Liberal was a screw steamship commissioned by J.C. Arana y Hermanos and built in 1904. The vessel transported rubber for Julio César Arana's enterprise, which became the Peruvian Amazon Company in 1907.
The ship played a significant role in the Peruvian Amazon Company's expeditions against the Colombian settlements of La Unión and La Reserva at the beginning of 1908. Liberal was mortgaged to Eleanora Zumaeta de Arana on May 5, 1911, prior to the liquidation of the Peruvian Amazon Company.
History The Liberal steamship was built by Murdoch & Murray at yard number 199 in Port Glasgow in October 1904. It was commissioned by J.C. Arana y Hermanos, a rubber firm with offices in the cities of Manaus and Iquitos, located along the Amazon River. Liberal first arrived in Iquitos in December 1904. The vessel regularly operated between Iquitos and the Putumayo River, transporting rubber and personnel for Arana's enterprise.
Liberal also transported Peruvian soldiers from Iquitos to the Putumayo on several occasions. According to David Cazes, the British consul-general in Iquitos between 1903 and 1910, Arana's company transported Peruvian military personnel and their supplies from Iquitos to the Putumayo without charge. In return, the Peruvian government did not levy duties on the company's rubber shipments. In 1905, Liberal completed three voyages between Iquitos and the Putumayo estates, arriving in Iquitos in May, September, and November of that year.
Following Armando Normand's attack on Urbano Gutiérrez in January 1907, eight Colombians were taken captive aboard Liberal by employees of Arana's company, who intended to send them to prison in Iquitos. However, they were later abandoned in a canoe near Cotuhé to prevent Brazilian officials from discovering them upon arrival at port.
On August 5, 1907, Iquitos-based journalist Benjamín Saldaña Roca published "" ("The Wave of Blood"), detailing an incident aboard Liberal witnessed by a cook named Juan Vela. According to Vela, upon hearing a commotion, he saw Captain Zubiaur beating an employee of Arana's company, Juan Juárez, with a large piece of firewood. Zubiaur then dragged Juárez below deck, where "six sailors, at Zubiaur's orders, gave him still more blows, mutilating and destroying his whole body." Afterwards, Juárez was thrown onto the riverbank and abandoned, and he reportedly shot himself two days later due to his injuries.
On September 23, 1907, Saldaña Roca published another article stating: "The Liberal, small steamer of the Casa Arana, has brought from the Putumayo 93,000 kilos of elastic rubber. How many whippings, mutilations, tortures, tears, blood, murders and desolations represent such rubber!"
According to Charles C. Eberhardt, the American consul-general in Iquitos in 1907, upon its return to Iquitos on November 15 that year, Liberal reported that 100 Colombian soldiers were encamped across the river from La Chorrera.
In December 1907, Miguel S. Loayza reportedly sent several subordinates to harass David Serrano in an effort to pressure him to abandon his estate. Serrano’s wife, child, and merchandise were loaded onto Liberal after he was tied to a tree and forced to watch as his wife was assaulted. This incident occurred approximately one month before the assault on Serrano's estate.
Attacks on La Unión and La Reserva Liberal completed a voyage to El Encanto on January 3, 1908, carrying 85 soldiers from the Peruvian garrison at Iquitos. Around this time, Colombian police inspector Jesús Orejuela was waiting at Argelia for a meeting with Loayza; however, Loayza did not arrive, and Orejuela was detained. The raids on La Unión and La Reserva began shortly after Orejuela's imprisonment. He was brought aboard Liberal at around 9 a.m. on January 13 and confined in what Hardenburg described as a "little cage."
In January 1908, armed employees of Arana's company aboard Liberal, together with the Peruvian warship Iquitos, which carried approximately 85 Peruvian soldiers, attacked a Colombian rubber station named La Unión. Carlos Zubiaur was captain of Liberal during the raids on La Unión and La Reserva, which took place on January 12. The armed agents of Arana's enterprise aboard Liberal were led by Miguel S. Loayza, Bartolomé Zumaeta, and Miguel Flores.
On February 1, 1908, Benjamín Saldaña Roca published an article in La Sanción titled "The Crime of Lesa Patria." The article claimed that Loayza had telegraphed company headquarters—"either through being misinformed, or as is more probable, maliciously"—that "a large force of Colombians, well armed and uniformed and under the command of two generals," was assembling to attack El Encanto and La Chorrera. This supposed force was said to consist of 300 to 400 men with a cannon. In response, 85 Peruvian soldiers from the Iquitos garrison were dispatched to the Putumayo after the Peruvian Amazon Company forwarded Loayza's message to the prefect in Iquitos.
Bartolomé Zumaeta, accompanied by 14 Peruvian soldiers, travelled along the Yubineto River aboard the Callao steamship, capturing several Colombians, including Gabriel Martínez, manager of the Ordoñez y Martínez Rubber Company, because he "had dealings with Indians, whom the Aranas cynically said belonged to them." In retaliation, Colombian authorities imprisoned two agents of Arana's company who had been sent to trade at La Unión. Loayza, accompanied by around 80 armed men employed by Arana’s company, embarked on Liberal to investigate the incident. Liberal was joined by Iquitos, which carried Peruvian soldiers and artillery. The Peruvians reportedly used six cannons and two machine guns during the attack.
