Former rubber gatherers, driven out of the forest due to the decline of the rubber market, working as stevedores in Rio Branco, the capital of the state of Acre. Thanks to rubber, the Amazon had in the early years of this century a per capita income twice that of the coffee producing region of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo. Wealth came to an end when the English took seedlings from the rubber plantations to Malaysia, until
now the world leader in natural rubber production.