history of madre de dios

8/3/2019 History of Madre de Dios

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/history-of-madre-de-dios 1/3

HISTORY OF MADRE DE DIOS(taken from Historia de la Region by Mario Cabregos and

Where the Andes meet the Amazon by Kim Macquarrie)

Starting from the very beginning….

A surge of groups of humans entered South America and, more specifically, the Amazon at the

end of the Pleistocene Age (more than 20,000 years BP). There were, in general, two types of

cultures that evolved, based on the ecology of the environment. Terre firme forests are poor,

relatively speaking, in natural resources (for hunting, fishing and collecting) and the soil erodes

quickly, making agriculture difficult. Varzea (flooded) forests are very rich in the above

mentioned resources, which are renewed by cyclical inundation. Those living in Terre firme

forests, which is the bulk of the Madre de Dios area, formed small groups and were nomadic

with a mainly hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Those living in Varzea forest practiced intensive

agriculture and had advanced social development, living in groups of thousands of individuals.

The Incas….

The Inca Empire, at its height, was 4800km (3000 miles) long and divided into 4 sections. The

Incan name of the eastern slope of the Andes, as well as the people living in the jungle

(including Ese-eja), were Anti or Antis. It is thought that various Incas had origins in the

jungle, and that they taught the Incas to chew coca. The Incas would descend the eastern slope

of the Andes to extract gold and trade various goods with jungle tribes; such as honey, feathers,

rubber, wood and live animals. Incidentally, Tambopata is a Quechua word – Tambo is a

supply depot. Because the Inca Empire was so large, each region was connected by roads and

along these roads were “tambos”. Pata means a higher elevation area. The Ese-eja name for

the Tambopata river is Bahuaja.

Colonial Time….

The jungles of Madre de Dios were the focus of several Spanish expeditions looking for gold.

The first expedition was in 1538. Most expeditions resulted in death, either by natives or other

Spanish competitors. In the 1600s, Spanish conquistadors found gold beds and coca fields of

the Incas and began to exploit them. Of course, this produced hostility between the Spanish

and the indigenous people.

Catholic Missionaries….

From Colonial to modern times, the number of missionaries entering the area has been

innumerable. Missionaries opened up routes and established means of communication, which

often included radio. They were often the first to contact tribes, learn their language, and serve

as protection from other tribes of white men. They established towns, uniting nomadic Indian

tribes and establishing hospitals, sanitary systems and schools. Of course, not all of their

efforts were easily accepted. For example in May of 1926, a Spanish missionary, friar Manuel

Garcia, was killed by Ese Eja natives a two days´ canoe trip up the La Torre river .

Explorers….



Explorers came to the area for various reasons. Cinchona (Cascarilla) was found in the

Inambari and Tambopata river basins and extracted from these areas in the 1850s. In 1847, the

French scientist Algernon Weddell visited the region and discovered an area in the

southeastern edge of modern Bahuaje Sonene Park that was rich in a species of Cinchona that

yielded high levels of quinine. The English government then sent Clements Markham in 1859to the area to find these stands of Cinchona.

The most famous expedition of the time, however, was that of Colonel Faustino Maldonado.

In 1861, he and his crew left from Cuzco to travel all of Madre de Dios and later the Beni, until

it meets the Medeira river. 200km short of their destination, Maldonado and others died. The

survivors arrived to Manaus with the cascarilla that they had collected. Puerto Maldonado is

named after this expedition´s leader. There were also various official gold expeditions, in

which the Peruvian state hoped to find the funds to pay off debts. One of the first non

indigenous to explore the lower Tambopata area was Colonel Percy Fawcett in 1910. He

descended the Tambopata on a balsa wood raft. He reached the Madre de Dios and later Heath

River in the search for lost cities.

Rubber Boom…..

Rubber had always been used by locals in the area. The seeds were eaten and the latex was

used for various waterproof objects. However, it wasn´t until vulcanization was discovered by

Goodyear in 1839 and the growth of the auto industry grew that the demand for rubber

skyrocketed. The jungles of South America were the only source of rubber in the world.

