The Japurá River or Caquetá River is a long
river
A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...
in the
Amazon basin
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, 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 ...
. It rises in Colombia and flows eastward through Brazil to join the
Amazon River.
Course
The river rises as the Caquetá River in the
Andes
The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...
in southwest
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
.
The Caquetá River rises near the sources of the
Magdalena River
The Magdalena River (, ; less commonly ) is the main river of Colombia, flowing northward about through the western half of the country. It takes its name from the biblical figure Mary Magdalene. It is navigable through much of its lower reaches, ...
, and augments its volume from many branches as it courses through Colombia.
It flows southeast into
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
, where it is called the Japurá. The Japurá enters the
Amazon River through a network of channels. It is navigable by small boats in Brazil.
West of the
Rio Negro, the
Solimões River
Solimões () is the name often given to upper stretches of the Amazon River in Brazil from its confluence with the Rio Negro upstream to the border of Peru. The Solimões flows for about 1,600 km (1,000 miles) through a floodplain about 80 km ...
(as the Amazon's upper Brazilian course is called) receives three more imposing streams from the northwest—the Japurá, the
Içá
The Putumayo River or Içá River (, ) is one of the tributary, tributaries of the Amazon River, southwest of and parallel to the Japurá River.
Course
The Putumayo River forms part of Colombia's border with Ecuador, as well as most of the Ecuado ...
(referred to as the Putumayo before it crosses over into
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
), and the
Napo.
[
]
Brazilian Course
On the border with Brazil, it meets the long Apaporis River (which is 1,370 km long when combined with one of its sources, the Tunia River), near the town of La Pedrera. It then enters Brazilian territory, in the Amazon, where it is known as the Japurá River. In its lower course, it is joined by the Auati Paraná and Mirim Pirajuana rivers (the latter is sometimes considered a secondary branch, or a dead or backwater of the river).
The Caquetá-Japurá is a "white water" river, which, like all rivers descending from the Andes, carries a significant alluvial load that it partly deposits when joining the Solimões (Amazon) River on its left bank. This is why the accumulated sediments on the banks have shaped a complex mouth that stretches for several hundred kilometers. Firstly, the Japurá receives a long bifurcation from the Solimões itself and then drains into it through a main mouth located opposite the city of Tefé. However, a secondary branch, the Paraná Copea, continues its winding course until it rejoins the Solimões River 300 km downstream. This multiple confluence (resembling a very elongated delta) complicates the measurement of the length of the Caquetá-Japurá, which varies, depending on the method used, from 2200 to 2800 km, especially because the boundaries between the basins of other tributaries and sub-tributaries of the Amazon system are unclear in this flat, flooded, and swampy area. Some tributaries of the Japurá River originate very close to the Solimões River (Auati Paraná River), and some tributaries of the Negro River arise near the Japurá (Uneiuxi, Cuiuni, and Unini rivers), with connections and bifurcations between them during flood seasons.
Although the Caquetá/Japurá is a broad and voluminous river, the existence of numerous rapids throughout its course has significantly hindered navigation.
History
Slave raids against the indigenous people of the Caqueta/Japurá River valley had persisted for at least 100 years prior to Roger Casement
Roger David Casement (; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during World War I. He worked for the Britis ...
's investigation of the Putumayo genocide
The Putumayo genocide () refers to the severe exploitation and subsequent ethnocide of the Indigenous population in the Putumayo region.
The booms of raw materials incentivized the exploration and occupation of uncolonised land in the Amazon by ...
in 1910. While citing a book published by English lieutenant Henry Lister Maw, Casement noted that these slave raids had been continued by Brazilian and Portuguese men. The territory of the Peruvian Amazon Company extended between the Putumayo and Japurá Rivers during the rubber boom.
Many of the indigenous nations between these rivers were enslaved by the Peruvian Amazon Company, which was originally founded by the Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana
Julio César Arana del Águila, (April 12, 1864 – September 7, 1952) was a Peruvian entrepreneur and politician who committed crimes against humanity such as slavery, torture and genocide.
A major figure in the rubber industry in the upper ...
