Roraima: Brazil's northernmost frontier by John Hemming - SAS-Space

were seedy, its houses tumbledown. 'Most of the inhabitants seemed to have
no occupation of any kind, being caught up in the vicious circle of semi-starvation
which makes people too apathetic to exert themselves for more.
Perhaps they picked up a few casual wages during the flood season when
boats ran from Manaus fairly frequently and the ranchers came in for stores
and needed labour for shipping their cattle. All the time I was there I scarcely
saw anyone except the school teacher earn anything - or spend anything....
The thousand-odd inhabitants spent the day lying indoors in their hammocks
and the evenings squatting on their doorsteps gossiping.... Everyone looked
ill and discontented. There was not a fat man or woman anywhere. The
women, in fact, led an even drearier life than the men. They had no household
possessions to care for, no cooking to do, they left their children to
sprawl about the streets naked or in rags. They were pretty - very small and
thin, small boned and with delicate features... [The men] are naturally
homicidal by inclination, and every man, however poor, carries arms; only
the universal apathy keeps them from frequent bloodshed. There were no
shootings while I was there; in fact there had not been one for several
months, but I lived all the time in an atmosphere that was novel to me, where
murder was always in the air.' 34
Transport
The most serious constraint on the growth of Roraima's cattle industry was
difficulty of transport. The region had no roads, only trails, and ranchers
relied on moving their animals by river. The only route for cattle exports to
Manaus and Amazonas was down the Rio Branco. Coudreau said that in
1885 forty boats a year went down the great river, each carrying between fifteen
and thirty-five animals - an annual total of about a thousand head. The
German traveller Grupe y Thode described these as 'large heavy boats
which have great difficulty passing the rapids of the Rio Branco, and then go
on to Manaus in an even longer and harder journey'. 35
The round trip to Manaus took three months and was very tough. Sails
could be used only when there was a following wind, which tended to be on
the descent of the Branco and ascent of the Negro. Otherwise, motive power
came from the crew of six men, four of whom were Indians. They worked
with paddles, oars, poles, ropes, pulleys and capstans to heave the batalhao
up against the current. It would return with a cargo of coffee, sugar, paraffin,
tools, guns, cloth and the many manufactured items unobtainable on the
upper river - unless people traded with British Guiana, as Stradelli said they
did. Once the boat reached the rapids on the return journey, its cargo had to
be unloaded and carried round overland while the boat itself was hauled
over the rocks and raging current with hawsers of piagaba fibre. Conditions
improved after the first decade of the twentieth century, when steam
replaced human power.
Ever since the first Portuguese occupation of the upper Rio Branco, the