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The Peruvian Amazon Company: An Accounting Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2022

Stephen P. Walker
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Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the operations of the Peruvian Amazon Company through an accounting lens. It is suggested that a focus on asset categories augments our knowledge of the company’s exploitation of the land and Indigenous peoples of Amazonia. In particular, the study explores the PAC’s questionable ownership of estates in the Putumayo, what its approach to valuing those estates implied about enslavement, how its treatment of “expenses of conquest” and the inclusion of armaments on the balance sheet indicated the forced subjugation of labor, and how the classification of rubber collectors and their Barbadian overseers as debtors further suggests the practice of debt peonage. Although the findings affirm the utilization of accounting as a facilitator of subjugation, it is shown that in the hands of humanitarians such as Roger Casement, accounting could also be deployed in the pursuit of emancipation.

Keywords

accountingextractive industriesLatin Americaslavery
Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 281 - 306
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Cutforth, Arthur E. Audits. London: Gee, 1908Google Scholar
Dawson, Sidney S. The Accountant’s Compendium. London: Gee & Co, 1911.Google Scholar
Dean, Warren. Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Dicksee, Lawrence R. Advanced Accounting. London: Gee & Co., 1903.Google Scholar
Dicksee, Lawrence R. Auditing: A Practical Manual for Auditors. 7th ed. London: Gee & Co., 1907.Google Scholar
Dicksee, Lawrence R. Auditing: A Practical Manual for Auditors. 13th ed. London: Gee & Co., 1924.Google Scholar
Edwards, John R. A History of Corporate Financial Reporting in Britain. London: Routledge, 2019.Google Scholar
Fear, Jeffrey. R. Organizing Control: August Thyssen and the Construction of German Corporate Management. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Gallhofer, Sonja, and Haslam, Jim. Accounting and Emancipation: Some Critical Interventions. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Goodman, Jordan. The Devil and Mr. Casement. London: Verso, 2009.Google Scholar
Hardenburg, Walter E. The Putumayo, the Devil’s Paradise. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1913.Google Scholar
Hatfield, Henry R. Modern Accounting: Its Principles and Some of its Problems. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1920.Google Scholar
Head, David. Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Hecht, Susanna B. The Scramble for the Amazon and the “Lost Paradise” of Euclides da Cunha. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. London: Picador, 2019.Google Scholar
Inglis, Brian. Roger Casement. Belfast, IE: Blackstaff Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Kettle, Sir R. Deloitte & Co, 1845–1956 . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Angus, ed. The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement. London: Anaconda Editions Ltd, 1997.Google Scholar
Nugent, Stephen L. The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Rubber Industry. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018.Google Scholar
Pixley, Francis W., ed. The Accountant’s Dictionary. London: New Era Publishing, 1930.Google Scholar
Reid, Benjamin L. The Lives of Roger Casement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Caitlin. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Thomson, Norman. The Putumayo Red Book. London: N. Thomson & Co, 1914.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Barbara. The Amazon Rubber Boom 1850–1920. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Alston, Lee J., Mattiace, Shannon, and Nonnenmacher, Tomas. “Coercion, Culture, and Contracts: Labor and Debt on Henequen Haciendas in Yucatán, Mexico, 1870–1915.” Journal of Economic History 69, no. 1 (2009): 104–137.Google Scholar
Annisette, Marcia. “Race and Ethnicity.” In The Routledge Companion to Accounting History, edited by Edwards, John R. and Walker, Stephen P., 530–552. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Apostol, Oana M. “A Project for Romania? The Role of the Civil Society’s Counter-Accounts in Facilitating Democratic Change in Society.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 28, no. 2 (2015): 210–241.Google Scholar
Barham, Bradford, and Coomes, Oliver. “Wild Rubber: Industrial Organisation and the Microeconomics of Extraction during the Amazon Rubber Boom (1860–1920).” Journal of Latin American Studies 26, no. 1 (1994): 37–72.Google Scholar
Bauer, Arnold J. “Rural Workers in Spanish America: Problems of Peonage and Oppression.” Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 1 (1979): 34–63.Google Scholar
Casement, Roger. Correspondence Respecting the Treatment of British Colonial Subjects and Native Indians Employed in the Collection of Rubber in Putumayo District. London: HMSO, 1912.Google Scholar
