Designed by the Magnate of American motoring Henry Ford, Fordland It was not only a mega project from the engineering point of view, but also represented the attempt to modify habits, culture and traditions of one of the most particular areas of the world: theAmazon. It was a futuristic project, designed to make the production of natural rubber autonomous but the result, however, heavily disregarded expectations. Fordland, in fact, should have been a production paradiseto then prove to be one of the greatest industrial failures of the twentieth century.
The socio -economic context in which Fordland was born
Like any mega project, to understand its ultimate meaning it is important to evaluate the historical contextsocial and economic in which this was thought, designed and created. In the 1924 The American automotive industry was booming and Ford, the inventor of the production of mass cars with its Model The was the head of his company who was affected by the high costs for the purchase abroad of the natural rubberproduced with rubber trees. A fundamental component in industrial components, especially in the automotive one for the production of tires.
To keep the market in hand were above all the British who, in Asia, had monopolized production On a world scale and, consequently, therefore also the sales of this precious component.
Henry Ford he had an idea that, at the time, appeared ingenious: taking a fairly large area, plant the tires of the rubber And build a city close to these areas. In this way not only the Ford, but all America would have unhinged the mechanism of commercial and economic subjection to the English colonies in Asia for the purchase of the rubber. In the 1928Ford obtained a concession of from the Brazilian government 10,000 km² of land along the river Tapajós, in the state of Para.
The reasons for an announced failure
One of the most aspects eccentric of the claim of the American magnate was not so much to build an inhabited center to allow those who would have worked on natural rubber plantations not only to live a few kilometers from the workplace, but also to be influenced by Stars and stripes lifestyle. Ford wanted in fact export the US lifestyle to the Amazon, With prefabricated houses, shops, hospitals, schools, swimming pools and even a golf course, for Brazilian workers and US managers who would have been transferred to it. The intent was to create an self -sufficient and productive environment, integrating American technology, work and culture in an exotic context.
Source of Ford Motor Company. Photographic Departmen
If Ford’s project had limited himself to the realization of a large inhabited center For the life of the workers of his natural rubber plantations, the project could undoubtedly have had some success. The fact, however, that Ford wanted to impose in a wild area of the Amazon too a certain system of valueswith a lifestyle far from local sensitivity and the way of life of the local inhabitants, has meant that the project would go practically shattered almost immediately.
We can evaluate together the reasons that made this project did not work. First of all, a problem related toagronomic approach in plantations. The tires of the rubber in fact were planted too close (unlike the plantations in Asia, where the trees were well distant from each other) and this meant that in crops spread, immediately, parasites and diseases of trees.
The climate It was another element that undoubtedly determined the failure of crops. The Amazon, in fact, is characterized by an important heat, certainly very humid, and these climatic conditions of course have not helped the rubber trees to grow. Do not forget there is also the geographical position on which this urban center stood, which was not easily accessible for the means of transport of the time and therefore difficult to manage logistically for the transport of men, means, resources and materials.
As already mentioned, the last reason concerns imposition to Brazilian workers of rules of life and habits typically US (like the diet with hamburgers and rigid working hours even in the hottest hours of the day), which collided with their traditions and their lifestyle. This led to discontent and, in some cases, to real revolts, such as that of 1930.
The end of Fordland and his inheritance
To subvert the nefarious fate of Fordland, starting from the 1940s it was thought to move the plantations of natural rubber trees in a different area. The chosen area was Belterra, But even this choice did not prove winning. In 1945, with the advent of synthetic rubberthe need for Ford of a natural source of rubber did not fail, making Fordland useless. Henry Ford’s nephew, Henry Ford II, sold everything to the Brazilian government for a symbolic figure, recording an estimated loss of 20 million dollars of the time.
Today Fordland is one ghost towneven if there is still some inhabitants. Certainly one of the most important legacies, from the socio -cultural point of view, is to be a warning towards impositions of cultures, economic models, lifestyles that do not respect, however, the context in which these go to fit.
