The Thief at the End of the World

by Joe Jackson

  110. except for some woolen stockings and an “antiglare eyeshade” Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), p. 59.

  111. “It will be long before I cease to hear her voice in the garden” Hooker is quoted in “Jos. D. Hooker: Hooker’s Biography: 4. A Botanical Career.” www.jdhooker.org.uk. A good overview of Joseph Hooker’s life is also included in Faubion O. Bower, “Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker,1817-1911,” in Makers of British Botany: A Collection of Biographies by Living Botanists, ed. F. W. Oliver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913), p. 303.

  111. “nervous and high-strung . . . impulsive and somewhat peppery in temper” “Jos. D. Hooker: Hooker’s Biography: 4. A Botanical Career.” www.jdhooker.org.uk.

  111. “not recreational . . . rude romping and games” Ibid.

  112. “in a very dilapidated condition” William Scully’s Brazil; Its Provinces and Chief Cities (London, 1866), p. 358, and Franz Keller’s The Amazon and Madeira Rivers (Philadelphia, 1840), p. 40, are both quoted in E. Bradford Burns, “Manaus 1910: Portrait of a Boom Town,” Journal of Inter-American Studies, vol. 7, no. 3 (1965), p. 412.

  113. “What has happened? . . . Rubber has happened!” Anthony Smith, Explorers of the Amazon, p. 269.

  113. In the province of Pará alone Lucille H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), p. 147.

  115. “of every variety, from silks and satins to stuff gowns” Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz, A Journey in Brazil (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868), p. 280.

  115. Power reigned in the warehouses Henry C. Pearson, The Rubber Country of the Amazon; A Detailed Description of the Great Rubber Industry of the Amazon Valley, etc. (New York: India Rubber World, 1911), pp. 94-95.

  115. “Get rich, get rich!” they cried Richard Collier, The River that God Forgot: The Story of the Amazon Rubber Boom (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), p. 20.

  Chapter 6: The Return of the Planter

  119. Crisóstavo wrenched a rubber empire from the forest Michael Edward Stanfield, Red Rubber, Bleeding Trees: Violence, Slavery and Empire in Northwest Amazonia, 1850-1933 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), pp. 26-28.

  120. The São Paulo Railway Company, Ltd., operated a railway J. Fred Rippy, “A Century and a Quarter of British Investment in Brazil,” Inter-American Economic Affairs, 6:1 (Summer 1952), pp. 87-88.

  121. Englishmen bought stock in Brazilian mines, banks Ibid., p. 83.

  121. but in Latin America especially he often found himself thrust D. C. M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825 (Hamden, CT.: Archon Books, 1971), p. 16.

  121. “lower in dignity” Ibid., p. 1.

  122. One consul in Siam Ibid., p. 19.

  123. “The labour of extracting rubber is so small” James Drummond-Hay’s report is included in Henry Wickham’s Rough Notes, pp. 294-296.

  123. “The rubber-bearing country is so vast” Ibid., p. 296.

  123-24. It was one of the few excursions he’d made off the boat Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 2. Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies, Wolverhampton, England, in the records of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company (Great Britain) Ltd., ref. DB-20/G/6. The only mention of Henry’s stop is in Violet’s diary, written decades later. She notes in passing that Henry had met a “few American backwoods people . . . on a previous journey.” In Henry’s account, there is no mention of this; it is as if Santarém never existed.

  124. “I have come to the conclusion” Henry Wickham, Rough Notes, p. 138.

  124. “in remembrance of the many kindnesses” Ibid., frontispiece. Interestingly and ironically, the connection doesn’t end there. The Wickhams and the Drummond-Hays would be in time distantly related by marriage. Edward Drummond-Hay’s brother-in-law was Thomas Gott Livingstone, and in 1880, Livingston’s daughter Frances married Henry Wickham’s first cousin, the Rev. Alexander G. H. Lendrum. In Anthony Campbell, “The Descendants of Benjamin Wickham,” p. 4.

  124. Her name was Violet Case Carter Many accounts give her name as Violet Cave, but this is a mistake that seems traceable to Edward Lane’s articles of the 1950s and to a group photo in Santarém in 1875. She appears in the 1871 Census as “Violet C. Carter” (age 21, born London), resident at 12 Regent Street with her parents William H. J. Carter (age 55, born London, bookseller) and Patty Carter (age 46, born London). Source: 1871 Census of London, published online by Ancestry.com.uk, citing the 1871 Census of London, National Archives, Kew, RG10/133, ED 2, folio 30, page 17.