Clavel, Damian. “What’s in a Fraud? The Many Worlds of Gregor MacGregor, 1817–1824.” Enterprise & Society 22, no. 4 (2021): 997–1036.Google Scholar
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de Lalouvière, Joseph la Hausse. “A Business Archive of the French Illegal Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century.” Past and Present 252, no. 1 (2021): 139–177.Google Scholar
Dey, Colin. “Developing Silent Shadow Accounts.” In Sustainability Accounting and Accountability, edited by Unerman, Jeffrey, Bebbington, Jan, and O’Dwyer, Brendan, 307–326. London: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Dey, Colin, Russell, Shona, and Thomson, Ian. “Exploring the Potential of Shadow Accounts in Problematizing Institutional Conduct.” In Social Accounting and Public Management: Accountability for the Common Good, edited by Osborne, Stephen P. and Ball, Amanda, 64–79. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011.Google Scholar
Dore, Elizabeth. “Debt Peonage in Grenada, Nicaragua, 1870–1930: Labor in a Noncapitalist Transition.” Hispanic American Historical Review 83, no. 3 (2003): 521–559.Google Scholar
Gallhofer, Sonja, and Haslam, Jim. “Emancipation.” In The Routledge Companion to Accounting History, edited by Edwards, John R. and Walker, Stephen P., 578–601. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Gallhofer, Sonja, Haslam, Jim, Monk, Elizabeth, and Roberts, Clare. “The Emancipatory Potential of Online Reporting: The Case of Counter Accounting.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 19, no. 5 (2006): 681–718.Google Scholar
Hopwood, Anthony G. “The Tale of the Committee that Never Reported: Disagreements on Intertwining Accounting with the Social.” Accounting, Organizations and Society 10, no. 3 (1985): 361–377.Google Scholar
Knight, Alan. “Mexican Peonage: What Was It and Why Was It?” Journal of Latin American Studies 18, no. 1 (1986): 41–74.Google Scholar
Laine, Matias, and Vinnari, Eija. “The Transformative Potential of Counter Accounts: A Case of Animal Rights Activism.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 30, no. 7 (2017): 1481–1510.Google Scholar
Loveman, Brian. “Critique of Arnold J. Bauer’s ‘Rural Workers in Spanish America: Problems of Peonage and Oppression.’” Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 3 (1979): 478–485.Google Scholar
Marriner, Sheila. “Company Financial Statements as Source Material for Business Historians.” Business History 22, no. 2 (1980): 203–235.Google Scholar
Mathias, Peter. “Business History and Accounting History: A Neighbourly Relationship.” Accounting, Business & Financial History 3, no. 3 (1993): 253–273.Google Scholar
McCreery, David. “Debt Servitude in Rural Guatemala, 1876–1936.” Hispanic American Historical Review 63, no. 4 (1983): 735–759.Google Scholar
McDonald-Kerr, Lachlan, and Boyce, Gordon. “Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples.” In The Routledge Companion to Accounting History, edited by Edwards, John R. and Walker, Stephen P., 553–577. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Melby, John. “An Account of the Rise and Collapse of the Amazon Boom.” Hispanic American Historical Review 22, no. 3 (1942): 452–469.Google Scholar
Melillo, Edward D. “The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade, 1840–1930.” American Historical Review 117, no. 4 (2012): 1028–1060.Google Scholar
Miller, Peter. “Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice: An Introduction.” In Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice, edited by Hopwood, Anthony G. and Miller, Peter, 1–39. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Miller, Rory. “British Investment in Latin America, 1850–1950: A Reappraisal.” Itinerario 19, no. 3 (1995): 21–52.Google Scholar
Payne, Alex W. “The Principles Upon Which the Assets of a Joint Stock Company Should be Valued for Balance Sheets.” Accountant, February 13, 1892, 141–146.Google Scholar
Report and Special Report from the Select Committee on Putumayo . London: HMSO, 1913.Google Scholar
Serje, Margarita. “The Peruvian Amazon Co.: Credit and Debt in the Putumayo ‘Wild Rubber’ Business.” Enterprise & Society 22, no. 2 (2021): 475–501.Google Scholar
Spence, Crawford. “Social Accounting’s Emancipatory Potential: A Gramscian Critique.” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 20, no. 2 (2009): 205–227.Google Scholar
Thomson, Ian, Dey, Colin, and Russell, Shona. “Activism, Arenas and Accounts in Conflicts over Tobacco Control.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 28, no. 5 (2015): 809–845.Google Scholar
Twenty-Third General Annual Report by the Board of Trade , London: HMSO, 1914.Google Scholar
Walker, Stephen P. “The Blindfold Witness? An Accountant’s Response to Debt Slavery and Atrocity in the Devil’s Paradise.” British Accounting Review, November 11, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2021.101068.Google Scholar
