Ford Motor Company Plantation In 1927, the
Ford Motor Company announced interest in buying the land in Brazil which now forms Fordlândia to create a rubber
plantation. This was done to reduce Ford's reliance on European rubber manufacturing, particularly after
Winston Churchill proposed the creation of a "rubber cartel." Ford had utopian visions for this plantation, drawing up plans to create a Midwest-style town around the plantation. Negotiations with the Brazilian government started during the visit by then-governor of the
State of Pará, , to the United States to meet Ford. An agreement was signed and the American industrialist received an area of about 2.5 million acres (10,100 km2) called "Boa Vista". The agreement exempted Ford from taxes on the exportation of goods produced in Brazil in exchange for 9% of the profits, 7% going to the Brazilian government and 2% of profits to local municipalities. Seeking workers, several offices were opened in the cities of
Belém and
Manaus, and, with the promise of good wages, people of the nearby states answered.
Decline The site was developed as a planned community with different areas of the city being designated for the Brazilian workers and the American managers, who lived in the so-called American Village. Significant infrastructure was built, including American-style houses, a hospital and a school. As part of the utopia, a swimming pool, golf course, tennis courts, and a movie theater were also constructed. The land was hilly, rocky and infertile. None of Ford's managers had the requisite knowledge of
tropical agriculture. In the wild, the rubber trees grow apart from each other as a protection mechanism against plagues and diseases, often growing close to bigger trees of other species for added support. In Fordlândia, however, the trees were planted close together in plantations, easy prey for tree
blight, Saúva ants, lace bugs, red spiders, and leaf caterpillars. This same lack of expertise caused disease and unrest to spread throughout the camp. The unfamiliar food, American-style housing, and other limitations caused friction with the local workers. Workers felt they were treated inhumanely, being required to work through the middle of the day under the tropical sun. They often refused to work out of concern that they would succumb to the heat and humidity of the
Amazon Rainforest. Agreements were then made on the type of food the workers would be served.
Failure The government of Brazil was suspicious of any foreign investments, particularly in the northern Amazonian region, and offered little help. It was not long before the numerous problems began to take a toll on the project and the decision was made to relocate. Fordlândia was abandoned by the Ford Motor Company in 1934, and the project was relocated upriver to
Belterra, south of the city of Santarém, where better conditions to grow rubber existed. By 1945,
synthetic rubber had been developed, reducing world demand for natural rubber. Ford's investment opportunity dried up overnight without producing any rubber for Ford's tires, and the second town was also abandoned. In 1945, Henry Ford's grandson
Henry Ford II sold the area comprising both towns back to the Brazilian government for a loss of over
US$20 million (equivalent to $ million in ).
Ministry of Agriculture Between the 1950s and late 1970s, after being given back the rights to the lands, the Brazilian government, through its Ministry of Agriculture, installed several facilities in the area. The houses that once belonged to Ford's rubber tappers were then given to the families of the Ministry's employees, whose descendants still occupy them. This project was also short-lived and left the city nearly completely abandoned upon reaching its end.
Rebirth The town remained inhabited by roughly 90 people until the latter half of the 2000s. No basic services were offered in the area, with medical help only coming by boat at long intervals. That changed when people looking for places to live decided to go back into the town, often claiming houses. The town, now a district of Aveiro, was home to nearly 3,000 people . ==Facilities==