  125. set up his shop at 12 Regent Street Today 12 Regent Street is the site of the Economist Bookstore.

  126. Family lore suggests that Carter also subsidized many of Henry’s future adventures Edward V. Lane, “The Life and Work of Sir Henry Wickham—III: Santarem,” India Rubber Journal, vol. 125 (Dec. 26, 1953), p. 18.

  126. “Born within the sound of Bow Bells” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 1.

  126. “To be married is, with perhaps the majority of women, the entrance into life” W.G. Hamley, “Old Maids,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 112 (July 1872), p. 95, quoted in Pat Jalland and John Hooper, eds. Women from Birth to Death: The Female Life Cycle in Britain, 1830-1914 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1986), p. 126.

  126. “The general aim of English wives” E. J. Tilt, Elements of Health and Principles of Female Hygiene (London, 1852), pp. 258-261, quoted in Jalland and Hooper, Women from Birth to Death, p. 124.

  126. the “good wife” of Proverbs Proverbs 31:23.

  127. “The sense of national honour, . . . pride of blood” Catherine Hall, “Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century,” in Gender and Empire, Philippa Levine, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 46. Hall quotes Herman Merivale, Lectures on Colonization and Colonies (London, 1861), p. 675.

  127. A wife embodied the moral standards Beverly Gartrell, “Colonial Wives: Villains or Victims?” in The Incorporated Wife, Hilary Callan and Shirley Ardener, eds. (London: Croom Helm, 1984), pp. 165-185; Deborah Kirkwood, “Settler Wives in Southern Rhodesia: A Case Study,” in The Incorporated Wife, pp. 143-164.

  127. “tenderly preserve them, as the plantation of mankind” Samuel Solomon, A Guide to Health, 66th edition (1817), p. 131, in Jalland and Hooper, eds. Women from Birth to Death: The Female Life Cycle in Britain, 1830-1914, p. 32.

  128. “of independent means” The Census of 1871, quoted in Anthony Campbell, “Descendants of Benjamin Wickham, a Genealogy.”

  129. “was very like being dropped into deep water never having learned to swim” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 1.

  129. “a singular winged parasitical insect of a disgusting appearance” C. Barrington Brown and William Lidstone, Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its Tributaries (London: Edward Stanford, 1878), pp. 9-10.

  130. “They should be nearly square . . . soon lulling you off ” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 1.

  130. the Amazon stretches approximately 4,000-4,200 miles Michael Goulding, Ronaldo Barthem and Efrem Ferreira, The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2003), p. 23.

  131. the Amazon could supply in two hours all the water used by New York City’s 7.5 million residents each year Ibid., p. 28. The rationale is this: New York City consumes about 1.1 billion gallons daily, or nearly 4 trillion gallons a year.

  131. The valley itself . . . relentless, uncomprehendingthing The scope of the Amazon and the Amazon Basin are almost unimaginable, but the descriptions and statistics on it are from the following sources: Harald Sioli, “Tropical Rivers as Expressions of their Terrestrial Environments,” in Tropical Ecological Systems, Frank Golley and Ernesto Medina (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1975), pp. 275-288; Betty J. Meggers, Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971); John Melby, “Rubber River: An Account of the
Rise and Collapse of the Amazon Boom,” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 22, no. 3 (Aug. 1942), pp. 452-469; P. T. Bauer, The Rubber Industry, A Study in Competition and Monopoly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948); Goulding, Barthem, and Ferreira, The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2003).

  132. “We had a few people traveling with us 2nd class” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 1.

  132. “had received tidings that beyond the city of Quito” Von Hagen, South America Called Them, p. 5.

  133. “It was here that they informed us of the existence of the Amazons” Gaspar de Caraval, The Discovery of the Amazon: According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal and Other Documents, introduction by José Toribio Medina, trans. Bertram T. Lee (New York: American Geographical Society, 1934), p. 177.

  133. what the Indians themselves called theParanáquausú,or “Great River” William L. Schurz, “The Amazon, Father of Waters,” National Geographic (April 1926), p. 445.

