Amazon Rubber Boom

AD – MPE: 0.14

ND – MPE: 0.04

Acoording to Rummel around 0.25 million indigenous people in the Amazon died as slaves during the Rubber Boom from 1879 to 1912. Javier Farje claims in a 2012 article for the “Latin American Bureau” called “The Putumayo Atrocities” that at least 0.1 million people have died during the brutal reign of the Anglo-Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company.

Peru was an advanced democracy at the time. Brazil was not. The rubber was mainly sold to Europe and North America, where it fuelled the Industrial Revolution.

Plausible estimates for the number of people killed by advanced democracies during the Rubber Boom range from 0.08 to 0.19 million. I choose 0.14 million as the most plausible estimate. Plausible estimates for the number of people killed by nondemocratic forces range from 0.02 to 0.08 million. I choose 0.04 million as the most plausible estimate.