The Amazon rubber boom contributed significantly to the economy and colonization of Brazil in the last quarter of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.  For over three centuries after its discovery for Portugal by Cabral, Brazil was an unknown country, full of rainforest that was watered by the great Amazon River.  This began to change with the discovery of the  various uses for rubber that was known to be obtained from the sap of a native tree, the Hevea Brasiliensis. 

Even then it was not widely used until the latter stages of the English Industrial Revolution towards the end of the 18th century.  However, it was the discovery of vulcanization of rubber with raw sulfur by Charles Goodyear in 1834 that was the start of the rubber boom.  The discovery of the pneumatic tyre was the turning point and suddenly rubber was the material that Europe had to have and ‘the tree that weeps’ was a crucial part, not only of the industrial revolution, but of the revolution that was occurring in the world’s transportation systems.

The adoption of pneumatic vulcanized rubber tyres in the late 20th century really got the ball in motion, and many rubber barons became extremely wealthy at the expense of the natives, many villages of whom were literally wiped out.  A large number were forced to work tapping the rubber latex, and huge tracts of the Amazon rainforest were appropriated by the owners of the new companies set up to provide the vast quantities of rubber required and to exploit the natives in doing so.

The immigrants from Europe and other civilized areas outside Brazil brought with them not only modern weapons, against which bow and arrows offered little defense, but also diseases such as measles and tuberculosis.  It was not long before the native Brazilians began to rapidly die out through disease, malnutrition and over-work.

The three major cities that grew out of the rubber industry were Belém, Porto Velho and Manaus, and they are still major cities to this day, even though the rubber trade has now died, at least in Brazil.  Railroads were also the result of the rubber industry, and the area was opened up through through the construction of roads and railroads.  River transport was not a viable option due to the number of cataracts involved:  some twenty or so along the length.  These transport arteries are used to this day as arteries for the plant required for the destruction of the same forests that provided so much wealth.

When the British grew rubber in Malaysia, the boom days were over, since the Malaysian rubber was cheaper.  It is said that a Henry Wickham was responsible after stealing rubber tree seeds in 1876 after falling out with the Brazilian authorities of failure of negotiations to enable Wickham to establish a rubber plantation.  He planted the seeds in Malaysia, and so began the British rubber industry. Wheteher this is true or not, Wickham was hated by the Brazilian rubber barons, and was knighted by King George V.  Perhaps that tells its own story!

 Before the First World War started in 1914, the Brazilian rubber boom had ended.   Production continued, but on a vastly reduced scale, and prices tumbled due to the competition.  There was a brief upsurge again after the Japanese occupation of Malaysia in the second World War, since rubber was essential to the war effort.  Once again Brazilian rubber became important, and the population were offered a uniform and a place in the Front against the Germans, or a job collecting rubber.  In 1945, however, it ended again.

The Amazon rubber boom is well and truly over, but Brazil still produces natural rubber.  The natural rubber industry has been badly hit by synthetic alternatives that are cheaper and also more suited to the uses for which they are designed, but the natural material is still used. The uses of natural rubber are mainly in tires and tubes, dentistry and belts and escalator treads. However, Brazil’s production in 1999 was only 55,000 tonnes, 0.8% of the world total.

What was once the world leader us now a second division supplier of the world’s natural rubber requirement.

Also check out The English Railroad Boom

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