Abstract
In 1914, in the middle Rio Negro region, many indigenous women were raped and cruelly murdered by a local boss, the merchant Diogo Gonçalves. The agent of the Indian Protection Service (SPI) on the river Marauiá, denounced the crimes in four letters sent to state and federal authorities in Manaus. The crimes have the background of the political economy of rubber, the emergence of the SPI, and the exploitation of the indigenous labor force in the Amazon, in the early twentieth century. This text presents the full and annotated transcription of the four documents, preceded by a brief presentation of their content and the context in which the crimes occurred.
Keywords
Amazon; Rubber boom; Violence; Indigenous peoples; Negro River
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