The Rubber Cycle

At the end of the 19th century, during the height of the coffee economy in the South-East of Brazil, another product was gaining ever-greater importance and was to give Brazil supremacy on the world market: rubber. In the north of the country, rubber tapping in the Amazon forest attracted tens of thousands of workers from other parts of Brazil and caught the interest of large rubber companies, particularly European and North-American. The economy grew rapidly until the end of the 19th century and Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, acquired a European feel, which was apparent in its architecture, and particularly in the Amazonas Theatre, which became a symbol of the opulence of that period. During the first decades of the 20th century, the Amazon rubber industry suffered with competition from Asia, and the economy in the region rapidly declined, and only recovered in the mid-20th century, thanks to initiatives promoted by the Federal Government.