BRAZIL's “BATTLE for RUBBER” of WORLD WAR II a Dissertation
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TAPPING THE AMAZON FOR VICTORY: BRAZIL’S “BATTLE FOR RUBBER” OF WORLD WAR II A dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Of Georgetown University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In History By Xenia Vunovic Wilkinson, M.A. Washington D.C. December 2, 2009 Copyright 2009 by Xenia Vunovic Wilkinson All Rights Reserved ii TAPPING THE AMAZON FOR VICTORY: BRAZIL’S “BATTLE FOR RUBBER” OF WORLD WAR II Xenia Vunovic Wilkinson Dissertation Adviser: Erick D. Langer, PhD. ABSTRACT Japan’s occupation of Southeast Asia in early 1942 cut off more than 90 percent of the global rubber supply to the World War II Allies. Without an adequate supply of this strategic material to meet military-industrial requirements, it was impossible to win the war. The Roosevelt Administration concluded that the success of the Allied war effort could depend on increasing the productivity of rubber tappers who extracted latex from rubber trees dispersed throughout Amazonian rainforests. In response to Roosevelt’s appeal, Brazil’s President, Getúlio Vargas, organized a “Battle for Rubber” to increase rubber production in the Amazon. The authoritarian Brazilian government recruited around 30,000 “rubber soldiers,” mainly from the arid Northeast, and sent them to work on Amazonian rubber estates. This study explores the dynamics of global, national, and regional actors as they converged and interacted with Amazonian society in the Battle for Rubber. Migrant rubber tappers, Amazonian rubber elites, indigenous groups, North American technical advisers, Brazilian government agencies, and the Roosevelt Administration were linked in a wartime enterprise to increase rubber production. iii Although the Battle for Rubber produced only modest increases in rubber production, I argue that wartime intervention by the Brazilian state in the Amazonian economy was a catalyst for significant transformations in the region, beginning in World War II and continuing into the post-war era. The Brazilian government strengthened its role in the region’s economy and extended its authority into the vast Amazonian hinterlands. United States government financing for labor recruitment, rubber estates, public health programs, and transportation infrastructure for the Battle for Rubber advanced Brazil’s long-term goals of integrating the Amazonian frontier into the nation. Thousands of rubber soldiers died of malnourishment and disease in the rainforests during the Battle for rubber. Rubber soldiers who married Amazonian women had the highest chances of survival, learning from them how to adapt to an unfamiliar environment and integrate into local society. Amazonian elites successfully contested efforts by the Brazilian and United States governments to break their stranglehold over the rubber trade. Frontier indigenous societies adopted diverse strategies to survive yet another onslaught of “civilization” on their traditional lands. iv ACKNOWLEDMENTS It might not take an entire village to produce a dissertation, but I owe debts of gratitude to more people than I can acknowledge here. I am particularly grateful to my dissertation adviser, Professor Erick Langer, for stimulating my interest in writing about Brazil’s Battle for Rubber of World War II, guiding my research, and offering wise and patient counsel which motivated me to sharpen the arguments of this dissertation while it was very much a work in progress. Thank you, Professor John Tutino and Professor John R. McNeill, for serving on my dissertation committee and offering valuable critiques that challenged me to think outside of the box and place my work in a broader context. From my fellow graduate students in Latin American history at Georgetown, I learned so much from our lively discussions and diverse perspectives. To all my professors at Georgetown, thank you for making graduate work in history an intellectual adventure. In Brazil, I was fortunate to encounter friends and colleagues who helped me to find valuable archives and meet survivors of the Battle for Rubber. In Rio de Janeiro, my friends Professor Luis Pedone and Maite Baena were gracious hosts and introduced me to archives and libraries. I owe a debt of gratitude to the United States Consulate General in Rio, particularly the Public Affairs and Library of Congress staff, for facilitating my access to Brazilian government archives and tracking down difficult to find publications. Eric Stoner, USAID’s environment officer in Brasilia, generously shared many of his contacts in the Amazon, greatly facilitating my work in the region. My research in Belém was enriched by the generosity of Caito Martins and Madeleine Malouf, documentary film-makers working on the Battle for Rubber who v arranged