Carlos Fitzcarrald

Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald López (6 July 1862 – 9 July 1897) was a Peruvian rubber baron. He was born in San Luis, Ancash, in a province that was later named after him. In the early 1890s, Fitzcarrald discovered the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald, which was a portage route from the Ucayali River into the Madre de Dios River basin. Fitzcarrald became known as the "King of Caucho" (natural rubber) due to his success during the rubber boom. His enterprise exploited and enslaved Asháninka, Mashco-Piro, Harákmbut, Shipibo-Conibo and other native groups, who were then dedicated to the extraction of rubber. In 1897, Fitzcarrald, along with his Bolivian business partner Antonio Vaca Díez, drowned in an accident on the Urubamba River.

Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald López was born as Isaías Fermín Fitzgerald, the eldest son of an Irish-American sailor and trader who married a Peruvian woman. Isaías's father and grandfather were American sailors. Isaías's grandfather, Williams Fitzgerald, was the captain of a sail boat and he drowned in a shipwreck. His son Williams Fitzgerald Jr. migrated to Peru and settled in San Luis de Huari. There he met Fermín Lopez, as well as his daughter, with whom Fitzgerald fell in love and married. The marriage resulted in seven children, whose names were: Isaías Fermín, Rosalía, Lorenzo, Grimalda, Delfín, Fernando, and Edelmira.

Williams Jr. prioritized the education of his firstborn, Isaías, ensuring that his son went to well-known schools in Peru, such as Colegio La Libertad de Huaraz and later in Lima at Liceo Peruano de Lima. Isaías was a distinguished student and his father encouraged Isaías to pursue a career as a sailor specializing in naval engineering. Williams planned to send Isaías to a nautical school in the United States around 1878. Before this, Williams encouraged Isaías to travel along the Marañón River to sell merchandise. The trip allowed Isaías to make a large profit from the cargo and familiarize himself with this relatively unexplored region of Peru.

During the business venture, in 1878, Isaías was severely wounded. The wound was so serious that newspapers in Huaraz and Lima reported that Isaías had perished. Isaías's father travelled to Llamellín to pay for the medical expenses and he died shortly afterwards. Isaías recovered for three months before travelling to San Luis de Huari to find better treatment and on the way back to his family, he was told that his father had died. Isaías decided to move away from his hometown and took his father's maps with him, which contained information about Amazonian regions of Peru.

Isaías went to Cerro de Pasco to join the military after finding out a war with Chile had broken out. He encountered a group of natives who had been tied up by soldiers, who were taking them to Pasco as "volunteers". Isaías protested, demanding the soldiers release the captives, who were complaining about mistreatment. The soldiers asked Isaías to produce identification; Isaías was not a citizen of Peru and had left his baptismal and school certificates at home. The soldiers found Isaías's father's maps and accusing him of being a Chilean spy. There was no proof of Isaías's identity for months until the day he was supposed to be executed. A man referred to as Fray (Friar) Carlos, who was due to administer the last rites, had met Isaías in San Luis. Fray Carlos did not recognize Isaías at first on account of sickness but recognized his story. During a confession, Fray Carlos was able to verify Isaías was the first-born son of Williams Fitzgerald Jr. Fray Carlos immediately declared under oath the prisoner indeed was Isaías Fermín and he was released. Isaías later changed his first name to Carlos because Fray Carlos had saved his life. Between 1878 and 1897, his last name was Hispanicized from Fitzgerald to Fiscarrald, which is now spelled Fitzcarrald. According to author Jean-Claude Roux, Isaías went to Loreto, in northern Peru, with the hope of making a fortune. Isaías disappeared from the historical record for 10 years and multiple rumors arose to explain his absence.

In 1888, Fray Carlos reported hearing of an Amachengua (reincarnation) of Inca Juan Santos Atahualpa. The white figure claimed the "Sun Father" had sent him with a message saying the tribes were to work together. The representative of the Sun to obey on Earth was said to be Carlos Fitzcarrald. Fitzcarrald threatened the natives and prophesied that the rivers would dry up and the game would be chased away if they did not listen to and obey his words. A missionary named Gabriel Sala described one method of entrapping the natives; a white figure would presented himself as the Amachengua, manipulate the natives into gathering at a specific location using threats or promises. Fitzcarrald employed around fifty men to greet natives and tell them the "Sun Father" wanted to be seen elsewhere. The natives were then coerced into canoes before travelling to the Ucayali River, then either the Iquitos or the Manu Rivers "so that they become slaves in any way, and never see their land again". According to Sala:

Fitzgerrald intelligently exploited the belief that the Campas [Asháninka] have that one day the Son of the Sun will come down from the sky. The rubber worker, to provide himself with pawns, sent emissaries to the nomadic tribes and scattered in the immensity of the jungle, with the slogan of making it known to his ears that in a certain place the Son of the Sun had appeared ...They used a surprising cunning to convince the Indians to abandon their freedom; by means of seductive words and gifts, they reduced them and fixed their tents on the banks of the rivers, to have them more at hand as cargo ships for collecting rubber or laborers for the cultivation of the chácaras.

By 1888, Fitzcarrald was already the richest rubber entrepreneur on the Ucayali River. In 1888, he visited Iquitos with a large quantity of rubber and many Asháninka servants. In the city, he visited Manuel Cardozo, the owner of a Brazilian rubber-exporting firm. There, he fell in love at first sight with Cardozo's stepdaughter Aurora Velazco, who was a widow. They soon married and Fitzcarrald entered a business partnership with Cardozo to extract rubber in the Ucayali. Fitzcarrald already had knowledge and links with the Asháninkas, Humaguacas, Cashivos and other tribes they could exploit to tap rubber. He made fun of rumors natives of the Ucayali were savage cannibals, stating someone wise made up the tale. Fitzcarrald's new coalition dominated trade and the rubber industry in the Atalaya area, which was near the confluence of the Tambo and Urubama rivers. Fitzcarrald also owned stations and outposts on the Tambo River. Many of the independent merchants around the Tambo and Ucayali rivers eventually began working with Fitzcarrald. By 1891, most of the Piro natives on the Urubamba River were indebted to Fitzcarrald.