  133. An estimated 332,000 people lived in this region, up from 272,000 a decade ago Arthur Cesar Ferreira Reis, “Economic History of the Brazilian Amazon,” in Man in the Amazon, Charles Wagley, ed. (Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1974), p. 39.

  134. “left us a north-east despoiled of its very rich forests” José Pedro de Oliveira Costa, “History of the Brazilian Forest: An Inside View,” Environmentalist, vol. 3, no. 5 (1983), p. 51.

  134. Between 1500 and 1800, the Americas sent to Europe £300 million in gold Edward J. Rogers, “Monoproductive Traits in Brazil’s Economic Past,” Americas, vol. 23, no. 2 (October 1966), p. 133.

  Chapter 7: The Jungle

  137. Some Santarém trading houses had branches Herbert H. Smith, Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast (New York: 1879), p. 118.

  137. “Sixty thousand bows can be sent forth from these villages alone” Jesuit Father Mauricio de Heriarta’s “Description of the State of Maranhão, Pará, Corupá, and the River of the Amazons” (1660) is quoted in Smith, Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast, p. 171.

  137. “that is the cause why they are feared of the other Indians” Ibid.

  138. They danced before the doors of the principal citizens Henry Walter Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazon, ch. 8 (New York, 1864), www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/sci/earthscience/TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazon.

  138. “All children were born free . . . a child sitting on their hip on the other side” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 2.

  139. “all made their house keeping (sic) money by sending out their slaves” Ibid.

  139. “no cases of gross cruelty tho’ you could often hear thepalmatoregoing” Ibid., p. 1.

  139. “a little Indian boy who had been given to H to bring up” Ibid., p. 5.

  140. “of an English pleasure ground” Richard Spruce, Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and the Andes, Alfred Russel Wallace, ed., 2 vols. (Cleveland, OH.: Arthur H. Clark, 1908), p. 66.

  140. “I had not gone far when my English saddle turned around” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 2.

  141. “beset with hard spines” Henry Walter Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazon, ch. 8 (New York, 1864), www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/sci/earthscience/TheNaturalistontheRiverAmazon.

  141. “undertook the most toilsome journeys on foot to gather a basketful” Ibid.

  142. “a world of eternal verdure and perennial spring” Eugene C. Harter, The Lost Colony of the Confederacy (Jackson, MI.: University Press of Mississippi, 1985), p. 26.

  142. “lean, hard men with their wives” Roy Nash, The Conquest of Brazil (New York: AMS Press, 1969, originally published 1926), p. 152; Mark Jefferson, “An American Colony in Brazil,” Geographical Review, vol. 18, no. 2 (April 1928), p. 228.

  143. where diamonds had been found years earlier David Afton Riker. O Último Confederado na Amazõnia (Brazil, 1983), p. 112. David Afton Riker is the son of the original David Riker (see page 167). He placed at the end of his own story his father’s handwritten memoirs of his days as a pioneering confederado.

  143. “we would never grow quite as they were” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 2.

  143. “white stockings and legs . . . a damper on my ideas of finery” Ibid.

  143. “Alas . . . I have grown as utterly careless” Ibid.

  143. Until 1997 . . . the plateau was as it had been in Henry’s day Steven Alexander, owner of Bosque Santa Lucia, an educational and botanical preserve that contains the area of the old confederado site, said that he has counted 200 species of tree in the preserve’s 270 acres. All information about Piquiá-tuba comes from an interview with Alexander on his preserve on October 9, 2005.

  144. Whywerethere so many trees? Peter Campbell, “Get Planting” (a review of The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter, by Colin Tudge), London Review of Books, Dec. 1, 2005, p. 32.

  144-45. “the deafening clamour of frogs” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 4.

  145. “not only weakening them . . . their combs as white as the rest of their bodies” Ibid., p. 5.

  145. “bathed in blood” Ibid.

  145. “other spots of electricity” Ibid., p. 4.

  145. the jaguar and the three men Spruce, Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and the Andes, pp. 122-123.

  146. Here on the Tapajós . . . and her breasts beneath her arms Algot Lange, The Lower Amazon: A Narrative of Exploration in the Little Known Regions of the State of Para,

  on the Lower Amazon, etc. (New York: Putnam’s, 1914), pp. 427-428.

