The Infernal Tambopata
British Slavery in Twentieth-Century Peru and Bolivia
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Liverpool University Press
Publishing:13th Nov '26
£120.00
This title is due to be published on 13th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Ebook available to libraries exclusively as part of the JSTOR Path to Open initiative.
The Infernal Tambopata tells the story of a British-owned rubber company on the Peruvian–Bolivian frontier in the early twentieth century that, despite abolition decades earlier, systematically enslaved indigenous people.
Drawing on extensive unpublished company records, diplomatic correspondence and contemporary eyewitness accounts, it reconstructs how the Tambopata Rubber Syndicate recruited, confined and exploited its workforce under conditions of extreme violence, deprivation and coertion.
The book challenges persistent narratives that portray the “Rubber Boom” as socially benign, and reconsiders long-standing assumptions about British opposition to slavery. It reveals how British capital, commercial interests and diplomacy were all implicated in the creation and maintenance of brutally coercive labour regimes.
Combining meticulous archival research with a compelling narrative, The Infernal Tambopata recovers the lived experience of enslaved people and offers a powerful reappraisal of the human cost of the rubber industry. It also shows how forms of slavery persisted into the modern world, and why this history matters for understanding exploitation in today’s extractive industries.
‘The Infernal Tambopata represents a major point of departure in the historiography of the rubber industry in the South America. The quality of the research is exhaustive. Every paragraph is packed with evidence and detail, and every angle and avenue has been explored across a remarkable range of subject areas: legislative, juridical, financial, medical, botanical, ethnographic, linguistic... This is a study that cannot be ignored. It should inform political debates and popular discourses around historical human rights abuses, modern slavery, reparations, and restorative justice.’
Dr Jane-Marie Collins, University of Nottingham
‘The Infernal Tambopata lives up to its name. Drawing on the internal records of the Tambopata Rubber Syndicate – a British company whose directors would go on to govern the Bank of England – this meticulously researched work reconstructs the hidden machinery of the rubber industry in the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon… The Infernal Tambopata is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how extractive capitalism, European colonialism, and state complicity shaped one of the darkest – and least documented – chapters in Amazonian history.’
Dr Lorena Córdoba, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy & CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council), Buenos Aires, Argentina
'This is a remarkable work of historical scholarship that compels us to rethink what we know about the Amazon rubber boom and Britain's role within it. The horrors of the Putumayo atrocities are known and have long stood as one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Amazon rubber boom. Yet the prevailing narrative has often portrayed these crimes as the isolated excesses of a single company rather than evidence of a broader system of exploitation. Drawing on diaries, correspondence, and company records, this groundbreaking study challenges that assumption. [...] By reconstructing life at the Tambopata Rubber Syndicate's remote barracas with exceptional archival precision, the book restores the voices and experiences of Indigenous workers while exposing the human cost of imperial capitalism. Rich in archival detail and compelling in its human focus, this book transforms our understanding of British participation in Amazonian rubber extraction. A major contribution to the histories of empire, capitalism, Indigenous peoples, and human rights, it compels readers to confront the enduring human costs of imperial commerce.' Dr Silvia Escanilla Huerta, University of Maryland Baltimore County
ISBN: 9781805969426
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages