SLAVERY AND BRUTALITY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 11 July 1912, Page 5

SLAVERY AND BRUTALITY.

It is a shock to our civilisation (says the London Daily News) to hear it alleged thab the hideous regime which has no long disgraced the Congo has almost its replica in the treatment meted out to the natives of the forests of the Amazon in Peru by agents of the rubber companies. These '-Indians," as they are always termed, belong to the aboriginal tribes of the almost impenetrable forests at the source of the Amazon on the eastern side of the Andes, and are a very different race from that conquered by Pizarro, whose descendants, with their quaint, almost Tibetan features, form the native population of the narrow but best-known portion of the Peruvian territory between the mountains and the sea.

In the fastnesses of their luxuriant forests, where the rank vegetation means fever and probably death to most white men, they have for centuries lived a quiet, unmolested experience, and are therefore by nature quiet and xmwarlike, so that they are all the more likely to fall the victims of barbarities, of which, it is said, rubber agents are gniltv.

The only town of size in this district is Iquitos, where the headquarters of the rubber industry are situated. Scattered throughout th" forests are 45 other stations, to which the natives of the districts have to brine; their toll of 'rubber gathered in the forests. Each °uk-agent is assisted by a number of armed "sentries,, mostly low caste Peruvians, who, it is alleged, if tlfe required quantity of rubber is not brought in by the Indians, mercilessly uuwish the offenders by Hogging, mutilation, and even brutal murder.

A missionary from Cuzco, the near- j ost Protestant mission station to the forest region, speakins: to a Daily Mews representative with regard to the allegations of cruelty made against the agents of the rubber companies, said it was a difficult matter to know exactly what did take place in the unfrequented ! Montana (i.e., forest) region. It was commonly acknowledged, however, that a very definite amount- of slavery was in existence, ita*» plan teeing to visit a native tillage, make most of the ablebodied men drank, and befort? they recorerpn senses to carry them off to the re rests to collect the rubber. Scanty payment is made in goods, but care is always taken to keep the native? in debt, so that the agents, who "vifortunately. are mostly low-class Englishmen and AmericariSjhave a complete hold over the workers.