La asociación pro indígena y las atrocidades del Putumayo, una misión auto restringida.

Abstract

This article examines the Asociación Pro Indigena’s performance and attitudes towards the Amazonian indigenous population, at the beginning of the XXth century through an analysis of its involvement in the Putumayo case. It argues that although it did not keep itself out of the case, the Asociación Pro Indigena chose to self restrict its role not being able to escape “nationalist” pressures weighing in the local environment. It rationalized its attitude by arguing that Amazonian Indigenous Peoples were socially and economically marginal and thus secondary to its institutional assignment even though it acknowledged the seriousness of the facts that had been denounced and characterized the phenomenon as open slavery.