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The Rubber Soldiers were an army of 55,000 men from the Brazilian
northeast, who were sent to the Amazon basin to harvest rubber for
the Allied War effort under an agreement between Brazil and the US.
Approximately 26,000 of these men died in the Amazon of malaria,
yellow fever, and other jungle afflictions. Many of the original
tappers are still alive, now in their late nineties, and living in
slums in major Amazonian cities, still awaiting compensation. This
book proves the US did pay for the rubber, contrary to common
belief in Brazil that they did not. The book also shows that the
Allied air bases on Brazil's northeastern coast were critical in
defeating the Germans in North Africa, and containing the German
U-boat effort in the south Atlantic. This aspect of WWII has rarely
been reported and yet it may have been one of the most important
events of the war.
When construction of the Madeira-Mamore Railroad began in 1867,
Bolivia had lost its war with Chile, causing it to become
landlocked and unable to ship its minerals and other products from
the Pacific Coast. Since Bolivia needed to find a way to move
products from the Atlantic Coast, the government decided a railroad
should be built around the Madeira River-which originates in
Bolivia and travels almost 2,000 miles through Brazil to the
Amazon-facilitating shipment to foreign markets via the Amazonian
waterway. Completion of the railroad was initially stalled by lack
of funding, but the project was resurrected in the early twentieth
century and completed in 1912. Intended as an integral piece of the
rubber export industry, the railroad became unnecessary once the
world supply of rubber moved from Brazil to Asia. Although there
have been many brief chronicles and writings about the
Madeira-Mamore Railroad over the years, most barely scratch the
surface of this incredible story. Of particular import in Tracks in
the Amazon are the photographs-which until now have rarely been
seen-taken by Dana Merrill, a New York photographer hired to
document the construction of the railroad. It also includes
reproductions of the Porto Velho Marconigram, an English-language
newspaper written for and by the American expatriates who lived in
the construction headquarters at Porto Velho. Because this unique
railroad traversed the densest tropical jungle on earth, more than
10,000 workers lost their lives laying the first five miles of
track. The images and descriptions of the life of the workers on
the railroad illustrate the challenges of working in the
jungles-the unforgiving climate, malaria and yellow fever bearing
mosquitoes, and the threat of wild animals-which made conditions
for the workers next to impossible.
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