Henry
Ford in 1919
(July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947)
Today, it’s
hard to fathom that in early 20th century America, a major cartel
comprised of a few Dutch and English barons had a stranglehold on the vast
majority of the world’s supply of rubber.
You see, for a time during that era the only source of rubber was the tree
native to South America: ‘Hevea brasiliensis’, more commonly known as the ‘Rubber
Tree’; whose sap is a natural latex source.
Several
years prior, in the 1870’s, a group of entrepreneurial smugglers had secretly slipped
seeds of the wild rubber tree from the Amazon rain forest in South America into
East Asia, which was quite key to establishing sprawling rubber plantations in
that region of the world; coincidentally, you might say, production and the need
for latex sap was at it’s peak at just the right time.
By the
late 1920’s, the infamous automobile tycoon Henry Ford set out to break the
back of the monopoly. His hundreds of thousands of new cars & trucks were
in need of millions of tires; which were rather expensive to produce,
especially when buying raw latex from the well established rubber lords of East
Asia.
As a
result, Ford established Fordlândia,
a tiny piece of America which was transplanted to the Amazon rain forest of
Brazil at great expense; with a single purpose in mind: To create the largest
rubber plantation anywhere in the world. The concept was immensely ambitious; however the
project would ultimately be a fantastic failure.
The year
was1929, Ford hired a native Brazilian named Villares to survey the Amazon
region for a good location to host the massive undertaking. Brazil seemed the perfect choice especially
since rubber trees were native to the region; an added bonus was that the
rubber harvest could be shipped to the tire factories in the US by land rather
than by sea, so it’s obvious why Ford elected to follow the advice of Villares
and purchased a 25,000 square kilometer (9,652.5 sq. miles) tract of land along
the Amazon river.
A steamer
arrived toting a barge laden with earth-moving equipment, a pile driver, several
tractors & stump pullers; a small locomotive, ice-making machines, and likely
the regions first prefabricated buildings. Workers soon began building a rubber
processing plant as the surrounding area was cleared of the abundant vegetation.
Numerous
Ford employees were moved to the site, and within the first few months an ‘American-as-apple-pie’
municipality was up and running in an area that had only recently been a jungle
wilderness. Improvements to the community included a power plant, an up-to-date
hospital, a library, a golf course, a hotel, and row after row of white
clapboard houses proudly displaying wicker furniture on the patio. As the
town’s population grew, all manner of businesses were created; including
tailors, shoe shops, bakeries, butcher shops, restaurants, and Model T Fords
frequented the neatly paved streets.
Just beyond
the residential area, long rows of freshly-planted saplings dotted the
landscape. Unfortunately Ford chose not to employ botanists in establishing
Fordlândia’s rubber tree fields; he chose instead to rely on the cleverness of several
of the company engineers. . . That was major mistake #1, with no prior
knowledge on how to grow rubber trees, the engineers made their best guess, and
planted about two hundred trees per acre even though it was common knowledge
that there were only about seven wild rubber trees per acre in the Amazon
jungle.
Ford’s
tiny slice of America in the jungle attracted a slew of local labors. Brazilian
workers were paid a wage of thirty-seven cents a day to work in the ‘tree fields’;
about double the normal rate for that line of work. But the effort to
transplant ‘America’ to include what Ford called “the healthy lifestyle” comprised
a bit more than just American styled buildings; it was also mandatory to
practice what Ford perceived to be an “American”
lifestyle and values. The municipality’s cafeterias were self-serve (not the
local custom), and they provided only American foods such as hamburgers &
hotdogs. It was compulsory to live in American-style houses, and each worker
was assigned a badge number which had to be display on their clothing for identification;
the cost of the badge was deducted from the first paycheck. Brazilian workers
were also required to attend “squeaky-clean” American festivities on weekends,
such as square-dancing, English-language sing-alongs, and poetry readings.
One of
the more unsettling cultural differences was Henry Ford’s own “mini-prohibition”
program! Alcohol was strictly forbidden inside Fordlândia, even within the workers’
homes, on pain of immediate dismissal. Ford not only barred alcoholic beverages;
prostitution, and even tobacco was prohibited within the town limits, however this
major mistake was soon circumvented by the inhabitants of the community by simply
paddling small craft out to merchant riverboats secured just beyond town limits
and no doubt to Ford’s dismay, a whole new settlement was established about five
miles upstream on the “Island of Innocence” that boasted bars, nightclubs and
brothels thus allowing workers to exchange their generous pay for the comforts
of rum and women.
