The devil and Mr Casement
Subtitle: one man's struggle for human rights in South America's heart of darkness
By: Jordan Goodman
Publisher: Verso
Published: 2009
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9781844673346
Subjects: Travel; Rubber industry and trade; History; Offenses against the person; Social conditions; South America; Amazon; Indians; Indigenous peoples; Forced labour; Slavery; Human rights; Torture; Homicide; Private enterprise; Amérindien (peuple); Atrocités; Caoutchouc; Récolte; Droits de l'homme; Violation; Historia; Indianer; Våld mot; Grymheter; Raskonflikter; Mänskliga rättigheter; Kautschukplantage; Menschenrechtsverletzung; Peruvian Amazon Company
Description: "This title features an untold story of the most horrifying crimes and massacres of the twentieth century. In September 1910, the activist and anti-imperialist Roger Casement arrived in the Amazon to investigate reports of widespread human-rights abuses in the vast forests stretching along the Putumayo River. There, the Peruvian entrepreneur Julio Cesar Arana ran an area the size of Belgium as his own private fiefdom; his British-registered company operated a systematic programme of torture, exploitation and murder. Fresh from documenting the scarcely imaginable atrocities perpetrated by King Leopold in the Congo, Casement was confronted with an all-too recognizable scenario. He uncovered an appalling catalogue of abuse: nearly 30,000 Indians had died to produce four thousand tons of rubber. From the Peruvian rainforests to the City of London, Jordan Goodman recounts a crime against humanity that history has almost forgotten, but whose exposure in 1912 sent shockwaves around the world. Drawing on a wealth of original research, The Devil and Mr Casement is a story of colonial exploitation and corporate greed with enormous contemporary political resonance."--Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue : La selva comes to London; title: Across the Andes; title: Iquitos and rubber; title: Arana's world; title: Saldaña Rocca's world; title: Over to the Foreign Office; title: An officer and a gentleman; title: Our man in the Putumayo; title: Eyes of another race; title: The uttermost parts of the earth; title: La Chorrera; title: Godforsaken hell-haunted wilds; title: A system of armed extortion; title: Deus ex machina; title: The veil over the Putumayo mystery; title: Publish and be damned; title: An international scandal; title: The old gang; title: The canon and the board; title: La selva returns to Parliament; title: The Peruvian, the American, and the Select Committee; title: The devil and Mr Casement; title: Epilogue : a crime against humanity.