Washbrook, Sarah. “‘Una Esclavitud Simulada’: Debt Peonage in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, 1876–1911.” Journal of Peasant Studies 33, no. 3 (2006): 367–412.Google Scholar
Economist Google Scholar
Leeds Mercury Google Scholar
Times Google Scholar
Truth Google Scholar
Archival Sources Google Scholar
The National Archives, Kew, United KingdomGoogle Scholar
National Library of Ireland, Dublin, IrelandGoogle Scholar
Barham, Bradford L., and Coomes, Oliver. Prosperity’s Promise: The Amazon Rubber Boom and Distorted Economic Development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Carlos, Ann M., and Lewis, Frank D.. Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Fur Trade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Collier, Richard. The River that God Forgot: The Story of the Amazon Rubber Boom. London: Collins, 1968.Google Scholar
Cutforth, Arthur E. Audits. London: Gee, 1908Google Scholar
Dawson, Sidney S. The Accountant’s Compendium. London: Gee & Co, 1911.Google Scholar
Dean, Warren. Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Dicksee, Lawrence R. Advanced Accounting. London: Gee & Co., 1903.Google Scholar
Dicksee, Lawrence R. Auditing: A Practical Manual for Auditors. 7th ed. London: Gee & Co., 1907.Google Scholar
Dicksee, Lawrence R. Auditing: A Practical Manual for Auditors. 13th ed. London: Gee & Co., 1924.Google Scholar
Edwards, John R. A History of Corporate Financial Reporting in Britain. London: Routledge, 2019.Google Scholar
Fear, Jeffrey. R. Organizing Control: August Thyssen and the Construction of German Corporate Management. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Gallhofer, Sonja, and Haslam, Jim. Accounting and Emancipation: Some Critical Interventions. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Goodman, Jordan. The Devil and Mr. Casement. London: Verso, 2009.Google Scholar
Hardenburg, Walter E. The Putumayo, the Devil’s Paradise. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1913.Google Scholar
Hatfield, Henry R. Modern Accounting: Its Principles and Some of its Problems. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1920.Google Scholar
Head, David. Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Hecht, Susanna B. The Scramble for the Amazon and the “Lost Paradise” of Euclides da Cunha. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. London: Picador, 2019.Google Scholar
Inglis, Brian. Roger Casement. Belfast, IE: Blackstaff Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Kettle, Sir R. Deloitte & Co, 1845–1956 . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Angus, ed. The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement. London: Anaconda Editions Ltd, 1997.Google Scholar
Nugent, Stephen L. The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Rubber Industry. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018.Google Scholar
Pixley, Francis W., ed. The Accountant’s Dictionary. London: New Era Publishing, 1930.Google Scholar
Reid, Benjamin L. The Lives of Roger Casement. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Caitlin. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Thomson, Norman. The Putumayo Red Book. London: N. Thomson & Co, 1914.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Barbara. The Amazon Rubber Boom 1850–1920. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Alston, Lee J., Mattiace, Shannon, and Nonnenmacher, Tomas. “Coercion, Culture, and Contracts: Labor and Debt on Henequen Haciendas in Yucatán, Mexico, 1870–1915.” Journal of Economic History 69, no. 1 (2009): 104–137.Google Scholar
Annisette, Marcia. “Race and Ethnicity.” In The Routledge Companion to Accounting History, edited by Edwards, John R. and Walker, Stephen P., 530–552. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Apostol, Oana M. “A Project for Romania? The Role of the Civil Society’s Counter-Accounts in Facilitating Democratic Change in Society.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 28, no. 2 (2015): 210–241.Google Scholar
Barham, Bradford, and Coomes, Oliver. “Wild Rubber: Industrial Organisation and the Microeconomics of Extraction during the Amazon Rubber Boom (1860–1920).” Journal of Latin American Studies 26, no. 1 (1994): 37–72.Google Scholar
Bauer, Arnold J. “Rural Workers in Spanish America: Problems of Peonage and Oppression.” Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 1 (1979): 34–63.Google Scholar
Casement, Roger. Correspondence Respecting the Treatment of British Colonial Subjects and Native Indians Employed in the Collection of Rubber in Putumayo District. London: HMSO, 1912.Google Scholar
Clavel, Damian. “What’s in a Fraud? The Many Worlds of Gregor MacGregor, 1817–1824.” Enterprise & Society 22, no. 4 (2021): 997–1036.Google Scholar
Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting . IFRS Foundation, 2018. https://www.ifrs.org/content/dam/ifrs/publications/pdf-standards/english/2021/issued/part-a/conceptual-framework-for-financial-reporting.pdf.Google Scholar
de Lalouvière, Joseph la Hausse. “A Business Archive of the French Illegal Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century.” Past and Present 252, no. 1 (2021): 139–177.Google Scholar
