During the later stages of the Putumayo genocide, the brothers Aurelio and Arístides Rodríguez respectively managed the rubber stations of Santa Catalina and La Sabana, which were located near the Cahuinari River. The rubber collected at these stations was dependent on slave labor from the Huitoto, Boras and Resígaro indigenous populations. Between 1903 and 1907 the Rodríguez brothers were employed by J.C. Arana y Hermanos, which became the Peruvian Amazon Company in 1907, both companies were founded by the Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana.
Evidence collected by Walter Ernest Hardenburg, Benjamin Saldaña Rocca, Roger Casement and judge Rómulo Paredes implicated the Rodríguez brothers with the perpetration of various crimes against the local indigenous population, including flagellation, deliberate starvation, rape and murder among other atrocities. In 1910, the general manager of La Chorrera admitted that the Rodríguez brothers "had killed hundreds of natives" during their management of Santa Catalina and La Sabana.
Aurelio and Arístides both retired in 1909 and afterwards they travelled to Europe. Arístides perished on June 18 of 1910. Aurelio was arrested for his role in the Putumayo genocide in 1911 along with several of his subordinates, however Pablo Zumaeta arranged to bail Aurelio out with a payment of £2,000. Aurelio escaped from prison at Iquitos in May of 1915 with Armando Normand prior to a verdict in their trial.
Early life The little bit of public information regarding the early life of Aurelio and Arístides Rodríguez comes from Walter Ernest Hardenburg. Hardenburg wrote:
"Both of these copper-complexioned monsters were formerly barefooted peons of Chachapoyas, Peru. Going to the Putumayo, they began their career of butchery, and by dint of continual crime have succeeded in amassing a small fortune."
Career Aurelio and Arístides were employed in the Putumayo River basin by Larrañaga, Arana y compañia at La Chorrera as early as 1903. The Rodríguez brothers wrote several letters during this time period which would later implicate them with crime in the region. They were referred to as "chiefs of sections" by April of 1904. Arístides reported and denounced the massacre of enslaved Ocaina rubber extractors that occurred in La Chorrera in 1903. He singled out the manager Victor Macedo as the first promotor and distributor of these killings. Macedo and another witness of these killings would later implicate the Rodríguez brothers with participating in the massacre.
Between 1903-1909 the Rodríguez brothers managed the stations of Santa Catalina and La Sabana which were part of La Chorrera's agency. While writing about La Sabana and Santa Catalina, Casement clarified that: "[b]oth these stations lie in the Boras country, La Sabana actually on the Cahuinari River, and Santa Catalina not far from it."
The judge which investigated crime in the agency of La Chorrera, Rómulo Paredes, noted that the payment through commission to managers of Arana's company encouraged these managers to terrorize the indigenous people to maximize their income. This was most notably the case with the Rodriguez brothers, whose contract stipulated that they would receive 50% of the profits from rubber their stations brought in. During the end of a rubber collection period, known as a fabrico, the Rodríguez brothers typically demanded a quota of five arrobas, which was 75 kilos or 165 pounds.
Role in the Putumayo genocide Benjamin Saldaña Rocca, Walter Hardenburg, Roger Casement and Rómulo Paredes all investigated the Putumayo genocide and they collected evidence for Rodríguez brothers involvement in crime. Saldaña Rocca was the first person to publicly denounce Aurelio and Arístides in his publication La Felpa. Hardenburg later collected several depositions that incriminated managers of the Peruvian Amazon Company, including the Rodríguez brothers, with horrendous crimes. Hardenburg published twenty of these statements in 1912, at least four of those statements implicated the Rodríguez brothers with murder and other crimes. Casement interviewed several Barbadians in 1910 which were subordinate to the Rodríguez brothers and these Barbadians reported multiple crimes perpetrated by Aurelio and Arístides. Paredes collected multiple depositions in 1911, along with letters and physical evidence which further implicated the Rodríguez brothers in multiple atrocities, perpetrated against the enslaved indigenous population subordinate to their stations.
Near the end of his investigation, Casement wrote: "Moreover, hundreds of crimes not recorded there have taken place. Normand, Aguero, Fonseca, Montt, Jimenez, the two Rodriguez brothers and Martinengui, have between them, murdered several thousand of these unhappy beings. There is no doubt of it. Tizon admitted to me in Chorrera last week that the two Rodriguez 'had killed hundreds of natives', and that Arana gave them 50% of the produce of these two sections, S. Catalina and Sabana." Letters as evidence of crime Judge Rómulo Paredes emphasized that the most compelling evidence of crime in the region came from letters and statements exchanged by agents of the company to coordinate attacks against indigenous people. Paredes collected at least three letters that implicated the Rodriguez brothers with such actions against the local population near their rubber stations. One letter, dated March 1, 1903 was signed by the Rodríguez brothers and detailed an ambush against Resígaro people. Rodríguez's group managed to secure a carbine and a shotgun from a Resígaro house. Two widowed indigenous women were given to Miguel Flores and an agent named Almeida, the custody of the surviving group of Resígaro people was also given to these two agents. A separate letter which provided further evidence of crime, relayed that at La Sabana, Coquero and Unuda, two indigenous captains, were given four hundred whip lashes, members of their tribe were given one hundred whip lashes. Coquero and Unuda perished from their flogging while Arístides reported he was under the belief that their tribe "will work" in the extraction of rubber.