While the
community struggled along month-to-month with its disgruntled workforce, it was
also faced with a “rubber tree seedling” dilemma. The tiny sprouts weren’t
growing at all. It was soon determined that the hilly terrain lost most all of
its topsoil during heavy rains, leaving infertile, rocky soil behind. The few
trees that survived into young adolescence were soon stricken with a leaf disease
or blight that gradually ate away the
leaves leaving the trees stunted and pretty much useless. Ford’s untrained managers
battled the fungus heroically, but they didn’t have the necessary knowledge required
for favorable results, so you guested it, their efforts proved futile.
Discontent
of the workers grew as the unproductive months passed. Brazilian workers – accustomed to working afore sunrise and just after
sunset to avoid the heat of the day– were forced to work proper “American”
nine-to-five shifts beneath the hot Amazon sun; following Ford’s famous assembly-line
philosophies. Adding insult to injury, malaria became a serious problem in
large part because the hilly terrain had a tendency to pool water, providing
the ideal conditions for a mosquito breeding ground.
One
bright day in December of 1930, after about a year of working in an unforgiving
environment with a strict and displeasing “healthy lifestyle”, worker agitation
reached critical mass in the labors’ cafeteria. Having suffered one too many
episodes of indigestion after consuming “American” food, a Brazilian man stood
and shouted that he could no longer tolerate the conditions. A chorus of voices
quickly followed his, and the disharmony was soon joined by an orchestra of
banging cups and shattering dishes. Several members of Fordlândia’s American
management team quickly fled either to their homes or into the woods, some chased
by machete-packing workers. A few of the managers were able to scramble to the river
docks to board the boats there, which they moved to the center of the river just
beyond the reach of the escalating rioters.
When the
Brazilian military arrived three days later, the protesters had expended most
of their anger. Windows had been broken and a few trucks had been overturned,
but Fordlândia had somehow survived. Work resumed shortly, though the rubber
tree sapling situation had not changed. In 1931, a British journalist writing for The Indian Rubber Journal visited and
wrote: “In a long history of tropical agriculture, never has such a vast scheme
been entered in such a lavish manner, and with so little to show for the money.
Mr. Ford’s scheme is doomed to failure.”
The following months offered little proof to counter the journalist’s forbidding
depiction of the operation.
In 1933,
after three years with no substantial quantity of rubber to show for the
investment, Henry Ford finally decided it might be a good idea to hire a
botanist to assess the situation. The botanist concluded that the land was
simply not up to the task. The damp, hilly terrain was bad for the trees, but
excellent for the blight. It was about this time that it was learned that no
one had noticed that the land’s previous owner was a man named Villares; yep,
the same man Mr. Ford had hired to choose the plantation’s site.
Never one
to surrender after one effort, Ford purchased another tract of land fifty miles
downstream from the ruins of Fordlândia, establishing the town of Belterra. The terrain was
more level and less damp, making it much more suitable for the picky rubber
trees. He also imported some grafts from the competition in East Asian, where
the trees had been bred for resistance to the deadly leaf blight. The new enterprise showed more promise than
its predecessor, but progress was slow. For ten long years Ford’s workers
labored to grow trees suitable for rubber production, yielding a peak output of
750 tons of latex in 1942 … far short of that year’s goal of 38,000 tons.
Ford’s persistence
may have eventually paid off if it were not for the fact that scientists
developed cost-effective synthetic rubber just as the Belterra plantation was near
its peak. By1945Mr. Ford decided to quit the rubber production trade,
having lost more than 20 Million Dollars in Brazil without ever having set foot
on either site. Later that same year, Henry Ford’s grandson Henry Ford II sold both
plantations to the Brazilian government for $250,000.00.
Henry
Ford’s losses in Fordlândia and Belterra are equivalent to about 208 Million
Dollars in in today’s (2013) dollars. While it’s true that he was unable to buy his
way into rubber royalty, and his efforts to force feed his idea of an American “healthy
lifestyle” were met with anger and resentment ... history has repeatedly shown
that obscene wealth gives one the privilege, some say the obligation, to make
bizarre and astonishing mistakes on a grand scale. With that perspective foremost
in mind, Fordlândia could not have been more successful.
Henry
Ford will always be known as an American industrialist; founder of the Ford
Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of
mass production. Ford did not invent the
automobile, but he did develop and manufacture the first automobile that enabled
middle class Americans the ability to buy his Model T automobiles which revolutionized
transportation as well as America’s industry.
His contribution to the rubber industry in all likelihood will remain
mute.
Sources:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ruins-of-fordlandia/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=5000&year1=1945&year2=2013
