Why Henry Ford Cut a Piece Off His Own Map

In 1928 the state of Pará gave Henry Ford's company almost four thousand square miles on the Tapajós River. Six years later the company cut more than a quarter of it away and traded it for land downriver. Why cut a piece off your own map? A Brazilian writer went to see for himself in 1938, and his report carried a map of the cut. 00:00 The piece cut off 00:31 Fordlândia 01:52 Suspect one: the river 03:12 Suspect two: the ground 04:56 Suspect three: the people 07:29 What the report said 09:03 The map Sources Gastão Cruls, "Impressões de uma visita à Companhia Ford Industrial do Brasil," Revista Brasileira de Geografia, vol. 1, no. 4 (October 1939), IBGE — the 1934 exchange, the map, distances, workers, the company's reasons, Johnston's account The Henry Ford (museum): Fordlândia history and collections — "after years of trouble with leaf diseases and pests"; the 1930 riot and time clock Ford News, 1928 — Ford ships reach the mouth of the Tapajós The outline of the land is redrawn from the map in Cruls (1939) and is approximate. Maps & imagery Sentinel-2 cloudless – s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0 NASA Blue Marble (public domain) · Natural Earth (public domain) · OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) — river bank Photos Aerial view of Fordlândia, 1934 — public domain (US) Ford River Rouge plant, aerial — Library of Congress, public domain Boa Vista (Fordlândia) plantation, 1929–30 — Arquivo Nacional (Brazil), public domain Illustrated scenes (reconstructions): drawn illustrations. They show the story, not historical photos. No real person's face is depicted. #Fordlandia #HenryFord #WhoDrewTheLine