,rk page which ought not to be read without shame and remorse. There people have been much too fond of assuming that they had done their duty to the red man when they framed a theory of his extinc• ton. But strychnine and the other direct means ' employed by Senhor Beene 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 he 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. We require niece reassuring coutradiotions than that which we have-mentioned in order to reject the report. If Bueno and his followers be not the fictious of philanthropists, the Itraziliau Government ought not to lose an hour in mai:Mg examples of the authors of unheard of atrocities