Dey, Colin. “Developing Silent Shadow Accounts.” In Sustainability Accounting and Accountability, edited by Unerman, Jeffrey, Bebbington, Jan, and O’Dwyer, Brendan, 307–326. London: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Dey, Colin, Russell, Shona, and Thomson, Ian. “Exploring the Potential of Shadow Accounts in Problematizing Institutional Conduct.” In Social Accounting and Public Management: Accountability for the Common Good, edited by Osborne, Stephen P. and Ball, Amanda, 64–79. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011.Google Scholar
Dore, Elizabeth. “Debt Peonage in Grenada, Nicaragua, 1870–1930: Labor in a Noncapitalist Transition.” Hispanic American Historical Review 83, no. 3 (2003): 521–559.Google Scholar
Gallhofer, Sonja, and Haslam, Jim. “Emancipation.” In The Routledge Companion to Accounting History, edited by Edwards, John R. and Walker, Stephen P., 578–601. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Gallhofer, Sonja, Haslam, Jim, Monk, Elizabeth, and Roberts, Clare. “The Emancipatory Potential of Online Reporting: The Case of Counter Accounting.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 19, no. 5 (2006): 681–718.Google Scholar
Hopwood, Anthony G. “The Tale of the Committee that Never Reported: Disagreements on Intertwining Accounting with the Social.” Accounting, Organizations and Society 10, no. 3 (1985): 361–377.Google Scholar
Knight, Alan. “Mexican Peonage: What Was It and Why Was It?” Journal of Latin American Studies 18, no. 1 (1986): 41–74.Google Scholar
Laine, Matias, and Vinnari, Eija. “The Transformative Potential of Counter Accounts: A Case of Animal Rights Activism.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 30, no. 7 (2017): 1481–1510.Google Scholar
Loveman, Brian. “Critique of Arnold J. Bauer’s ‘Rural Workers in Spanish America: Problems of Peonage and Oppression.’” Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 3 (1979): 478–485.Google Scholar
Marriner, Sheila. “Company Financial Statements as Source Material for Business Historians.” Business History 22, no. 2 (1980): 203–235.Google Scholar
Mathias, Peter. “Business History and Accounting History: A Neighbourly Relationship.” Accounting, Business & Financial History 3, no. 3 (1993): 253–273.Google Scholar
McCreery, David. “Debt Servitude in Rural Guatemala, 1876–1936.” Hispanic American Historical Review 63, no. 4 (1983): 735–759.Google Scholar
McDonald-Kerr, Lachlan, and Boyce, Gordon. “Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples.” In The Routledge Companion to Accounting History, edited by Edwards, John R. and Walker, Stephen P., 553–577. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Melby, John. “An Account of the Rise and Collapse of the Amazon Boom.” Hispanic American Historical Review 22, no. 3 (1942): 452–469.Google Scholar
Melillo, Edward D. “The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade, 1840–1930.” American Historical Review 117, no. 4 (2012): 1028–1060.Google Scholar
Miller, Peter. “Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice: An Introduction.” In Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice, edited by Hopwood, Anthony G. and Miller, Peter, 1–39. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Miller, Rory. “British Investment in Latin America, 1850–1950: A Reappraisal.” Itinerario 19, no. 3 (1995): 21–52.Google Scholar
Payne, Alex W. “The Principles Upon Which the Assets of a Joint Stock Company Should be Valued for Balance Sheets.” Accountant, February 13, 1892, 141–146.Google Scholar
Report and Special Report from the Select Committee on Putumayo . London: HMSO, 1913.Google Scholar
Serje, Margarita. “The Peruvian Amazon Co.: Credit and Debt in the Putumayo ‘Wild Rubber’ Business.” Enterprise & Society 22, no. 2 (2021): 475–501.Google Scholar
Spence, Crawford. “Social Accounting’s Emancipatory Potential: A Gramscian Critique.” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 20, no. 2 (2009): 205–227.Google Scholar
Thomson, Ian, Dey, Colin, and Russell, Shona. “Activism, Arenas and Accounts in Conflicts over Tobacco Control.” Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 28, no. 5 (2015): 809–845.Google Scholar
Twenty-Third General Annual Report by the Board of Trade , London: HMSO, 1914.Google Scholar
Walker, Stephen P. “The Blindfold Witness? An Accountant’s Response to Debt Slavery and Atrocity in the Devil’s Paradise.” British Accounting Review, November 11, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2021.101068.Google Scholar
Washbrook, Sarah. “‘Una Esclavitud Simulada’: Debt Peonage in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, 1876–1911.” Journal of Peasant Studies 33, no. 3 (2006): 367–412.Google Scholar
Economist Google Scholar
Leeds Mercury Google Scholar
Times Google Scholar
Truth Google Scholar
Archival Sources Google Scholar
The National Archives, Kew, United KingdomGoogle Scholar
National Library of Ireland, Dublin, IrelandGoogle Scholar