for me to interview survivors of the Battle for Rubber. In Manaus, James Fish introduced me to rubber tappers whom I interviewed about their fathers’ participation in the Battle for Rubber. Dr. Antonio Loureiro introduced me to his fellow academicians in Manaus and shared his own works on the history of rubber and navigation in the Amazon. I am grateful to all of the archivists and librarians who aided my research in Rio de Janeiro, Belém, Manaus, Washington, D.C. and New York. I particularly thank Dysson Teles Alves, who guided my research in the archives of the J. G. Araujo Company, most of which were not catalogued. My research was supported in part by the grants I received from the History Department at Georgetown University, the Cosmos Club Foundation, and the Rockefeller Archive Center, for which I am very grateful. I could not have written this dissertation without the loyal support of my husband Ted Wilkinson, who encouraged me throughout this intellectual journey and patiently read and proposed much-needed editing of my chapters. I am grateful to my son-in-law, Kimler D. Corey, for his valuable technical assistance with the maps and tables. My parents first awakened my interest in history by sharing their experiences during World War II. To my daughter, Julia, thank you for inspiring me with your lively interest in Brazil, which is the product of our family’s wonderful years in Brasilia during the 1990’s. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments .........................................................................v List of Maps and Illustrations ..................................................................viii Introduction……………………………………………………………….1 I. Evolution of the Amazonian Economy……………………………….30 II. Forging the Wartime Alliance for Rubber...........................................82 III. From Flagelados to “Rubber Soldiers”……….………………..….136 IV. Managing Disorder: The Battle for Rubber in the Amazon……….190 V. Post-war Legacies of the Alliance for Rubber………..…………….249 VI. Conclusion........................................................................................305 Bibliography……………………………………………..…………….333 vii LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration Rubber Tapper ix Maps The Amazon Basin and Major Tributaries 49 Amazonian Habitat of Hevea brasiliensis 330 Health and Sanitation – Malaria Control in the Amazon Valley 331 Indigenous Groups of the Amazon – Rio Negro 332 viii Rubber Tapper Source: “Amazônia Brasileira,” Edição do Conselho Nacional de Geografia (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 1944.) ix INTRODUCTION In a speech in late 2008 at a conference in Washington, D.C. on the future of Brazil’s relations with the United States, Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim stated that Brazil has not fought a war since the Paraguayan conflict of the 1860’s. Minister Jobim was almost certainly aware that Brazil sent an expeditionary force of 25,000 combat troops to fight German troops in Italy during World War II, but perhaps he did not consider that action to have been full-scale war for Brazil. Nevertheless, the Defense Minister missed an opportunity to remind his audience that Brazil and the United States were staunch allies during the most important war of the twentieth century. He could have told his audience that not only did the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) lose 457 soldiers in combat with German forces, but Brazil also lost many thousands of “rubber soldiers” – Brazilian migrant workers recruited by their government and sent to Amazonian rainforests to increase wild rubber production to support the Allied war effort. Early in 1942, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and occupied most of Southeast Asia, President Franklin Roosevelt appealed to Brazil and other countries of Latin America to take urgent measures to increase production of natural rubber for the Allied war effort. A dangerous shortage of rubber loomed because the Allies relied on Southeast Asian plantations for more than 90 percent of their requirements of this strategic material, which was vital for modern warfare. In the absence of alternative sources of rubber, North American experts warned that the success of the Allied war effort could depend on the productivity of rubber tappers who extracted latex from wild rubber trees (mainly Hevea brasiliensis ) in remote Amazonian rainforests. With over 60 1 percent of the Amazon Basin within Brazil’s national territory, persuading the Brazilian government to launch a campaign to increase Amazonian rubber production was a priority for the United States. After seesawing between Germany and the United States to extract the maximum economic benefits from each country, Brazil’s authoritarian ruler, President Getúlio Vargas, became