Humans have fundamentally created a problem for ourselves that we pretend is a solution: the only way we know how to produce is based on a warring, tribal mentality. Many of the problems that we face in the modern-day and age are due in part, or in full, to the quest for human domination. No matter the implemented economic system, there are humans, most often workers, who are undervalued and abused due to the warring tribal mentality and the quest for production. In terms of the rubber trade, I have selected three areas of the world to more closely study the production linkages: Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. In Asia, the focus was on the direct impact on the backward linkage of the producers and how policies, including French colonialism to the Chinese restructuring in more recent years, have directly and significantly impacted the way of life for the workers. In South America, attention was more closely placed on the indigenous peoples adversely affected by the government policies and the plantation corporations and companies that dominated the region. Finally, the dive into the Congolese rubber trade takes the most in-depth approach, partly because of the dark atrocities committed against the people. Because of the unrealistic expectations of the entrepreneurial colonization, the rubber trade in Africa began to create commodities within the system to meet quotas by way of substitution. Overall, the impact on the local populations, whether on the workers or the nearby residents, was the most significant pain inflicted by the rubber trade to meet the demand of the commodity itself.
Economic Linkages
Economic linkages in the extractive sector are divided fundamentally into five specific categories: Fiscal, Production, Side-stream (including infrastructure, agricultural, and technology/knowledge), Horizontal, and Consumption linkages are the main sections of the economic linkage model. This article focuses mainly on the backward linkages that impact the local populace and the imported workers from other regions. The domestic policies and international demand for rubber drove specific strategies and attitudes to meet production demand and effectively compete with the competition around the globe. The three global regions studied here provide insight into the harsh conditions faced by the workers and locals due to the race for money and power by external controlling entities, mainly from Europe (at least initially). In Southeast Asia, the Indochinese rubber colonies forced the roughly 17,600 rubber laborers, "gradually grew more and more emaciated until they withered and died, and became fertilizer for the capitalists' rubber trees," according to the 19th-century plantation worker and future writer Tran Bu Binh.
Indochina and Southeast Asia
From the beginning, France recognized Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) as a money machine. Extracting commodities while controlling local markets would fund their colonialist endeavors and quest for a global presence. While the French government did not directly control the industries and products extracted in most cases, it imposed various tariffs and taxes in exchange for advantageous property agreements and financial backing. This facilitation system of business rather than management by France itself proved to be a beneficial business venture. The State only needed to provide protection and the means to produce, and the rest was at the discretion of the day's entrepreneurs.
On a mission to the island of Java, Indonesia, a French pharmacist sent various seeds to the Saigon Botanical Garden for a group of colonial scientists to experiment with. The Garden, which later became the Saigon Zoo, was attempting to research and create viable options for rubber harvesting in the region. The efforts that followed were less-than coherent or planned, but the desire to find the best route to rubber profits were underway. Colonial administrators determined that the Vietnamese uplands offered the best conditions for the rubber trees and realized the best course of action would be to present to the area as unpopulated to potential investors. The nomadic ethnic minorities that lived off the land were ignored, and large sections were made accessible to interested parties. The agricultural improvement of the region, previously held by the nomadic peoples, was handed over to European enterprises to develop plantations. By the time World War II started, the Indochinese rubber trade had produced more than 60,000 metric tons of rubber annually.
The conditions of the Indochinese rubber plantations were harsh. Tran Tu Binh reported in his autobiographical account that, "The overseers drove us to fell trees, clear out underbrush, then dig holes to plant the rubber trees without rest. Finally, at six in the evening, we returned to the village, every one of us bone-tired…Everyone appeared almost dead, and in fact, in the end, about all did die." 8 The forced labor of the Vietnamese people on the colonist plantations was clear. Data from over half of the largest farms in the region reveal that between 12% and 47% of the plantation populations died between the years 1926 and 1927. As Binh wrote, "On some days, two or three people were crushed by trees. There would be at least several people with legs broken, arms put out of joint, or faces slashed as the small branches whipped by." He went on to say that most of the accidents happened when the workers were lethargic from a hard day's work.
