Not just Henry Ford: a history of failed projects in the Amazon

Three years ago, The Brazilian Report told the story of Fordlândia, the ambitious yet cack-handed project of industrialist Henry Ford, who sought to build an American utopia in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in the 1920s.

With London in control of the world’s rubber trade, Ford sought to create his own idyllic plantation in northern Brazil and manufacture tires for his world-renowned motor company. Beyond tapping rubber, however, Ford’s vision for Fordlândia was to build a puritanical American midwest community, with all of the Christian values he had grown up with — as well as the traditional American-style architecture.

Fordlândia, however, was a catastrophe. Horrendous planning and lack of know-how made the planned rubber plantation completely worthless. And Ford’s attempts to force his own tee-total lifestyle on his workers led to a series of revolts. Today, Fordlândia is largely a ghost town, with decadent industrial buildings and American-style country houses serving as a haunting reminder of Ford’s disastrous plan.

But Henry Ford was not the first or last industrialist to fail horribly in the Brazilian Amazon. And Fordlândia is not the region’s only deserted...