somanlu jul dez 2006.pmd - Eventos - Ufam

“Soldiers” and citizens in the rainforest: Brazilian rubber tappers...
producing tapper was engraved with the image of “the oozing rubber tree whose
precious latex will help to redeem humanity”(ACA, 1943, p. 12).
ACA first announced the rubber tapping contest in June 1943. In one of
the many mobilizational campaigns undertaken on the homefront by President
Getúlio Vargas, June had been designated “National Rubber Month” – at the
urging of United States officials who were eager to boost raw latex production
and the collection of scrap rubber for the war effort. From thousands of bulletins
distributed by ACA to the mayors of the state’s far-flung municipalities came
the announcement of the yearlong rubber contest with the appeal: “Attention,
seringueiros (rubber tappers) of Amazonas: only your work, seringueiro, undertaken
with good will, energy, and decisiveness can ensure rubber for our army and
armies of the other nations that are fighting against Germany and Italy” (ACA,
1944a, p. 91).
These wartime tappers formed part of a broad Brazilian-American
campaign – underwritten by the U.S. government – to supply rubber for the
Allies through the mobilization of local tappers and the mass migration of
Brazilians from the northeastern region (nordestinos) to the labor-scarce Amazonian
rainforest. In a patriotic flourish, the Vargas regime deemed the “tappers soldiers”
(soldados da borracha) engaged in the “battle for rubber.” With financing from the
U.S. Rubber Development Corporation – RDC, the Brazilian government
organized the Serviço Especial de Mobilização dos Trabalhadores para a Amazônia
– SEMTA, which under the terms of an agreement of December 22, 1942,
pledged to transport 50,000 laborers from northeastern Brazil to the Amazon
by the end of May 1943. 2 In a subsequent agreement the RDC agreed to finance
the operations of the Superintendência do Vale Amazônico – SAVA, responsible
for receiving and caring for workers upon their arrival in the Amazon as well as
transporting them to recruitment camps in the rainforest. An extensive public
health program was also undertaken in the Amazon, funded by the Office of
the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, to tend to the health of the tappers.
Through its relevant agencies, the Brazilian government assumed full
responsibility for the social welfare and health of the tappers, although the
Rubber Development Corporation was entitled to coordinate and monitor these
efforts. Brazilian and U.S. wartime print media, radio, and film trumpeted state
efforts to uplift the Amazon and its population.
38 Somanlu, ano 6, n. 2, jul./dez. 2006