Another letter dated April 4, 1903 was sent by the Rodríguez brothers to Juan Bautista Vega, this letter detailed an assault against a Guivira maloca. At the time of the attack, the Guivira natives were hosting a "great dance" which was attended by members of Unuda's as well as Coquero's tribe, Riñonigaros, Machagaros, Muinanes, and "a large number of Andoques".
The letter claimed that the indigenous people had invited nearby rubber tappers to join the dance however the Rodríguez brothers wrote that they were under the impression that they would be murdered in their sleep, like Emilio Gutiérrez and his employees were that same year. The assault against the Guivira maloca lasted around fifteen minutes and more than eighty natives were killed. Two Machagaros natives approached the station of La Sabana and told the agents there that Andoque people were burning Machagaro houses because Rodríguez's subordinates forced a Machagaro captain to serve as a guide in the attack against the Guivira maloca. The writer claimed that he saw smoke from fire around various areas on the opposite side of the Cahuinari from La Sabana.
The Hardenburg and Saldaña depositions The Rodríguez brothers were included in the original criminal complaint filed by Benjamin Saldaña Rocca to the court of Iquitos. This complaint requested for authorities to arrest the Rodríguez brothers along with sixteen other employees of J.C. Arana y Hermanos for their perpetration of crime in the Putumayo River basin. On January 5 1908, Saldaña Rocca published a letter from an ex-employee of Arana's company named Marcial Gorries, which denounced the Rodríguez brothers and other managers as the "principal criminals" on the Putumayo River. Gorries emphasized "every one of them—have killed with their own hands".
Juan Rosas, an ex-employee of J.C. Arana y Hermanos and a correspondent of Walter Ernest Hardenburg, reported the perpetration of several crimes he witnessed while employed at Santa Catalina in 1904. Rosas claimed Aurelio sent out Correrias to hunt down indigenous people which were fleeing from the "cruel punishment given them, as those who unfortunately fell into the hands of this chief were killed in a most barbarous manner." According to Rosas, one of these correrías, consisting of ten armed men, murdered numerous indigenous people they encountered on their journey. This group returned with around forty indigenous prisoners which were interred in the cepo at Santa Catalina. Rosas claimed that after this group of prisoners became sick with smallpox, Aurelio took them outside "one by one, and used them as targets to practise shooting at." Aurelio ordered the execution of another indigenous women around nine days later because she also became ill with smallpox.
Genaro Caporo reported that Aristides ordered five of his subordinates to murder four Recígaros natives because they arrived to La Sabana without rubber. Shortly after this incident, Aristides led an expedition of around fifty armed men towards the Cahuinari River. According to Caporo, Aristides and his group murdered around one hundred and fifty indigenous people, including men, women, as well as children. Twenty days after that incident, Aristides shot and killed four Muinane people he met while enroute to Santa Catalina. Caporo wrote that in March of 1908 a commission arrived at Santa Catalina with four indigenous prisoners. These prisoners were used as target practice by Aurelio Rodriguez, he killed them and had their corpses burned.
Daniel Collantes wrote a deposition that was sworn before a public notary, he claimed that on May 24 1908, Aurelio ordered Alejandro Vasquez Torres to take nine agents with him and capture an indigenous woman and "kill her in the cruellest way possible." Collantes described the murder of this woman in his deposition, some which was edited out of The Putumayo, The Devil's Paradise due the nature of this crime.
The Rodríguez brothers and Casement's investigation The Barbadian Frederick Bishop told Roger Casement that Arístides was paid 7,000 Peruvian soles by Fidel Velarde for the rights to manage La Sabana. According to Bishop, Fidel was encouraged by the fact that La Sabana had delivered 30,000 kilos of rubber to La Chorrera in a single fabrico and Fidel was under the impression that he would have similar success at La Sabana.
Edward Crichlow and Evelyn Batson described the "double cepo" in their depositions to Casement. Batson knew this device was constructed by Crichlow and he witnessed the imprisonment of children with the "double cepo" as well as the flagellation of children while interred there. This device employed at Santa Catalina as late as May of 1908. Casement described the double cepo in his 1910 report, he wrote:
Augustus Walcott stated that he saw around twenty natives murdered, men women and children, they were shot and beheaded. Walcott stated that Aurelio gave directions to his subordinates to cut off the arms and legs of one indigenous man, who was around twenty four years old, because he had attempted to flee the area and he had killed a Muchacho de Confianza in the process. Walcott testified that after this mans limbs were cut off, he was burned alive, Batson was sure this man was alive because his eyes moved and he screamed during the process.