Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald López (6 July 1862 – 9 July 1897) was a

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

vian

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

. He was born in San Luis, Ancash.

Rubber baron

Fitzcarrald was the eldest son of an Irish-American sailor who later became a trader and married a Peruvian wife. He became established as a rubber baron in the late 19th century. Determined to find a way to transport rubber out of the

Madre de Dios region Madre de Dios (, en, Mother of God) is a department and region in southeastern Peru, bordering Brazil, Bolivia and the Peruvian departments of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali, in the Amazon Basin. Its capital is the city of Puerto Maldonado. It is als ...

, he exploited native workers. He forced them under pain of death to dismantle and transport a ship over a mountain during the turn-of-the-20th-century

rubber boom The Amazon rubber boom ( pt, Ciclo da borracha, ; es, Fiebre del caucho, , 1879 to 1912) was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related to the extraction and comm ...

in the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

.Dan James Pantone, PhD., "The Myth of Fitzcarraldo"
''Iquitos News and Travel'', 2004-2006 Starting in 1894, he explored the Madre de Dios region of BAP Fitzcarrald in

Lake Sandoval Lake Sandoval is a lake in Peru, close to the city of Puerto Maldonado, part of the Madre de Dios in the Amazon basin. There is a touristic hike from the river Madre de Dios to the lake. On the way if you're lucky, you might see parrots, macaws ...

, Madre de Dios, Peru. He founded the City of

Puerto Maldonado Puerto Maldonado () is a city in southeastern Peru in the Amazon rainforest west of the Bolivian border, located at the confluence of the Tambopata and Madre de Dios rivers. The latter river joins the Madeira River as a tributary of the Amazo ...

and explored the area that is now the Manu Biosphere Reserve. To achieve this, it was necessary to transport his steam ship piece by piece over the mountains to the

Madre de Dios basin Madre means mother in many Romance languages, and it may also refer to: *Madré, a commune in the Mayenne department of northwestern France *Mądre, a village in the Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland *Isola Madre, an Italian islan ...

. Fitzcarrald discovered a short passage overland between the Mishagua River, a tributary of the Urubamba, and the

Manu Manu may refer to: Geography * Manú Province, a province of Peru, in the Madre de Dios Region **Manú National Park, Peru ** Manú River, in southeastern Peru * Manu River (Tripura), which originates in India and flows into Bangladesh *Manu Tem ...

, a tributary of the Madre de Dios River. The former leads into the

Ucayali River The Ucayali River ( es, Río Ucayali, ) is the main headstream of the Amazon River. It rises about north of Lake Titicaca, in the Arequipa region of Peru and becomes the Amazon at the confluence of the Marañón close to Nauta city. The city of ...

. The

Isthmus of Fitzcarrald An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...

was later named after him, as discovery of this route enabled transport of rubber from the Madre de Dios region. It was transferred to ships on the Mishagua, which could reach the Urubamba, the

and thereby down the Amazon to markets and Atlantic ports for export. Fitzcarrald-ishtmus istmo-fitz-carrall fitzcarraldo-path-street-crossing-peru

Fitzcarrald-ishtmus istmo-fitz-carrall fitzcarraldo-path-street-crossing-peru

His expeditions into the Madre de Dios region are considered to be the root of the modern-day divide between the local Yine and

Mashco Piro The Mashco-Piro or Mascho Piro, also known as the Cujareño people and Nomole, are an indigenous tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers who inhabit the remote regions of the Amazon rainforest. They live in Manú National Park in the Madre de Dios Re ...

peoples. The Yine are the descendants of the natives that Fitzcarrald forced to work for him, while the Mascho are the descendants of the natives that fled following Fitzcarrald's arrival. He died at age 35 together with his Bolivian business partner when their ship ''Contamana'' sank in Urubamba in an accident.

Legacy

* The Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald Province was named after him. *

has a place to view the sunken remains of Fitzcarrald's steam ship, the ''Contamana,'' which is located in the Madre de Dios River. * Fitzcarrald's disassembly and transport over a mountainous jungle land bridge, as well as his exploits inspired director and writer

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with un ...

's film ''

Fitzcarraldo ''Fitzcarraldo'' () is a 1982 West German epic adventure-drama film written, produced and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be rubber baron, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is ...

'' (1982), which symbolizes the extremes generated during the rubber boom, and takes Fitzcarrald's symbolic transport of a disassembled ship to an explicit hyperbole by dragging an entire steamboat over a mountain.

References

1862 births 1897 deaths People from Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald Province Peruvian people of American descent Peruvian people of Irish descent Peruvian businesspeople Explorers of Amazonia Deaths due to shipwreck {{Peru-business-bio-stub

Rubber baron

Legacy

See also

References