  146. Henry Bates had come to know one named Cecilia Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazon, ch. 8.

  147. “fertile field” Lange, The Lower Amazon, p. 361.

  147. “till it looks like a gigantic green fringe” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 2.

  147. “While green it was pretty” Ibid.

  147. “started off early in the morning” Ibid., p. 3.

  148. “I get it burning, put on sauce pan” Ibid.

  148. “as tired, hot, and unrefreshed as before” Ibid.

  148. “attack the legs of bathers near the shore” Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazon, ch. 9.

  148. “ ‘temporary’ went on extending” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 3.

  149. “to save time with coming and going” Ibid.

  149. “and soon left us one after another” Ibid.

  149. an older man, as Violet suggests, though his age is unrecorded Ibid.

  150. “If she handled the morning ‘clinics’ and other encounters” Deborah Kirkwood, “Settler Wives in Southern Rhodesia: A Case Study,” in The Incorporated Wife, Hilary Callan and Shirley Ardener, eds. (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 151.

  150. “[A] readiness to interest herself in the health” Ibid.

  150. But more than by labor, Henry was defeated by the soil Betty J. Meggers, Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971), p. 18.

  150. A 1978 study of absorption showed that 99.9 percent of all calcium 45 Carl F. Jordan, “Amazon Rain Forests,” American Scientist, vol. 70, no. 4 (July-Aug. 1982), pp. 396-397.

  151. Soon afterward, the second, more terrible crisis Information on the deaths of Henry Wickham’s party comes from three sources: Henry Wickham, “Graves in the Confederate Cemetery” (a drawing); Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 3; Anthony Campbell, “Descendants of Benjamin Wickham,” p. 3.

  152. “We alone of the original party picked up” Violet Wickham, “Lady Wickham’s Diary,” p. 3.

  Chapter 8: The Seeds

  153. “a spur just off from the forest covered table highlands” The March 1872 letter from Wickham to Hooker is quoted in Dean, Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber, pp. 13-15.

  154. he followed up The date of the package to Kew is uncertain. Ibid., p. 13.

  155. “His drawings of the leaf
and seeds” Ibid., p. 15.

  156. “a Mr. Wickham, at Santarem, who may do the job” Ibid., p. 13.

  156. “with the view of afterwards sending the young plants out to India” Royal Botanic Gardens-Kew. Miscellaneous Reports: India Office: Caoutchouc I, “Letter May 7, 1873, from India Office to Director of Kew, J.D. Hooker, inquiring into possibility of sending Hevea plants to India after raising them from seeds at Kew,” file folder 2.

  156. “I have a correspondent at Santarem on the Amazon” Ibid., “Reply Hooker to India Office, May 15, 1873. Reply to May 7th letter,” file folder 4.

  156. But both letters were apparently misplaced Dean, Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber, p. 15.

  157. “quite fresh and in a state for planting” Ibid., p. 13.

  157. Since Farris had two thousand seeds, the Empire paid about twenty-seven dollars W. Gordon Whaley, “Rubber, Heritage of the American Tropics,” Scientific Monthly, vol. 62, no. 1 (Jan. 1946), p. 23.

  157. “I thought it important to secure them at once” Royal Botanic Gardens-Kew. Miscellaneous Reports: India Office: Caoutchouc I, “Letter from Clements Markham to J.D. Hooker, June 2, 1873, regarding the purchase by James Collins of 2000 Hevea seeds from a ‘Mr. Farris’ of Brazil,” file folder 5.

  157. the U.S. and French consulates had already made a bid Dean, Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber, p. 13.

  157. “Is that all you managed to shoot?” Farris’s tale to Lord Salisbury is recounted in F. W. Sadler, “Seeds That Began the Great Rubber Industry,” Contemporary Review, vol. 217, no. 1257 (Oct. 1970), pp. 208-209.

  157. “I would like to take this opportunity to place on official record” Ibid.

  157-58. “a gross attempt to impose . . . an utterly worthless report on Gutta Percha” Ibid.

  158. “glad to accept your offer to put me into communication” Ibid.

  158. “The Consul at Para has written to say” Royal Botanic Gardens-Kew. Miscellaneous Reports: India Office: Caoutchouc I, “Letter, Markham to J. D. Hooker. Sept. 23, 1873,” file folder 9.