Augusto Jiménez Seminario

The Putumayo genocide, as this campaign of exploitation and violence came to be known, garnered international attention, sparking investigations and legal proceedings that named Jiménez and other company officials as responsible for severe human rights abuses.

[2][3][4] Around 1904, Jiménez became the manager of the Santa Julia station,[5][6][7] which was located on a tributary of the Igara-Paraná River and acted as the shipping port for rubber collected around the territory of Abisinia, an estate that belonged to J.C. Arana y Hermanos.

[a] The indigenous people that lived between Santa Julia and Abisinia's territory were Boras,[11][8][b] they were often targeted by slave raids organized by employees of J.C. Arana y Hermanos.

A copy of La Chorrera's paylist dated to 1910 stated that Jiménez was paid 3 Peruvian soles per arroba of rubber,[23] which equals 15 kilograms or 33 pounds.

[32][33][34] Jiménez's role in the Putumayo genocide was first exposed by a criminal petition filed by Benjamin Saldaña Rocca against eighteen members of the J.C. Arana y Hermanos firm.

[39][g] Saldaña's information was later given to an American named Walter Ernest Hardenburg, and he collected further depositions and evidence which further exposed the crimes perpetrated by J.C. Arana y Hermanos as well as Jiménez.

[47] In reference to Jimenez and another criminal implicated in the Putumayo genocide, Casement wrote "[t]hose men were murderers and torturers by profession – as their crimes swelled so should their fortunes.

Whole tribes were handed over to them by a lawless syndicate which had no title-deed to one yard of land or one sapling rubber tree, and they were supplied with the armaments necessary to reduce these people to a terrified obedience and given a wholesale interest in the terror.

Judge Rómulo Paredes and the depositions he collected implicated Jiménez with the decapitation of fifty-five natives,[i] innumerable killings,[j] the rape of children, and many other crimes.

Other times, wanting to improve their aim, they look for children, since their parents have already been murdered, so that they can serve as a smaller target..."[p]Paredes mentioned that there were four different "burn pits" used to cremate the victims of Jimenez, Agüero and their subordinates at Abisinia.

[81] A muchacho de confianza named Bushico Boras provided his testimony to Paredes and reported multiple crimes that were perpetrated by Jimenez and Agüero at Abisinia.

[53] A Peruvian Amazon Company employee named Isais Ocampo implicated Jimenez with the killing of forty-five natives at Abisinia in one incident through the use of whip and hunger.

[84][q] Agustin Pena, another agent of the Peruvian Amazon Company that testified to judge Paredes, declared that one day at Abisinia Jimenez went down into the holding cell and shot one native five times.

[85] The muchacho de confianza Bushico Boras claimed that Jiménez had personally murdered one hundred and thirty-seven natives at Abisinia, and he declared that the Machivare nation disappeared due to Jimenez's actions.

[86][s] On January 5, 1908, a journalist from Iquitos named Benjamin Saldaña Rocca published an article which implicated station managers of the J. C. Arana and Hermanos firm with the perpetration of atrocities against the Putumayo's indigenous population.

"[88] The Barbadian Adolfo Gibbs witnessed a young muchacho de confianza decapitate a thin, sick man that had managed to get out of the cepo and was attempting to run away.

[90] Braga's testimony was later used by an American engineer in Iquitos named Walter Ernest Hardenburg, who was collecting evidence of crimes perpetrated by the Peruvian Amazon Company.

Hardenburg managed to obtain the depositions and evidence collected by Benjamin Saldaña Rocca, which implicated Jiménez and other employees of the Peruvian Amazon Company with genocide.

[93] Hardenburg travelled to England in 1909, and in September he gave his story to a financial watchdog publication named Truth and they began to run a series of articles which would expose the crimes of the Peruvian Amazon Company, and the Putumayo genocide to the English speaking world.

Tiracahuaca's wife was later beaten to death by Armando Blondel,[91] the subchief of Morelia[99] An ex-employee of the J.C. Arana y Hermanos firm named Juan Rosa sent his own testimony to Hardenburg on June 6, 1908.

Rosa declared that "[o]n the 20th of September I began work at the section Morelia, where Jiménez was the chief, and on the 30th a commission arrived, bringing fifteen Indian prisoners, who were put in stocks.

[103][104][u] The deposition of Barbadian James Mapp contained information regarding a massacre that occurred near the rubber station of Morelia after a correria led by Jiménez in January 1906.

[115] In his deposition to judge Rómulo Paredes, Jose Maria declared that Jimenez interpreted the use of the manguaré drum as a sign that the indigenous people nearby would try to kill him.

[60] A Colombian named Simón Muñoz testified to judge Paredes and stated that José María had killed many natives under the orders of Jiménez and Agüero.

[121][z] Another Colombian implicated in the Putumayo genocide, named Aquileo Torres agreed to enter the Peruvian Amazon Company's service, and he accompanied Jimenez and this group on the commission across the Caqueta in June 1908.

"[83] In his deposition, Isais Ocampo declared to Paredes that Jiménez had around one hundred natives from the Morelia section executed because they he was not satisfied with the amount of rubber they had brought in for the collection period.

Zumaeta had joined Agüero and Jimenez in their raids against the Boras natives[130] after he was forced to flee from El Encanto's agency due several crimes he committed in that area.

"[166][am] The article noted that in a consular dispatch dated October 17, 1913, the British consul-general at Manaus was informed that Abelardo Agüero, Victor Macedo and Augusto Jiménez were tenants of the Suárez Hermanos rubber firm in Bolivia.

[170] According to the oral testimony of Don Alberto documented by Paredes Pando, during World War I, there was an English captain sent to the Acre River basin on a special mission from an Indian Defense Committee with orders to arrest Jiménez for murdering indigenous people.

This captain managed to find Jimenez and his brother Alberto however they both escaped to a border town named San Lorenzo, and several police officers were killed during this incident.