The region changed with later Chinese influence. Governments like China brought about circumstantial shifts of ownership. In 1982, China dismantled much of the farming collectives and returned the land to independent farmers. The Chinese government offered food subsidies to increase rubber production, which provided incentives and recognition for the laborers' hard work. Specifically, China and Thailand in the region have, in the last forty years, had a large number of independent producers of rubber.
In terms of Thailand's rubber production, the government has successfully promoted rubber production and harvest since the 1970s. By 2014, almost ten percent of the country's Northeast region was covered with rubber plantations. To facilitate successful harvesting, government agencies provide funds for replanting (ORRAE), which actively supports growers and organizations, and plantation collectives. The fund sponsored by the State offers education services, logistical support, and low-cost credit for labor purposes.
The circumstances in Laos and Cambodia, in more recent years, have shifted and varied significantly from their neighbors. While Cambodia has roughly fifteen percent of the countryside covered in rubber plantations, enforcement of labor protections and rights for ethnic minorities are minimally observed at best. Implementation of the legislation has become a problem due to government corruption, and taking bribes for illegal land purchases has become a generally commonplace practice.
International money has greatly influenced rubber production in Laos, and out of all the Indochinese former colonies, it is much more novice. The region relies on heavy investment from Chinese, Thailanese, and Vietnamese private and public investors. In contrast to the situation in Cambodia, some local farmers have been able to maintain control over their plantations and the production of rubber. However, many farmers have lost land in conditions that parallel Cambodia. Restrictive contracts and government corruption are the blockades to reasonable control for the independent farmers in the region.
With the continued increase of rubber demand on the international scale, the shift to rubber is ideal, although long-term planning is required. The average time for the crops from planting until maturity is seven years. China and Thailand have effectively looked out for smaller farmers, while Laos and Cambodia have considered independent farmers in government policies. Nevertheless, the legislation has been chiefly useless due mostly to the lack of implementation of said policies. In the modern era, the conditions and treatment of rubber workers in Southeast Asia gradually improve, but there is still much room for growth.
South America
The rubber trade in South America had the harshest impact on the indigenous populations in Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia. Imported enslaved people from Africa became widespread due to the lack of labor force and the high demand for commodities produced in the region. The modern-day tribal people that hide in the rainforest are descendants of the survivors of past colonial atrocities. Some estimates report up to ninety percent of the native population were wiped out during enslavement and colonial rule. While most of the violence and persecution faced by the indigenous communities was during the foreign occupation, the peoples still faced oppression of various forms up to and including the present day. The Cinta Larga, an Amazonian people, is an excellent example of more modern atrocities post-colonial presence. There were many run-ins with Brazilian rubber tappers and the indigenous people in the area. When the logistics or annexed land was threatened by those who inhabited the land, companies would inflict violence on the Amazonian peoples. These events transpired between the 1920s and the 1960s.
In 1963, a massacre at the headwaters of the Aripuana river unfolded. The rubber tapping firm of Arruda, Junqueira, and Company was collecting rubber in the region. However, individual controlling members of the organization felt that the indigenous people were in the way of production. As a result, Antonion Mascarenhas Junqueira planned an assault. Bombs were dropped from airplanes, and violence ensued on the ground. In the end, thirty locals were killed, and only two of the villagers survived. Some of the company members were brought to trial for the violence, and only one was convicted. After serving one year of a decade-long sentence, the only company member convicted was pardoned and released from prison.
As Brazil began continuing its expansion in the 1960s, FUNAI (the agency responsible for contacting the lost tribes of the Amazon) set out to engage with the people. The Cinta Larga encountered more than just the violence previously described, and a tribe that once numbered around five thousand strong was exposed to disease and violence. Only about 1,300 survive on ancestral lands today, a 2.7 million hectare reserve granted to the tribe in 1979 that sits on top of a hoard of diamonds. The border of the areas currently held by the Amazonian tribe is the River of Doubt, explored by former President Theodore Roosevelt and Candido Rondon, the future founder of FUNAI.
