Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald López (6 July 18629 July 1897) was a Peruvian rubber baron. He was born in San Luis, Ancash, in a province that was later named after him. In the early 1890s, Fitzcarrald discovered the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald, which was a portage route from the Ucayali River into the Madre de Dios River basin. Fitzcarrald became known as the "King of Caucho" (natural rubber) due to his success during the rubber boom. His enterprise exploited and enslaved Asháninka, Mashco-Piro, Harákmbut, Shipibo-Conibo and other native groups, who were then dedicated to the extraction of rubber. In 1897, Fitzcarrald, along with his Bolivian business partner Antonio Vaca Díez, drowned in an accident on the Urubamba River.
Early life Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald López was born as Isaías Fermín Fitzgerald, the eldest son of an Irish-American sailor and trader who married a Peruvian woman. Isaías's father and grandfather were American sailors. Isaías's grandfather, Williams Fitzgerald, was the captain of a sail boat and he drowned in a shipwreck. His son Williams Fitzgerald Jr. migrated to Peru and settled in San Luis de Huari. There he met Fermín Lopez, as well as his daughter, with whom Fitzgerald fell in love and married. The marriage resulted in seven children, whose names were: Isaías Fermín, Rosalía, Lorenzo, Grimalda, Delfín, Fernando, and Edelmira.
Williams Jr. prioritized the education of his firstborn, Isaías, ensuring that his son went to well-known schools in Peru, such as Colegio La Libertad de Huaraz and later in Lima at Liceo Peruano de Lima. Isaías was a distinguished student and his father encouraged Isaías to pursue a career as a sailor specializing in naval engineering. Williams planned to send Isaías to a nautical school in the United States around 1878. Before this, Williams encouraged Isaías to travel along the Marañón River to sell merchandise. The trip allowed Isaías to make a large profit from the cargo and familiarize himself with this relatively unexplored region of Peru.
During the business venture, in 1878, Isaías was severely wounded. The wound was so serious that newspapers in Huaraz and Lima reported that Isaías had perished. Isaías's father travelled to Llamellín to pay for the medical expenses and he died shortly afterwards. Isaías recovered for three months before travelling to San Luis de Huari to find better treatment and on the way back to his family, he was told that his father had died. Isaías decided to move away from his hometown and took his father's maps with him, which contained information about Amazonian regions of Peru.
Isaías went to Cerro de Pasco to join the military after finding out a war with Chile had broken out. He encountered a group of natives who had been tied up by soldiers, who were taking them to Pasco as "volunteers". Isaías protested, demanding the soldiers release the captives, who were complaining about mistreatment. The soldiers asked Isaías to produce identification; Isaías was not a citizen of Peru and had left his baptismal and school certificates at home. The soldiers found Isaías's father's maps and accusing him of being a Chilean spy. There was no proof of Isaías's identity for months until the day he was supposed to be executed. A man referred to as Fray (Friar) Carlos, who was due to administer the last rites, had met Isaías in San Luis. Fray Carlos did not recognize Isaías at first on account of sickness but recognized his story. During a confession, Fray Carlos was able to verify Isaías was the first-born son of Williams Fitzgerald Jr. Fray Carlos immediately declared under oath the prisoner indeed was Isaías Fermín and he was released. Isaías later changed his first name to Carlos because Fray Carlos had saved his life. Between 1878 and 1897, his last name was Hispanicized from Fitzgerald to Fiscarrald, which is now spelled Fitzcarrald. According to author Jean-Claude Roux, Isaías went to Loreto, in northern Peru, with the hope of making a fortune. Isaías disappeared from the historical record for 10 years and multiple rumors arose to explain his absence.
In 1888, Fray Carlos reported hearing of an Amachengua (reincarnation) of Inca Juan Santos Atahualpa. The white figure claimed the "Sun Father" had sent him with a message saying the tribes were to work together. The representative of the Sun to obey on Earth was said to be Carlos Fitzcarrald. Fitzcarrald threatened the natives and prophesied that the rivers would dry up and the game would be chased away if they did not listen to and obey his words. A missionary named Gabriel Sala described one method of entrapping the natives; a white figure would presented himself as the Amachengua, manipulate the natives into gathering at a specific location using threats or promises. Fitzcarrald employed around fifty men to greet natives and tell them the "Sun Father" wanted to be seen elsewhere. The natives were then coerced into canoes before travelling to the Ucayali River, then either the Iquitos or the Manu Rivers "so that they become slaves in any way, and never see their land again". According to Sala:
Rubber baron By 1888, Fitzcarrald was already the richest rubber entrepreneur on the Ucayali River. In 1888, he visited Iquitos with a large quantity of rubber and many Asháninka servants. In the city, he visited Manuel Cardozo, the owner of a Brazilian rubber-exporting firm. There, he fell in love at first sight with Cardozo's stepdaughter Aurora Velazco, who was a widow. They soon married and Fitzcarrald entered a business partnership with Cardozo to extract rubber in the Ucayali. Fitzcarrald already had knowledge and links with the Asháninkas, Humaguacas, Cashivos and other tribes they could exploit to tap rubber. He made fun of rumors natives of the Ucayali were savage cannibals, stating someone wise made up the tale. Fitzcarrald's new coalition dominated trade and the rubber industry in the Atalaya area, which was near the confluence of the Tambo and Urubama rivers. Fitzcarrald also owned stations and outposts on the Tambo River. Many of the independent merchants around the Tambo and Ucayali rivers eventually began working with Fitzcarrald. By 1891, most of the Piro natives on the Urubamba River were indebted to Fitzcarrald.
