Brazlian History: Rubber Boom



Figure 1.--This is the Teatro Amazonas, the city opera house, in Manaus built by the rubber Barons. The building is a symbol of the Rubber Boom. Manaus is inside the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and the climate is rainy and hot. As many Brazilian towns, Manaus is full of contrasts. Here an American lady during 1943 talks with a local boy. After the Japanese eized Malay where most of the world's rubber was produced, the United States launched a crash program to produce synthetic rubber and to expand the production of rubber in Brazil and tropical Africa.

An essential industrial commodity isrubber. Brazil imported sugar and coffee which became important agricultural commodities. Rubber trees, on the other hand, originated in the Amazon. They were discovered by Native Americans who collected latex and used open fires to create rubber. There is an ongoing debate among scientists studying Native Americans as to how much they shaped the Amazon. It was noted by Europeans after the conquest, but was not a particularly valuable commodity. Only after the industrial revolution was well underway in the 19th century did the industrial potentual of rubber becomes increasingly realized. These were limited, however, because of the difficulty working with the material. This changed dramatically when Charles Goodyear developed the vulcanization process. The result was a very sharp increase in the demand for rubber. The large scale production of rubber began in Brazil. The economy of the Brazilian Amazon boomed. The Government regulated the industry. Those individuals who obtained the right to collect latex from the Amazon became fabulously rich. There were no rubber plantations a the time. Only rubber trees growing wild in the tropical rain forrest. The latex itself was actually collected by serengeiros (rubber tappers). Everyone bebefitted from the rubber boom with its hifg prices, even the serengeiros. The rubber barind became favulously rich. Manaus was the center of the Brazilian rubber boom. Suddenly there were opersat houuses and fancy rstaurants in what had been a sleepy backwater Amazonian town. The boom was premised on the fact that Brazil was the only place in the world that rubber coyld be obtained in large quatities. The Government attempted to prevent the export of both seeds and plants. Henry Wickham, a British individual, managed to smuggle rubber seeds out of Brazil (1876). The Brazilians have labeled this an act of biopiracy. The British attempted to grow rubber in various places in the Empire. Southeast Asia was particularly conducive to rubber. The British founded rubber plantations which could produce rubber more efficently than collecting latex from wild trees in the Amazon. There were limitations on developing rubber plantations in Brazil because of the plant diseases and insects which had developed in the Amazon. The rubber boom brought Braziiians into the Amazonian basin for the first time in large numbers. The country's population, however, continued to be concentrated along the coast.





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Created: 5:11 AM 1/30/2011
Last updated: 5:11 AM 1/30/2011