Later that same decade in 1967, a seven thousand-page report (denoted the Figueiredo report) was released that implicated 134 officials involved in over one thousand crimes. The report, which is believed to have burned in a fire at the agriculture ministry, prompted concerns of a conspiracy by the former dictatorship and its allies to cover up its crimes. The report was rediscovered in 2012 and is currently being examined by the National Truth Commission. The agency targets human rights violations dating 41 years, starting in 1947.
The report alleged genocide, rape, torture of children, land theft, and enslavement by Brazil's former military dictatorship. It was first exposed by a public prosecutor for which the document is named Jader de Figueiredo Correia. The current Truth Commission believes that numbers of victims are impossible to calculate but that certain tribes were utterly wiped out by the agency set up to protect them. Sugar was introduced to some communities laced with poison. In other cases, smallpox was introduced to villages to kill them less directly. According to the report, torture seemed like a commonplace practice for the Indian Protection Agency. A post chief named Flavio de Abreau was documented trading people for a stove and denying villages food.
Currently, it seems that violence against the tribes continues. Survival International director Stephen Corry reportedly said, "nothing has changed when it comes to the impunity regarding the murder of Indians. Gunmen routinely kill tribespeople in the knowledge that there's little risk of being brought to justice — none of the assassins responsible for shooting…tribal leaders, have been jailed for their crimes." The human rights lawyer Marcelo Zelic, who found the documents in an Indian museum in Rio de Janeiro, said, "This documentation, which was hidden for many decades, sheds light on conflict situations that endure today. For states like Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná, Bahia, and Amazonas, it contains lots of information that can help reveal once and for all the truth behind many forms of violence against Indians today and provide an insight into the real owners of the land in dispute."
While the cases highlighted in this section are not directly related to the rubber laborers in the region, the choice of placing attention on the impact of the indigenous people who have been determined to be threats to the production linkages is significant. The details here show to what lengths those in control of the commodity will go to maintain control power and ensure the income stream continues to flow.
Congo Free State, Africa
The control of the Congo Basin was given to King Leopold II after much diplomacy with the European powers. In exchange for control of the region, Leopold promised to civilize the continent. The King ironically named the region the Congo Free State, which was anything but free. The area was a considerable expense for the crown and was largely unmapped jungle. As a result, an industry that could financially support the endeavor needed to be created. Rubber was the focus because there was a high demand for it in Europe during the period.
The entire process to colonize the Congo Free State was lengthy. The process began in 1877 when Leopold established the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo to open up the African inland to European commercial exchange down the Congo River. In 1879, Leopold worked for three years, forming bases in the Northern Congo, and began talks with local rulers. Seven years after he started, 450 treaties were signed with independent African entities. The monarch was granted the right the following year, and the European powers recognized Leopold as the sovereign ruler of the Congo Free State.
The ruler sent in the military to establish control over the country's interior in the early 1890s. The Congolese were forced into brutal working conditions and forced labor to harvest wild rubber, ivory, and palm oil. A common practice of kidnapping and rape was implemented as a method of quota coercion to ensure numbers were being met. The private royal army, known as the Force Publique, was a military unit comprised of African soldiers led by European officers. The ruthless force was known to punish and terrorize the Congolese into compliance. During the reign of terror, the population is said to have dwindled from twenty million down to eight million.
Over the years, many reporters and writers documented the situation in the Congo Basin. One such reporter, Mister Morrison, was an American Baptist minister who recorded some of the most horrific atrocities against the Congolese civilians at the directed guidance of Leopold himself. Morrison documented his expedition through the jungle and explained how people called Zappo-Zapps were cannibals and were settled by a Congo Free State officer to be a supporting military force. Mlumba Nkusa was their chief who would collect tribute from the State. The leader showed Morrison over to a hut where he counted, "eighty-one human hands slowly drying over a fire." The insanity of the hands being cut off and dried as a commodity was used as proof for the Congo Free State, an interchangeable currency as valuable as a ball of rubber. Either the quota was met, or equally, acceptable payment was allowed in the form of human hands. This policy lends to the idea that more than just rubber was a commodity in the region. The trading of body parts became a currency and commodity in the Congo.
In other areas of Morrison's text, the author documents the African soldiers as "allowed to do whatever they want" because the white officers were utterly terrified of the soldiers. The actions included rape, murder, theft, and whoever stood in their way would be immediately shot.
