somanlu jul dez 2006.pmd - Eventos - Ufam

“Soldiers” and citizens in the rainforest: Brazilian rubber tappers...
as coercive to their advantage. Still, debt was the most common source of conflict
as tappers sought ways to moderate, challenge or avoid its excesses
(WEINSTEIN, 1983, p. 22-25).
Patrões did use violence or the threat of violence to block tappers from
trading with interloping merchants, with the worst type of brutality typically found
in caucho, rather than hevea extraction. Physical punishment was used to discipline
wayward seringueiros, with the most notorious form entailing tying tappers to a tree
trunk and whipping them. Written accounts corroborate such physical abuse, although
it is difficult to ascertain how widespread it was. 20 In a 1943 investigation by a
government official in Acre into conditions at the Seringal João de Iracema in Xapuri,
José Jefferson de Andrade noted that the “Syrian” owner João Esteves constantly
threatened his seringueiros when they failed to “submit to his will (exploitation), even
going so far as to fire five shots from his revolver at one of them, and enjoying
impunity, as well as other forms of aggression.” 21
Seringalista brutality, however, also risked “betrayal” by workers who might
trade with other merchants, destroy trees and property, revolt, or flee, thereby forcing
the owner to invest in placing new workers. 22 During the battle for rubber, bosses
repeatedly complained of deadbeat tappers or would-be tappers who fled after
they had received advances. Patrões in the hevea regions thus had economic
motivations for promoting a more durable relationship with tappers and avoiding
unnecessary violence.
The paternalism of the boss was an important factor cementing social relations
in the seringais. Bosses sought to weave paternalistic bonds through godparentage,
the extension of credit (particularly during times of need), and the sponsorship of
religious festivals on holy days (WOLFF, 1999, p. 203). In remote, insalubrious regions,
the benevolence of the boss could literally be a matter of life or death. Thus, Raul
Vilhena authorized his supplier, the large commercial firm J.G. Araújo in Manaus, to
pay for treatment of one of his “customers,” José Bezerra, who had fallen ill and
could not extract balata. Vilhena told the Araújo firm to debit the expenses from his
account, and in fact Bezerra was interned at the Beneficiência hospital in Manaus. 23
As in most clientelist systems, however, there was little institutional or legal
recourse to rein in abuse by the bosses, or for that matter by the tappers. Unscrupulous,
desperate, or insolvent bosses clearly could or did not live up to the paternalist ideal,
particularly if they believed that their “customers” had violated the pact by selling to
48 Somanlu, ano 6, n. 2, jul./dez. 2006