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Starting in 1886, Europeans arrived in pursuit of rubber, using the native peoples to do the work in exchange for axes, machetes, beads, tin cans, mirrors, and such. The Bora were eager to obtain these things, but after a time rebelled at being enslaved by outsiders. This led to warfare and the massacre of thousands of indigenous people. Those who remained were whipped or beaten until dead, or until they were willing to penetrate the rain forest to collect rubber.
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Mibeco, the chief, remembered how the “Gun Men” (the Bora name for Europeans) used imported Negroes to hunt down the natives who refused to work for the rubber barons. He reported
witnessing his father— along with many others—being whipped, piled on firewood, and burned to death.
The arrival of diseases to which the Bora people had no immunity (e.g., measles) further reduced their population. Their population was estimated to be 12,000 in 1926 and 500 in 1940.
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