Along with other outlets, the truth about Leopold's heavy hand and dark desire for power made its way into the European conversation mainly by the Congo Reform Association, a British organization formed by citizens in the early 20th century. In 1908, the Congo Free State was eliminated and supplanted with the Belgian Congo, controlled directly by the Belgian Parliament.
Such documentation was provided to the British House of Commons for review. In 1903, after official evaluation, a resolution passed stating, "That the Government of the Congo Free State having, at its inception, guaranteed to the Powers that its Native subjects should be governed with humanity and that no trading monopoly or privilege should be permitted within its dominions, this House requests His Majesty's Government to confer with the other Powers, signatories of the Berlin General Act by virtue of which the Congo Free State exists, in order that measures may be adopted to abate the evils prevalent in that State." Several British politicians spoke in 1903 on the issue. Still, when Mr. Emmott spoke, he told the House that the State was in violation of the Berlin Act and believed that the clear capitalist monopoly in the Congo was illegal. The breach of the Berlin Act superseded the potential monopoly, and that was enough for Parliament. According to financial assessments provided during the hearing, the economy was unsustainable, and the entire foundation of the country was resting on violence and poor management. It was at risk of invasion by neighboring tribes. Plainly stated: "First, the system must be changed, root and branch, if any good was to be done. The finance and other things rested on this system of monopoly and of forced collection of rubber, and when these were stopped, the State must collapse."
An interesting point to note about all of the scandal and mistreatment of Africans was the significant push and movement to restore order and humanity to the region by the Western world. From the research, it would appear that the Western world did not look kindly upon the actions in the Congo by King Leopold II and that there was a frantic effort to fulfill whatever was asked no matter how unrealistic and impossible the quota was to fill. Upon his death, the Congo Free State was transferred from private control to Parliamentary control in Belgium. The Belgian people in attendance booed his funeral procession.
After Leopold died in 1909, the Belgium government visited The Congo, as it was named afterward, changing from the Congo Free State. More valuable resources, including ivory, diamonds, and gold, could be sold for incredible amounts of profit. Slavery was abolished in the country, and the Congolese people were then paid wages for their work. The colony began to thrive, and Belgium reaped the benefits from the Congo.
Conclusion
The rubber trade has impacted almost every area of the globe and has been pivotal in supporting international travel methods. Historically, the demand for the commodity created a dangerous race to the finish line for elitists in a vie for power and capital to maintain that power. The people who suffered most often during the power acquisition were, and are, the natives, where these natural resources are harvested. The external world and market influence on the native peoples in Indochina, South America, and Africa have been forever changed by these outside entities seeking to enrich themselves by filling a need. The competitive war economy mindset that the leaders of yesterday and today embody is a fundamental reason such painful occurrences unfold. Today, the painful past is still felt in countries where the quest for domination is not over, and people seek universal reconciliation. While we have generally moved away from enslaved peoples and forced labor on the surface, there are still many problems we face for the human race, including worldwide human trafficking, child labor, and other forms of servitude against the person's will. The past lessons are indicators of what we would do well to focus on in the present beyond the political and promoted agendas.
Cited Sources
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"Congo Free State." Historic Hansard. May 20, 1903. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1903/may/20/congo-free-state.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. N.p.: Pandora's Box Classics, 2020.
Cureau, Harold G. "William H. Sheppard: Missionary to the Congo, and Collector of African Art." The Journal of Negro History 67, no. 4 (1982): 340–52. DOI:10.2307/2717535.
Lockard, Craig A. Societies, Networks, and Transitions: A Global History. 3rdrd ed. N.p.: Cengage Learning, 2014.
Morel, Edmund D. Red Rubber: The Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Congo in the Year of Grace 1906. N.p.: Amazon.com Services LLC, 2017.
Watts, Johnathan. "Brazil's 'lost report' into genocide surfaces after 40 years." The Guardian, May 29, 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/29/brazil-figueiredo-genocide-report.
"Why do they hide?" Survival International. 2020. https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3104-why-do-they-hide.
