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.[3]
Ford's utopian vision included a strict set of rules imposed by the managers. Alcohol, tobacco and prostitution were forbidden within the town, including inside the workers' own homes. American managers would go from house to house to enforce these rules. Workers circumvented these prohibitions by paddling out to merchant riverboats moored beyond the town jurisdiction, often hiding contraband goods inside fruits like watermelons. A small settlement was established 5 mi upstream on the "Island of Innocence" with bars, nightclubs and brothels.[5]
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.[6] This same lack of expertise caused disease and unrest to spread throughout the camp.[3]
Greg Grandin's book, The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, explains "Ford had very particular understandings about what a proper diet should be … He tried to impose brown rice and whole-wheat bread and canned peaches and oatmeal — and that itself created discontent".[7] 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.[5]
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, 40 km 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 ).[4]
In spite of the huge investment and numerous invitations, Henry Ford never visited either of his ill-fated towns. A 2009 NPR article reported, "Not one drop of latex from Fordlândia ever made it into a Ford car".[9]