An important indigenous figure who was a part of Fitzcarrald's network was an Asháninka chief named Venancio Amaringo Campa. Amaringo began working with Fitzcarrald as early as 1893. Amaringo provided labor for this network by enslaving other native groups, which were then added into the rubber-extracting workforce. Slave raids from the Unini River were organized and were primarily focused in the Gran Pajonal area. Amaringo also organized punitive expeditions against other entrepreneurs with whom Fitzcarrald had disagreements. Fitzcarrald also had alliances with other Asháninka chiefs, who would capture and trade slaves. The rubber firms would advance supplies to Asháninka groups that had agreed to extract rubber; in this way, many natives became indebted to the firms. The Asháninka who did not agree to collect rubber were targets of correrias (slave raids). Killing of indigenous men and enslavement of the women and children was common practice during these raids. Some of the indigenous groups exploited by Fitzcarrald include Asháninka, Piro, and Harakmbut natives.
Fitzcarrald became established as a rubber baron in the late 19th century; he managed rubber operations on the Pachitea, Upper Ucayali, Urubamba, Tambo, Apurimac and Madre de Dios rivers. He became known as the "King of Caucho" rubber, referring to latex extracted from Castilla elastica trees, which are not suitable for long-term exploitation. The most effective way of extracting rubber from this tree is to cut it down; this incentivized and necessitated constant movement for new sources of rubber trees.
The Isthmus of Fitzcarrald In 1892, Fitzcarrald established a rubber station on the Mishagua River, a tributary of the Urubamba River. In 1893, Fitzcarrald began looking for a portage route across the Mishagua River and another river. He had previously heard about a suitable path from information relayed to him by natives. This was a short, direct route from the Urubamba River to a river that Fitzcarrald believed to be the Purus River.
Fitzcarrald was credited with developing portage routes between the Mishagua River, and the Manu, a tributary of the Madre de Dios River. The former leads to the Ucayali River. This area later became known as the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald. Fitzcarrald and his enterprise explored the Madre de Dios region of BAP Fitzcarrald in Lake Sandoval, Madre de Dios, Peru. He is credited with founding the city of Puerto Maldonado, and he also explored the area that is now Manu Biosphere Reserve. The Asháninka chief Amaringo commanded the flotilla of the first expedition across the isthmus, which consisted of around 100 canoes. The Contamana, a three-ton steamship, was bought in Iquitos after Fitzcarrald returned from his first trip across the route.
On the second expedition in 1894, Fitzcarrald forced Piro and Asháninka natives, as well as around 100 non-natives, under the threat of death to dismantle the Contamana steamship and transport it over a mountainDan James Pantone, PhD., "The Myth of Fitzcarraldo", Iquitos News and Travel, 2004-2006 and across the isthmus. The portage of the Contamana took two months to complete. Ernesto de La Combe stated there were 300 Piros, 500 Asháninka, and 200 non-indigenous men on the second expedition. It took 600 men to drag the Contamana hull across the isthmus; logs were placed underneath the boat so it was easier to transport.
The establishment of the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald route enabled the transportation of rubber from the Madre de Dios region. Rubber was then transferred to ships on the Mishagua that could reach the Urubamba, the Ucayali River, and thereby sail down the Amazon to markets and Atlantic ports for export. The isthmus was attended to by Piro natives, who took on the portage and the shipment of goods across the route. Walking from one end of the isthmus to the other took around 55 minutes. Shipibo historian José Roque Maina collected oral testimony from Shipibo natives that "clearly describe their participation in the transport of Fitzcarrald's boat from the Ucayali to the Madre de Dios in 1895".
In an article titled "'Purús Song': Nationalization and Tribalization in Southwestern Amazonia", anthropologist Peter Gow refuted claims Fitzcarrald, and later his brother Delfín, discovered any portage routes. According to Gow: [t]hese were standard routes used by Piro people moving between river systems, and are regularly mentioned in the earlier literature... What the 'discoveries' related in the histories actually relate is the increasingly direct articulation of this trading system with the burgeoning rubber-extraction industry in the latter half of the 19th century.
In the Madre de Dios River basin Fitzcarrald's expeditions into the Madre de Dios region are considered to be the cause of the modern-day division between local Yine and Mashco Piro peoples. The Yine are the descendants of natives whom Fitzcarrald forced to work for him and the Mashco are the descendants of natives who fled following Fitzcarrald's arrival. According to Zacarías Valdez Lozano, who worked with Fitzcarrald, pressure from rubber barons had evicted the Mashcos from the Manu River. Valdez also wrote in his memoirs after a skirmish occurred on an unfamiliar river, Fitzcarrald named that river Colorado due to the redness of the water.
Anthropologist Stefano Varese described a strategy used by Fitzcarrald against the natives, stating: With a deep knowledge of the mountain, he knew how to use traditional rivalries ... The method is simple: Winchesters are given to the Cunibo who must pay in Kampa slaves and then Winchesters are given to the Kampa who must pay in Cunibo [and other] slaves ...