Migrant Workers and the Turtle Trade in the Brazilian Amazon at the Turn of the 20th Century

Between 1860 and 1910, the rapid growth of the Brazilian Amazonian gummiferous economy ignited an extraordinary commercial effervescence and populational growth particularly in today´s Acre, Amazonas and Pará. During the mentioned period, there was an increase in the demand for turtle in Manaus, one of Amazon’s most important urban centers, causing the local government to create and implement new policies to regulate the ever-growing capture of chelonians in the region. Turtle consumption has been traditionally linked to the culture and subsistence of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. In fact, turtle meat, eggs, shell and oil were present in the everyday life of the Mawé and Tapajó, for instance, for centuries. Nevertheless, this paper explores the role played by caboclo migrant workers engaged with the trade of turtles in shaping socioeconomic and political dynamics taking place in the capital of Amazonas at the turn of the twentieth century. Documents indicate that these migrants resisted the local government attempts to limit the capture of chelonians by promoting a public debate that pondered the place of perspectives on natural resource conservation and cultural tradition within that contemporary regional context of economic cycles of extractivism. This paper focuses on migrant workers involved with the turtle trade, and on the impact of their choices in the socioeconomic development of the city of Manaus throughout the Amazon rubber-boom period.