. Near the Caqueta River, the Andoque, Boras, Muinane, Manuya, Recigaro and other nations were forced to extract rubber at the Peruvian Amazon Company's stations. The Andoque workforce was largely based around the Matanzas rubber station, managed by the infamous Armando Normand
. The Boras people were primarily dedicated to rubber extraction around the stations of Abisinia, Santa Catalina and La Sabana correspondingly managed by Abelardo Agüero, Arístides Rodríguez and his brother Aurelio. Several writers that were contemporary to the rubber boom, including Roger Casement, noted that the Boras and Andoques nations were more resistant to enslavement and attempts by rubber tappers to conquer them. Joseph R. Woodroffe believed that their resistance resulted in those two indigenous nations suffering the most under the Peruvian Amazon Company's management and the near extinction of those two groups by 1910. Hundreds of indigenous people died while subjected to the Peruvian Amazon Company agents at Matanzas, La Sabana and Santa Catalina.
Environment
For much of its length the river flows through the Purus várzea ecoregion.
The river is home to a wide variety of fish and reptiles, including enormous catfish
Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...
weighing up to and measuring up to in length, electric eel
The electric eels are a genus, ''Electrophorus'', of neotropical freshwater fish from South America in the family Gymnotidae, of which they are the only members of the subfamily Electrophorinae. They are known for their electric fish, ability ...
s, piranha
A piranha (, or ; ) is any of a number of freshwater fish species in the subfamily Serrasalminae, of the family Serrasalmidae, in the order Characiformes. These fish inhabit South American rivers, floodplains, lakes and reservoirs. Although ...
s, turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...
s, and caiman
A caiman ( (also spelled cayman) from Taíno language, Taíno ''kaiman'') is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family (biology), family, the other being alligators. ...
s.
Much of the jungle
jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past century.
Etymology
The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaṅgala'' ...
through which the eastern Caquetá originally flowed has been cleared for pasture, crops of rice
Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...
, corn
Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...
, manioc
''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...
, and sugar cane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...
, and in the past two decades, particularly coca
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. Coca leaves contain cocaine which acts as a mild stimulant when chewed or ...
crops.
Navigation
The 19th-century Brazilian historian and geographer José Coelho da Gama e Abreu, the Baron of Marajó, attributed of navigable stretches to it. Jules Crevaux
Jules Crevaux (1847–1882) was a French medical doctor, soldier, and explorer. He is known for his multiple explorations into the interior of French Guiana and the Amazon.
Biography
Jules Crevaux was born on April 1, 1847, in the north-eas ...
, who descended it, described it as full of obstacles to navigation, the current very strong and the stream frequently interrupted by rapids and cataracts.[ It was initially supposed to have eight mouths, but colonial administrator Francisco Xavier Ribeiro Sampaio, in the historic report of his voyage of 1774, determined that there was but one real mouth, and that the supposed others are all ''furos'' or ''canos'',][ as the diverting secondary channels of the Amazonian rivers are known.
In 1864–1868, the Brazilian government made a somewhat careful examination of the Brazilian part of the river, as far up as the rapid of Cupati.][ Several very easy and almost complete water routes exist between the Japurá and Negro across the low, flat intervening country.][ The Baron of Marajó wrote that there were six of them, and one which connects the upper Japurá with the Vaupés branch of the Negro; thus the indigenous tribes of the respective valleys have easy contact with each other.][
The river serves as a principal means of transportation, being plied by tiny ]dugout canoe
A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed-out tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' (tr ...
s, larger ones, motorboat
A motorboat or powerboat is a boat that is exclusively powered by an engine; faster examples may be called "speedboats".
Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the inter ...
s, and riverboat
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury ...
s known locally as ''lanchas''. The boats carry a multitude of cargoes, sometimes being chartered, sometimes even being traveling general stores. In the Colombian section, the presence of guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...
s and soldiers used to limit river traffic.
In Popular Culture
* The Japurá River is the namesake of the main Earth Federation base in the Mobile Suit Gundam
, also retrospectively known as ''First Gundam'', ''Gundam 0079'' or simply ''Gundam '79'', is a Japanese anime television series produced by Nippon Sunrise. Created and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, it premiered in Japan on Na ...
television series, transliterated as "Jaburo."
See also
*Caquetá Department
Caquetá Department () is a department of Colombia. Located in the Amazonas region, Caquetá borders with the departments of Cauca and Huila to the west, the department of Meta to the north, the department of Guaviare to the northeast, th ...
References
Bibliography
*
External links
Environmental information of Colombian Amazon region
{{DEFAULTSORT:Japura River
Rivers of Amazonas (Brazilian state)
Rivers of Colombia
Tributaries of the Amazon River
International rivers of South America