Seringueiro’ or ‘Rubber Tapper’ is a traditional character from the rubber tree region. It is they who extract the latex from the rubber trees and enable it to be transformed into natural rubber. A ‘seringalista’ is the owner of a rubber tree plantation.
The rubber tree is a Brazilian plant (hevea brasiliensis) from the euphorbiacea family, originating in the Amazon. It is a tree that reaches 50m in height and whose sap, through oblique incisions in its bark, oozes latex that produces high-quality rubber. Its seeds contain a nut from which a yellow oil can be extracted for use in varnish and paint production.
The Amazon rainforest is rich in rubber trees and guarantees Acre first place in national rubber production.
Despite being a native plant from a humid, tropical climate, the rubber tree is cultivated in several Brazilian states (Bahia, Mato Grosso, São Paulo, Minas Gerais and others), as, besides being rustic, it has a large capacity for adaptation.
Rubber tappers have a history of struggle, through holding protests against the policies towards native rubber, against hunger and against the devastation of the Amazon rainforest.
Workers on the rubber tree plantations have been responsible for many political protests in various parts of Acre. They wanted to receive from the federal government not only official recognition for the extraction reserves but also that the minimum conditions to carry out this work be defined and characterised.
Rubber tappers and their support organisations use the term “empate” (draw), as a symbol of their resistence, their struggles and their claims.
The rubber tappers who undertook the first “empates” in Acre could never have imagined that their resistance experiences would reach the proportions they have.
For Chico Mendes, a unionist from Xapuri assassinated in 1988, the practice of “empate” began in 1976.
Chico Mendes lived this experience in front of the chainsaws of farmers, trying to stop, along with rubber tappers, the deforestation of the rubber tree areas in Xapuri.
However, it is not only struggles and work that rubber tappers live for. They are, in their majority, “passionate” for parties and forró dances. They are good dancers of rhythms originating from Northeast Brazil. The forró party is a tradition that goes back to the early days of Acre settlement by people from the Northeast.
For rubber tappers, family means whom they share their daily lives and work with on the plantation, and also their leisure and solidarity. It is in the family that the children of rubber tappers learn the trade (latex extraction). Parents take their children to the ‘Estradas de Seringa’ (Seringe Roads), the places where working experiences are lived out.
Recife, 11 May 2004.
(Updated on 14 September 2009.)
Translated by Peter Leamy, March 2011.
sources consulted
GRANDE Enciclopédia Larousse Cultural.[São Paulo]: Nova Cultural, 1998.
HOUAISS, Antônio (Dir.). Pequeno dicionário enciclopédico Koogan Larousse. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Larousse do Brasil, 1979.
PEREIRA, José Veríssimo da Costa. Seringueiros. In: TIPOS e aspectos do Brasil. 10. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística- IBGE, 1975.
SOUZA, Carlos Alberto Alves de. Os “empates” como forma de resistência : modo de vida dos seringueiros da Amazônia Ocidental. Clio: Série História do Nordeste, Recife, v.1, n.18, p.37-51, 1998.
how to quote this text
Source: ANDRADE, Maria do Carmo. Rubber Tappers. Pesquisa Escolar On-Line, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Recife. Available at: <https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009.