There are two types of rubber that can be produced from the jungle. One, called caucho, is of

less quality and comes from Castilloa elastica and C. Ulei. In order to extract this rubber, one

must cut the tree. This was the first type of rubber made in the area, but was quickly replaced by Hevea brasiliensis, called Shiringa. The rubber is extracted by tapping the tree while it is

still alive. The rubber tappers would have 150 to 200 trees that would be tapped every two

days. There would be a central area, from which these trees could be accessed, where the

tappers and “managers” resided. In order to get labour, a slave trade of indigenous jungle

people was organized. The rubber boom on the Tambopata came later than in other areas of

South America. The Inca Rubber Co., a North American company, improved and extended a

road that went from the Tambopata valley to the river at Astillero, which is now the limit

between the Puno and Madre de Dios departments. Therefore, from 1908 rubber from Madre

de Dios could be deposited upriver at Astillero, go by road to Tirapata and from there by train

to Arequipa and then be shipped to North America. This road allowed a twenty fold increase

in rubber exportation out of the Madre de Dios.

In 1876, Henry Wickham from Britain, managed to successfully bring the seeds of Hevea to

London. Less than 3000 of the 7000 seeds germinated, and the plants were sent to a British

plantation in Southeast Asia. Today, we receive 90% of the natural rubber from this area.

Obviously, tapping rubber from plantations and being able to plant only strains with the highest

yield, is much more profitable than the tapping in South America. By 1912 the rubber boom in

South America dwindled. The only small relapse in the rubber boom came during the Second

World War, when Japan stopped exportation of rubber from Asia to the West. The United

States was therefore forced to import rubber again from South America.

After the rubber boom: Castana, Gold and Petroleum….



At the end of the rubber boom, this area became one of the most isolated territories of Peru.

The natives that survived the rubber boom, were often hostile and distrustful. Those that

stayed in the area, began to collect Brazil nuts (castanas) as a means of livelihood. Now Puerto

Maldonado is an important centre of Brazil nut processing and exporting. Between 15,000 and

20,000 people are currently involved in either the collection, transportation, packaging or someother aspect of Brazil nut production in the Madre de Dios department. There are currently

about 1,200 Brazil nut concessions in operation. At the same time, other resources were

exploited, such as animal skins of Caiman, Giant otters, White-lipped and Collared peccaries,

Ocelets and Jaguars.

At the end of the 1970s, gold and petroleum became the attraction of Tambopata. The road

from Cuzco to Puerto Maldonado was finished in 1965, connecting Puerto to the rest of the

country and making immigration much easier. The population of Puerto Maldonado multiplied

by ten in the 1970s.

Also, in 1974 the first lodge in the area was built, Explorer’s Inn. This site, the junction of theTambopata and the La Torre, is the same site as an old Inca Rubber Company post and the

same river where a Spanish missionary had been killed.

Protected Areas and Oil Exploration….

The first protected area here was the 5,500 hectare Tambopata Reserve Zone surrounding

Explorer’s Inn. After an incredible amount of research and conservation work, the Peruvian

government was persuaded to create a larger protected area. In July of 1996, President

Fujimori created the 500,000 hectare Bahuaja-Sonene National Park surrounded by the 1.1.

million hectare Tambopata Candamo National Reserve. Unfortunately, shortly after thecreation of the National Park and Reserve, the government issued an oil exploration concession

to the U.S. oil company: Exxon-Mobil. The concession was located in a proposed area of the

Park that had yet to be declared protected. This, of course, sparked an outrage from the

conservationists because oil exploration opens up wild areas and has tremendous impacts on

flora, fauna and local people. Finally, in September of 2000, Fujimori doubled the size of the

park to include the area that had been explored for oil, and elevated the status of 200,000

hectares of National Reserve to National Park and created a 265,515 hectare buffer zone. In

total, there is approximately 1.5 million hectares of land with protected status.

history of madre de dios

Documents