Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper analyses manifestations of anti-British presence in Brazilian Amazonia during boundary conflict with Brazil over the Guiana Highlands in the second half of the 19th century. British were faced with intense concurrence with the Germans and North Americans for the global rubber market, vital commodity on those decades, at the same time of the rising conflict for boundary definition with the colony of Guiana from the 1840s onwards. These events reached a critical point at the end of the century, followed by large numbers of publications and displays on anti-British people in Amazonia. The dualism of the British Empire policy towards the region can be perceived in several conflicts with local governments, merchants, and the general public. The central hypothesis is that the British have failed in keeping the monopolization of rubber commerce locally, and in transforming Guiana in the centre of rubber production as an alternative to Brazilians merchants. These processes have compelled them in testing the rubber tree in different parts of the Empire, initially failing in India, Ceylon, and finally with success in the peninsula of Malaya. However, before having resulted as an alternative to Manaus and Belem’s firms, the British also tried to increase their colony territory in South America in direction to the Amazon basin navigation.