At La Unión, Colombian colonel Gustavo Prieto reportedly unfurled the Colombian flag in response to repeated Peruvian demands to land, which, according to Hardenburg and Saldaña Roca, triggered the conflict between the two groups. After resisting for about half an hour, the Colombians ran out of ammunition and fled into the jungle. The Peruvians seized roughly one thousand arrobas of rubber and took several Colombian women captive. Five Colombians were killed at La Unión, and more than 27 were reported killed between La Unión and La Reserva. The dwellings at La Unión were set on fire, and cattle, machinery, and other valuable goods were sent to Iquitos. According to Liberal pilot Simón Pisango, gunfire was first opened from Liberal, and Loayza was on board at the time.
Former Arana Company employee Julio Montero gave a sworn deposition in Iquitos in 1909, stating that 29 Colombians were taken prisoner during the raid on La Reserva, including prominent patrons David Serrano and Ildefonso González. According to Montero's account, the captives "who had already been robbed and were then in chains, were taken out of the house and not far off were shot to death and cut to pieces with machetes." This information was corroborated by Colombian eyewitness Carlos Murgaitio, who published his own account in the Jornal de Comércio of Manaus.
Hardenburg reported seeing both Liberal and Iquitos travelling toward La Unión and later returning with prisoners, though he did not witness the attack itself. While those aboard Liberal ignored his canoe, men on Iquitos fired upon his group and captured them. Hardenburg later wrote that Montero's deposition had described the same events he had heard about from others.
Several hours after the raids on La Unión and La Reserva, Iquitos and Liberal reached Argelia, where they stayed overnight. Hardenburg was transferred from Iquitos to Liberal at this point and reunited with his companion Walter Perkins, who was already imprisoned. Hardenburg and Orejuela learned that the raid on La Reserva had resulted in the looting of 170 arrobas of rubber, which were loaded onto Liberal, while the settlement was "destroyed [after] everything they could not steal."
On January 13, Liberal and Iquitos continued down the Caraparana River toward El Encanto, reaching a Colombian rubber station named El Dorado around 9:30 a.m. Hardenburg wrote that Loayza threatened the Colombians with death if they did not abandon their estate and surrender their firearms. Loayza's men seized the weapons and returned to the steamships before proceeding toward El Encanto. El Dorado was owned by Colombian Ildefonso González, who was later killed by Arana's manager Mariano Olañete while relocating his workforce.
Hardenburg persuaded Loayza that the disappearance of either himself or Perkins would draw the attention of the United States government. Loayza later agreed to grant them passage on Liberal to Iquitos; however, Captain Zubiaur demanded a payment of £17 for their transport.
The steamship Cosmopolita stopped at Chorrera while Liberal was engaged in the expedition against Colombian settlements. On January 19, 1908, Cosmopolita travelled to the port of Santa Julia, where it met Liberal. On January 20, both vessels joined Iquitos at a settlement named Arica, near the confluence of the Igaraparana tributary with the Putumayo River. The three ships travelled together toward the Peruvian border with Brazil, with Iquitos escorting the others until reaching the confluence of the Cotuhé and the Putumayo. Cosmopolita and Liberal then continued to Iquitos, while Iquitos remained at Cotuhé. Liberal arrived at Iquitos on either January 31 or February 1, according to Hardenburg, carrying 35,000 kilos of rubber and seven Colombian prisoners "suffering heavily" from imprisonment conditions. The rubber was collected from El Encanto and from Colombian settlements raided by the Peruvian Amazon Company. Cosmopolita transported 120,000 kilos of rubber on the same voyage.
Many of the Peruvian Amazon Company employees involved in the attacks on La Unión were later arrested, with the notable exception of Bartolomé Zumaeta. They were taken to La Chorrera in chains and imprisoned for about two months before the prefect of Iquitos, along with Julio César Arana and Peruvian consul-general Carlos Rey de Castro, arrived. Roger Casement remarked that "[t]his journey of Señor Arana in company with these two Peruvian officers of high rank is really the key to the whole subsequent situation." The prefect, Carlos Zapata, ordered the group's release. Casement, David Cazes, and other sources alleged that Arana bribed Zapata with between £5,000 and £8,000 to secure their freedom. During Casement's 1910 investigation of the Peruvian Amazon Company, he discovered that Rey de Castro was indebted to Arana's firm in Manaus for between £4,000 and £5,000.
1909–1911 In 1910, British consul-general Roger Casement was sent to investigate the treatment and involvement of Barbadian employees working for Julio César Arana's rubber enterprise. Casement travelled to the Putumayo River estates aboard the Liberal. Elías Martinengui, who managed a Peruvian Amazon Company station, later departed the Putumayo aboard the same vessel, accompanied by four of his Indigenous concubines from Atenas. Martinengui left on the Liberal following Casement's journey from Iquitos to the Putumayo.
The Indigenous labourers subjugated by Arana's company were required to transport rubber from local stations to La Chorrera and El Encanto, from where it was shipped down the Putumayo River towards Iquitos via the Igaraparana and Caraparana tributaries.
Describing the transportation of rubber from Entre Ríos to La Chorrera, Casement wrote:
On August 26, 1910, Casement was informed by the Brazilian customs post at Javari that the Liberal had cleared the Javari River carrying 45 tons of rubber and "many sick men", mostly Peruvian soldiers. He estimated the shipment's value at approximately £45,000. On September 1, the Liberal arrived at Iquitos with 23 ill soldiers and its cargo of rubber.