Surray the Bolivian chief and the British Rubber Company

Amazing conversation around a BBQ in Notting Hill with a refugee from Bolivia. Surray organised indigenous rights marches in the early 90s and was tortured and imprisoned by the Bolivian government. He's over in London reseaching his tribe in the British Library where exist the only surviving copies of studies by 18th century Fransiscan missionaries. The Bolivian government claims that his people are just "peasants" and have no independent ethnic identity, but the Fransiscan writings are proof of their existance.

I asked Surray if his tribe (about 3000 are left) have any memory of their history. He told an amazing story which the tribe remembers through a dance. It recounts the contact they have had with different civilisations, starting before the Inca and more laterly Jesuit and Fransiscans, Spanish Conquistadors in search of Eldorado and finally the British Rubber Company in the 19th century.

The British enslaved many of Surray's people to work in the plantations, and the slavery shockingly continued until the 1950s. Although Britain had banned slavery in 1834, deep in the jungle no one cared, and certainly not the hispanic Bolivian government. Surray's grandfather told him about an event the tribe had kept very secret. It was October 12th 1912 and the plantation owners were celebrating the anniversary of European colonisation of Bolivia. By 4 o'clock in the afternoon they were all very drunk on imported Scotch whiskey, and a strong wind was blowing from the north. Surray's greatgrandfather - one of the slaves - and some friends fired burning arrows from the jungle onto the palm leaf roofs of the plantation huts. The wind whipped up the flames, and they were fed by the rubber stores. A 40ft wall of fire swept accross the outpost and engulf most of the Europeans. No one realised that the fire had been started by the slaves, and so they escaped retribution. Unfortunately the slavery continued for another generation.

Surray is working with Amnesty International and some other human rights groups to document his tribes story and lobby the Bolivian government to give his people autonomy. Today they live in the jungle almost exactly as they would have done a hundred years ago, but Surray fears they will be exploited further and assimilated into the Spanish speaking population unless they recieve legal recognition and protection.