The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society have called the attention
of the Foreign Office to the evils of the peonage system in the Amazon valley. Their charges are largely based on the evidence of Mr. J. F. Woodroffe, who has been engaged in the rubber trade in Central America for the last seven years, and is anxious to expose the whole system from humanitarian motives. Mr. Woodroffe states that not fewer than fifteen or twenty firms dealing direct with Europe and financed by European money are concerned in it. The natives are given credit for their labour but are debited with many things, with the result that they are always in debt to bad employers. He has himself seen the flogging of both men and women and the sale of young Indian children, and he charges both the Peruvian and Bolivian Governments with conniving at peonage, the Brazilian Government being alone in making any serious attempt to protect the aborigines within its boundaries. In fine, he regards the system as worse than that practised in the Putumayo, since the Indians are more highly educated.
Previous page
