History of Iquitos

Iquitos was established as a Jesuit mission in the 1750s, and in 1864 it started to grow when the Loreto Region was created and Iquitos became its capital. Iquitos was known for its rubber industry through the first decade of the 20th century, and there are still great mansions from the 1800s, including the Iron House, designed by Gustave Eiffel. The boom came to an end when rubber seeds were smuggled out of the country and planted elsewhere. The 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo, about the life of rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, was filmed near Iquitos. There are also many floating houses on the Amazon and its tributaries.

IQUITOS began life in 1739 when Jesuit Jose Bahamonde established settlements at Santa Barbara de Nanay and Santa Maria de Iquitos on the Rio Mazan. It was a particularly daunting task, as the missionaries here faced the task of converting the fierce Iquito Indians, renowned as marksmen with their long poison-dart blowpipes. There are only one or two families of the Iquito tribe left, living way on the upper Rio Nanay, and these days the region is better known for the Yaguar, Bora and Witoto tribes, whose handicraft can be seen virtually everywhere you turn in the modern city.

The original town was founded in 1757 under the name of San Pablo de los Napeanos, but the present centre was established in 1864. By the end of the nineteenth century it was, along with Manaus in Brazil, one of the great rubber towns. From that era of grandeur a number of structures survive, but during this century Iquitos has vacillated between prosperity - as far back as 1938, the area was explored for oil - and the depths of depression. However, its strategic position on the Amazon, which makes it accessible to large ocean-going ships from the distant Atlantic, has ensured its importance. At present, still buoyed by the export of timber, petroleum, tobacco and Brazil nuts, and dabbling heavily in the trade of wild animals, tropical fish and birds, as well as an insecticide called barbasco, long used by natives as a fish poison, Iquitos is in a period of quite wealthy expansion.

One interesting environmental change that seems to be happening at Iquitos is that the river is so low that it has receded significantly from the main riverfront, which has necessitated moving the town’s downriver port away from its centre. Some locals blame downstream canalization for this shift, others point to a drop in rainfall along the Amazon’s headwaters in other parts; or it may be that increasing deforestation of the ceja de selva higher up means that, during the rainy season, rainwater simply runs off the surface, leaving none to gradually filter down during the dry season. Whatever the reason, the riverfront now stretches all the way from the old port and market of Belen , which the Amazon waters hardly reach anymore, to the newer floating port of Puerto Masusa , 3km downriver.

The city of Iquitos itself is also interesting. Its history starts in the 18th century with the first Jesuits missions in the jungle. Nevertheless, it was with the rubber boom in 19th century that it became in a city and later in the capital of the Northern jungle. One of its highlight points is the “Casa Eiffel”, a mansion built completely with iron by the French architect, Gustave Eiffel (the same of the Eiffel Tower in Paris).

In the Republican Era, sailors and members of the Peruvian Army explored Loreto’s territory. Currently, the Peruvian Army, Air Force and Navy give assistance to inhabitants along the rivers and border zones.

Loreto’s capital, Iquitos, has became one of Peru’s most important river ports for the trade and exporting of raw materials.

Currently, the discovery of petroleum reserves gives Loreto hope for a better future.