The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Not even Henry Ford got it right in the Amazon
In northern Brazil, Chris Moss journeys to the rubber workers’ haven of Fordlândia – the car magnate’s idealistic venture that never took root
Looking up at the ceiling of the Paz theatre in Belém’s old town I thought I could see pink river dolphins. Maybe it was a touch of heat stroke. It wasn’t yet 9.30am and it was sweltering. It would soon be 35C – with a “feels like” temperature of over 40C. The city, at the mouth of the Amazon and just 1.5 degrees from the equator, is always sultry, but summer had come early. I was seeing as much as possible before the real heat slammed home around lunchtime.
Belém, capital of Pará state, was beautified during the rubber boom of 1880 to 1912. There’s grandeur everywhere, much of it weathered and worn. But the theatre is particularly well-preserved. Artists had smuggled in local allusions. Wavy brown mosaics in the foyer symbolised the silty river; frescoes showed an indigenous girl spurning European “science”; cherubs had the particoloured wings of jungle birds.
I had lunch at the old docks, built in 1909 with English iron. Next door, the Ver-o-Peso, the biggest market in Latin America, is still a place to trade tropical fruits, meat and fish. I visited the blindingly white cathedral and the Cirio basilica, respectively refurbished and built during the belle époque. The rubber barons’ request to be buried in the latter church – to get a foot in the door despite their sinful lives, immense wealth and slaves – was rejected, but their surnames adorn the ceiling.
I liked Belém, with its Portuguese-tiled buildings, riverside heave and hustle, mangrove park with scar- let ibises and iguanas. But I had come to chase a human story – and not near the Atlantic but deep in the forest, down one of the tributaries of the Amazon. I had come to visit the former rubber town of Fordlândia.
Why? Curiosity mainly. But the Amazon’s destruction is one of the great tragedies of our time. A past effort to colonise it might offer insights. I recently returned to live in my native Lancashire, and have seen many industrial ruins. They are saddening, evocative – and they matter to people, and history.
Henry Ford decided to establish a rubber plantation in Brazil in 1928, as he was retooling his production lines to manufacture the Model A which he hoped would rival the new cars being made by the upstart General Motors. Firestone had taken charge of rubber in Liberia. Dunlop and other British firms dominated in Malaya. Ford went to the source: the Hevea brasiliensis tree. He would build a town beside the Rio Tapajós. He would send ships and his best men. He would pay local tappers honest wages. By late 1929, thousands of seedlings had been planted. After that, it all got a bit complicated.
From Belém I flew an hour west to Santarém, another steamy riverside town, with a wedding-cake church, market, ferry port and fish restaurants. Since 2003, it has been the local base for Cargill, the Minnesota-headquartered American firm that has turned millions of acres of Amazon rainforest into dusty soya fields.
Before going to Fordlândia I was taken by local guide-and-driver Paulo to visit a later development. Belterra was suggested by plant pathologist James Weir, mainly so that he could take credit for an exciting new venture. I wasn’t expecting much. I knew it hadn’t prospered as a commercial venture. I knew how the Amazon weather caused buildings to crumble and decay. But, thanks to conservation efforts and the quality of the original constructions, much of the old town was in good shape. The houses on Street Number One – also known as “salaried-workers street” – had smart gables, shady verandas, beautiful gardens, and their clapperboards were still painted in regulation white and green – like the ones Ford had built in company towns in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
At Belterra’s small museum I met Antonio di Castro, who had just written a history of Fordlândia and Belterra. We chatted for over an hour and he showed me black-and-white photographs of plantation workers and ancient Ford cars repurposed as work vehicles. Exhibits included latex-gathering tools, a zinc bucket, old phones and computers and oil lamps.
I mentioned the well-tended houses and Ford’s interest in gardening as good for workers’ spirits – not least to keep them out of the bars and brothels. “Doña Clara gave out prizes to the best gardens in Belterra,” said Antonio, referring to Henry Ford’s wife. Holding out a fistful of rubber seeds, he shot me a sly smile and pronounced the name Henry Wickham. He was notorious in