How demand for rubber led to the gory exploitation of native populations in South America and Africa

On 27 August 1883, the earth shook again.

This time the volcano Krakatoa, in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, erupted. News of the colossal eruption was quickly carried on gutta-percha-coated underwater cables between Java and Singapore eventually to London, and thence to Europe and the United States, all within twenty-four hours of the eruption.

Gutta-percha is a tree exudate and relative of rubber from Southeast Asia with waterproofing properties shared with rubber, but with resilience to saltwater that outstrips it. Gutta-percha was not the only latex material to be associated with Krakatoa’s eruption. Some 15 miles from Krakatoa, sheltering in the lee of a nearby island was the German ship Berbice, under the command of Captain William Logan. It was carrying thousands of gallons of combustible paraffin under wooden decks, but miraculously escaped annihilation from the pyroclastic eruption that had fiery sparks falling from the sky onto the ship’s masts and sails. Sheltered in Captain Logan’s personal chambers was a handwritten note addressed to the curator of the Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg (present-day Bogor) in Java.

In the accompanying package were five seedlings of Hevea brasiliensis, a portion of the living confetti scattered around various British colonies in the Far East...

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